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Joke 4: The Death of OpenGL

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 32
Date: October 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Back in the mid to late 1990s two major Application Programming Interfaces managed to dominate the PC game scene - DirectX and OpenGL, so much so that graphics hardware developers like ATI and NVIDIA built hardware around these APIs. OpenGL seemed to enjoy a life with game developers who used Silicon Graphics workstations (SGI) to create models and animations for games and film. We could buy high-end OpenGL graphics cards that where up to 64mb back in the days when 8mb cards where mainstream. Even the Nintendo 64 built some of its architecture around OpenGL graphics. In the year 2004 the high end 256mb cards where quickly bought up to enjoy the power of games like "Half-Life 2" and "Doom 3" (in fact "HL2" was the only reason for the upgrade). "Doom 3" is an OpenGL game and looked amazing. "Half-Life 2" used DirectX 9 where previously Half-Life 1 offered both OpenGL and DirectX support. Because "Doom3" was so dark it led many to wonder that if the game was brighter, would it reveal something questionable about the quality of modern OpenGL graphics? "Doom3" also had an option to use 512mb cards that have only been released in the autumn of 2005. Valve's choice not to support OpenGL further fuelled speculation that OpenGL may be badly lagging behind DirectX 9. "Quake 4" is confirmation of this problem... and it is more serious than previously thought. "Quake 4" is built on the "Doom 3" engine. Since "Doom 3" was mostly occupied with hiding you in dark places you never got to see the full quality of a brightly lit OpenGL first person shooter. Now that "Quake 4" has had to come up with a sequel to "Quake 3", ID software handing over development to Raven software, the horrible truth has come to light. OpenGL is simply leagues behind DirectX 9... and we are talking a big difference here. "Quake 4" offers absolutely no reflections. Instead we are still in the world of mapped reflections. Texture detail is the equivalent of "Half-Life 1". Polygon shapes are clearly visible even with every setting maxed out. Bump mapping is hardly visible. Steam and smoke is displayed as big successive blocks of floating transparent maps. Fire is "Duke Nukem" quality, fat orange blobs of quickly changing pixels. The shading and textures of the weapons look terrible. Again, no reflections on the guns, but we do have shadows. The facial expressions of your space marines are an attempt on matching "F.E.A.R" or "Half-Life 2" but you must turn up the Anti-Aliasing to round them off. Sadly even on a high spec gfx card this results in an even lower fps. You are a space marine that must run through the alien enemy complex, usually to meet up with a special marine who you must bring back with you, or to defeat an enemy outpost. The enemy AI does not exist. Everything is scripted. The enemy, the Strogg, instead moves exactly the same, coming in waves of two or three and you can see them move like clones of each other, getting blasted up the same way and dying the same, every single time. Not good. Lighting looks extremely blurred and the sky background is just one big map that does not even move except for the odd ship that flies around the place. Even the PS2 has better graphics than "Quake 4" which when on a PC at this quality begs the big question - what will the XBOX 360 have to offer if the PC version looks like a pre-millennium first person shooter? This is terrible news for everyone. The Quake series has been ruined. Multiplayer is the same quality as Quake 3. There is absolutely no need to upgrade. OpenGL is now officially dead! Only "Doom3" could mask its failure. Now we know why Valve did not support it. The XBOX 360 is faced with marketing a bad port to show off absolutely nothing that the 360s architecture can handle. Various tweak scripts have been released for "Quake 4" on the internet. These seems to have a little bit of an effect on improving game play ever so slightly, but sadly do not help much. You simple can't get what isn't there and that is the bottom line. To add further trouble to the mess is the fact that these poor quality OpenGL graphics are so demanding that even high spec card users will find themselves turning off lots of features and running the game at a low resolution. That is why "Doom 3" and "Quake 4" have a 512mb option... because it takes a juggernaut of a graphics card to actually round the graphics off and even then we are nowhere near looking at something as good as "Half-Life 2". Things are really that bad.

As "Quake 4" was duel released with "F.E.A.R", a fully fledged DirectX 9 name, I would point gamers in the direction of that first person shooter instead and to also keep an eye out for "Call of Duty 2". OpenGL IS DEAD. QUAKE IS DEAD! ........noooooooooooooooo!!

Pros:
- Absolutely NONE.

Cons:
- Shockingly sub-par graphics.
- Poor graphics still demanding high end system specs
- No enemy AI.
- Nothing new. Same as "Quake 3"
- You must quit and restart the game every time for graphics settings to take effect.
- Same price as better first person shooters out there.
- It will break hearts.

