quake v panaromic screenshots
November 3, 2005 9:05 PM   Subscribe

Quake iV full panoramic screenshots (req. QTVR) as seen on digg.
posted by crunchland (35 comments total)
 
quake v? they have a time machine?
posted by neckro23 at 9:09 PM on November 3, 2005


quake

What the hell?! We're in a WARZONE and you're stopping to shoot a PANORAMA?!
posted by brundlefly at 9:15 PM on November 3, 2005


I got so excited at the Quake V part of the headline. Man, I feel robbed. I demand my money back from this post.
posted by jonson at 9:21 PM on November 3, 2005


Still a crappy game.
posted by xthlc at 9:24 PM on November 3, 2005


Well that's a mighty quick way to crash firefox 1.5
posted by wilful at 9:42 PM on November 3, 2005


I remember when I first installed the origional Quake demo and it was *soo* much cooler than Doom. When I showed my Mom she responded "That looks just like Doom" and I was practically offended. Quake IV looks alot like Quake I to me. Go figure.
posted by hupp at 9:47 PM on November 3, 2005


Yeah, I have to admit that it doesn't look... that much better than anything. I expected a lot more from the latest incarnation of Quake.

Maybe it'll look better when it moves, who knows.
posted by vernondalhart at 10:21 PM on November 3, 2005


I, for one, welcome our new doesn't know what roman numerals are overlords.
posted by vagus at 10:28 PM on November 3, 2005


The suck. Volumetric smoke and dynamic lighting don't look that great in still photos. And the lack of anti-aliasing really shows.
posted by smackfu at 10:30 PM on November 3, 2005


The reason Quake 4 doesn't look so groundbreaking is simple: it's running on the [albeit modified] doom 3 engine, folks. Carmack just doesn't have the time to code groundbreaking engines for every game anymore... he's too busy driving his ferrari and porting his old achievements to your cell phone.

I'd still like to play it though, especially after looking at these shots.
posted by phylum sinter at 10:39 PM on November 3, 2005


It's using the Doom3 engine allright, but it's being developed by Raven Studios, who have a history of doing really solid franchise shooters. So hopefully, it'll be more or less like Doom3, only not boring.
posted by slatternus at 10:52 PM on November 3, 2005


I played a few levels last weekend and from a purely visual aspect, the quality of the game has extreme highs and lows - I'm not talking about the engine, but texture and level design, and lighting.

There are really awesome parts, while just around the corner (much more often, through a door to an outdoor part) you are surrounded by almost amateurish ugliness and simplicity.
posted by uncle harold at 12:22 AM on November 4, 2005


It was horrible. More like "Doom 3: Part II"
posted by nightchrome at 12:44 AM on November 4, 2005


The game is superbly old-school in its gameplay, gorgeous graphically. The deathmatch is exquisite, in the pure-skills-rewarding way of Q2 and Q3. I'm salivating for RA4. Ugly skyboxes, sure, but that's an old id tradition! It'd be hard for me to think of a more worthy addition to the Quake franchise, which I've been playing since the outset. (Well, since Wolfenstein, if you look at it the right way.)

You got the game, do a username search on your favorite server browser in the next few hours for IronBallsMcGinty. I will pwn joo. (Although I might end up back in RA3 (same handle) if I get into the beer. Yay Friday!)

(Of course, unless you're in NE Asia, your ping will suck, which will help me a bit. Heh.)
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:55 AM on November 4, 2005


It's Quake IV not V (4 not 5)
posted by zouhair at 1:48 AM on November 4, 2005


(zouhair - yes, hence replies 1 and 3)
posted by NinjaPirate at 2:36 AM on November 4, 2005


I played Quake IV for about an hour before uninstalling. Good, but not in the least bit groundbreaking--more of the same. Unreal 2 was gorgeous, quite possibly the best (or at least best looking) game ever made. And it ran like a dream.

Doom 3 ran horribly on my computer. It's not top of the line, but if Unreal 2 ran so well, why not D3? Do the developers focus on getting the best performance from a particular graphics card, and say "best of luck" for the rest?
posted by zardoz at 2:48 AM on November 4, 2005


slatternus: "It's using the Doom3 engine allright, but it's being developed by RavenStudios, who have a history of doing really solid franchise shooters."

For those who don't recognize the name RavenGames: Heretic, Hexen, Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, Elite Force, Soldier of Fortune, and a few others. Id may be responsible for popularizing 3D FPS games and pushing the technology far and fast, but Raven is responsible for a continuous stream of truly fun games.
posted by Plutor at 3:18 AM on November 4, 2005


I played Quake IV for XXV minutes.
posted by furtive at 3:43 AM on November 4, 2005 [1 favorite]


Unreal 2 was gorgeous, quite possibly the best (or at least best looking) game ever made.

At the time, maybe, but crikey, not hardly no more. Not even laughably close. And Unreal 2 was one of the bigger disappointments of all time in the gaming pantheon in terms of gameplay, I'd say and many others have said, even if it was very pretty (again, for the time).

if Unreal 2 ran so well, why not D3?

Sorry, but that's a pretty silly question. Read up about the technologies involved these days is all I can suggest. Short answer, perhaps: lighting (and physics).

Also, for what it's worth, Doom 3 ran like butter on the new box I built earlier this year, which is hot but far from cutting edge (Athlon 64 3000+, DFI motherboard, Nvidia 6600GT, 1Gb RAM, etc), and Q4 runs much, much smoother. I admit, I've been lucky, but then, I always have been, for some reason. Raven has optimized the hell out of the engine for Q4, too, with very little graphic fidelity tradeoff. Impressive.

