d0rkorg

Well, Smith is a bastard. I met him for lunch today and we then went to Best Buy. Quake 4 hit the shelves today and we wanted to check it out. We looked all around the store and there was not a copy to be found. They had F.E.A.R. on the shelves so I knew that they had to have recently received new games.

So, just as we finish the final pass and we’re about to walk out I ask Smith “why don’t you just ask somebody if they’ve got it?” Then, as if by some crazy magic, every blue-shirt suddenly vanishes. A couple minutes later I found somebody and asked him if they had any copies. He says that they had in fact just received some, but they didn’t put them on the shelves yet. At this point I go from not really wanting a copy to needing one.

I ended up walking out with the special edition.

I’ll post some first impressions of the game later tonight when I get a chance to play it.

First Impressions:

Single Player

Unimpressed. It’s Doom 3 with different weapons and a flashlight that you can use while using your gun. It really does feel more like Quake 2 and the beginning starts up right where Quake 2 left off (you work from Quake 2 is mentioned in the movie-like intro sequence). So far it has been interesting I suppose, but I abandoned Doom 3 quickly and I could see the same thing happening here. Reloading in Quake feels odd, but I guess that’s the norm for FPS games these days.

Multi-Player

Fun. This is nearly Quake 3 Arena style shoot-em-up. There weren’t many good servers up yet, but I found a couple that my ping was okay on. I’ll have to reaquaint myself with the rail gun now. No reloading in multiplayer games… I think this makes the game more fun for people who just want to run around and kill things and don’t care about arbitrary clip sizes in fictitious weapons. Though I’m not really familiar with the maps yet the two I played feel a little cramped. I suppose coming from endless hours of Counter-Strike and Battlefield 2 nearly anything will feel cramped. I’m not giving up UT2k4 for quick, fun FPS action just yet.