I just shut down a server I was running on that (this) very box for the last couple of hours. Four other players were connected, and it was all smooth as hell, averaging 50-60fps (which is the max for Q4, hard limit), the whole time. Much fun. [/fanboy]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:52 AM on November 4, 2005


oops.
posted by crunchland at 4:23 AM on November 4, 2005


Unreal 1 was the biggest leap upward of video quality that I've seen FPS games take. It made the game that much harder to play, since you'd just look around and explore when there were enemies (once you found them).

I had high hopes for QuakeIV, since Doom3 was pretty much a release of an engine, not a game.

It is a testiment to the game engine that so many people were affected so intensely by it's release, I suppose.

Still, I love panoramas from games with plenty of eye-candy.
The Half-Life2 ones were awesome, too.
posted by Busithoth at 4:51 AM on November 4, 2005


Damn, damn. Take out "Unreal 2" in my comments and replace it with "HalfLife 2".

/looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffin' glue.
posted by zardoz at 5:20 AM on November 4, 2005


Damn, damn. Take out "Unreal 2" in my comments and replace it with "HalfLife 2".

In which case, you game-dyslexic bastard, I agree with you 100%. HL2 was and is totally astonishing, the best FPS game ever released, and blows the living shit out of Doom 3 and (less so, but still) Quake 4, as far as single player experience goes. All hail Valve.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:58 AM on November 4, 2005


What I don't get with these games is: The graphics and animation are pretty spectacular, but the gameplay is still the same-old same-old. In Doom 3, the monsters always appear in the same place every time you play, thus you just keep battering at the same guys over and over until you get it. There's no surprise.

Why don't they randomize it more? I'm sure that's why deathmatches are so popular.
posted by fungible at 6:13 AM on November 4, 2005


How come all the dudes in these panoramas look stoned? Is drug use becoming a problem in the military again, and what can I do to help?
posted by It ain't over yet at 6:45 AM on November 4, 2005


I played Quake 4 for about 3 minutes before I uninstalled it. So incredibly painful... I was forced to boot up QW and immerse myself in the best deathmatch ever - and even then the memory remains, a faint ember of what could have been. Oh, Quake, you died so young... we hardly knew thee.
posted by prostyle at 7:16 AM on November 4, 2005


they'd go a long way to increase the realism by simply turning down the shadow density. I've very rarely seen a 100% dark shadow in the middle of the day.
posted by hoborg at 8:28 AM on November 4, 2005


Still, though, can it hold a candle to the ORIGINAL quake? For my money, the original still has the best dethmatch there is. Fast, furious, plenty of little tricks, no fuss, no muss. I have still to see anything that is more than an incremental improvement.
posted by redbeard at 8:33 AM on November 4, 2005


What's with the super-dark portions of the game? As in the cliff edges on the landing zone panorama are really dark, black even if they are at an angle. I noticed this on the level with the air defense too, I was walking down a corridor and the lighting just seems wack.

Quake IV was cool kind of, Half-Life 2 still remains the standard for the current generation of FPS. I could barely get F.E.A.R. to run on my machine (Athlon 3200, GeForce 6800GT) without setting it at a ridiculously low resolution with all effects turned off. Quake 4 ran nearly at maximum on a high resolution fine. I didn't see that much of a difference in graphics either. The coolest part of Quake 4 were the cinematic cut scenes, like when you're in an elevator and the guardian creature comes from no where and bangs in the glass. That said, the AI was nothing more than creatures running after me real fast. Old school, yes, but somewhat boring.

What made Half-Life 2 so great was the journey to different places. It seemd very fluid, as if it made sense what I was doing and where I was going. I mean if there are flying airships all around why do I have to start at the bottom of the different towers in Quake 4? There were several instances of me leaving some guy alone in Quake 4, facing a bazillion enemies, coming back to the guy who apparently faced no bad guys and then escorting this totally helpless guy as bazillion enemies swarmed me. Old school, yes, but we've all seen that. Games are at the point where shooting and killing no longer qualifies as a game, there needs to be a purpose and everything must make sense. Games need to start allowing me to choose how I want to accomplish goal x, similar to GTA. If I need to capture building x I don't want to be transported to the front door but be able to enter the building from anyway I chose.
posted by geoff. at 8:35 AM on November 4, 2005


Do the developers focus on getting the best performance from a particular graphics card, and say "best of luck" for the rest?

Dude... it's id. They don't care about the casual gamer with the 3 year old rig. They want to have the best looking and best playing games for the hardcore, spend $1,200 every 6 months on his gear, guy.

And really, the people bashing Q4 and D3 are primarily people who don't have the machines to run them properly and who want to whine about it. Your Yugo ain't gonna get 0 to 60 no matter how much you want it to. You want to play the best engines at the best framerates, you gotta invest.

/rant
posted by AspectRatio at 9:29 AM on November 4, 2005


AspectRatio: "And really, the people bashing Q4 and D3 are primarily people who don't have the machines to run them properly and who want to whine about it."

Only zardoz mentioned the performance of it on his machine, and stavros responded with anecdotal evidence based on his rig.

Everyone else commented on the actual merits of the title, but you probably got distracted by something shiny and didn't notice.
posted by prostyle at 11:15 AM on November 4, 2005


by "the people" I meant people in general... not specific to any post on the blue.

I like shiny things, by the way.
posted by AspectRatio at 11:29 AM on November 4, 2005


Anecdotally, HL2 runs absolutely fine on my dinosaur of a rig (Athlon1800, Ti4200, 1G RAM), but D3 was head-ache (low framerate) inducing.

Might give Q4 a shot...
posted by PurplePorpoise at 12:20 PM on November 4, 2005


I could barely get F.E.A.R. to run on my machine (Athlon 3200, GeForce 6800GT) without setting it at a ridiculously low resolution with all effects turned off.

Runs beautifully on my lower-spec'd machine. *shrugs*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:31 PM on November 4, 2005


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