Innovation is DEAD at ID Software

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 35
Date: November 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

ID was the creator of the FPS genre with Wolfenstein and the original DOOM. After DOOM there was DOOM II, then Quake, etc, etc. John Carmack is a terncho-genius and has pushed technology developers to the edge to support ever-better looking gaming expeirences. And then it ends like this. Pressing out tripe dressed in dazzling graphics. I got bored with DOOM3 1/3 of the way in. No story or a lame attempt haven't played since. Same dark narrow passages, same dingy boring design, blah, blah, blah. ID turned into their worst nightmare...potential genius drowned in corporate greed.

Buy Half Life 2 or F.E.A.R.

Serious Problems Reported with Quake4

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 13
Date: November 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Think real hard before you buy Quake4 for PC. It's all over the web: There is a serious LAG time for tons of users, even those with good systems. Your mouse cursor is faster than the game. A few claim to have the solutions to it, usually involving playing it on the lowest qualities and using a cheapo mouse or low hz mouse settings. These "solutions" don't work for everyone, including me. Some reported bad problems with the sound. I had no problems with that before the lag set in. The official sites are no help. I had occasional problems with lag for the first levels. Tweaking the settings seemed to cure it, but when I got well into the level with the hovertank it became unplayable. The video took as much 5 to 10 seconds to catch up with the mouse. My computer handles Halo, Doom3, and UT 2004 with no problem. Quake4 on the other hand ... I can't believe they let it out like this.

Just a Quake 3 update

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 15
Date: November 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is graphically stunning. The textures are beautiful; the backgrounds are amazing; the fire and explosions are realistic. BUT - the gameplay is horrible. If you are a Quake 3 fan, you'll love this game because it is the exact same gameplay as that old title. But is it worth the price to essentially just buy a graphical game update? No way. On top of that, the single player mode is just plain bad. It is contrived and inflexible, leading you through the levels like you're on a leash. If you want a good single player game (with an outstanding online multiplayer game as well) I suggest Half-Life 2.

Wait until this drops to the $20 range and then it might be worth it.

not worthy of the quake name

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: October 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

this game like many recent titles greatly improves in the grapics arena while making gameplay more acessible and "dynamic", too bad they forgot what ppl loved about the prevoius game. why waste money to repeatedly buy new computer hardware for games like this? answer: don't!

Doom 3 Redux

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: October 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I didn't like doom 3 and I don't like Quake 4. I can't believe they suckered me again. I assumed after all the complaints about Doom 3 that ID would get off their collective asses again fix the gameplay problems. But here I was again, a rat in a dark maze, killing enemys that pop out in laughably predictable places. Open a door and "OH MY GOD" there's another one! Ha Ha. I quess I'll have to wait for the next Half-life installment.

Not one single reflection.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 13
Date: October 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

zpconn obviously can not read. Cpt_Kirk's review states clearly what an API is at the start of the review and then talks about the game engine after. Would you buy an OpenGL card based on current OpenGL games? No. Why doesn't Valve support OpenGL? The answer is obvious if you have played Quake 4. Everyone really has the right to see this game before they buy it because it does not look anything like the screenshots which in themselves are questionable. Really see Quake 4 before you buy it and be careful of viewing screen art that was released a year and a half ago and is not the finished product. Die hard Quake fans will love anything which slaps Quake on the cover. Who are Raven software? Where are the reflections? What game can show off OpenGL? Not Quake 4. Is there any? Doom 3 in the dark. That is it.

A good example of poor software engineering

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 17
Date: April 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The most advanced game engine, pristine artwork, and exciting gameplay mean absolutely nothing if the software was designed to only work on a handfull of computer configurations on the planet. As someone who has a laptop with a Pentium 4 3.33 GHz CPU (with Hyper-threading), 1 GB of RAM, and an ATI Radeon graphics card: there is absolutely no excuse for any piece of software to behave as Quake 4 did on my machine.
At least with Unreal Tournament: an incorrect driver/resolution setting will bring you to a trouble-shooting window that allows one to change the settings and/or run the software in safe mode. With "Quake 4" I am greeted with the computer-equivalent of an obscene gesture -- an immediate exit, without error. The only "useful" bit of assistance I was able to find on their "support" site was "get the latest drivers".
This had zero effect. After doing some googling, the only information I could find involved using commands in id Software's proprietary configuration scripts. I'm a software engineer, so if I poured a few days into this, I could probably have hacked the scripts enough to the point of actually running. But frankily, I just don't have the time, nor the inclination to wrestle with the sloppiness on the part of folks at Activision/id Software. Thankfully, the local CompUSA store was gracious enough to allow me to return this for store credit (which I used to purchase a nice pair of computer speakers so I can enjoy my copy of GTA: San Andreas).

Buggy, tired game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: October 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is just an unfinished Doom 3 Re-hash. It's full of bugs too. Settings don't stick, and the game crashes every time I try to use alternate fire.

Very thin on story and lousy voice acting as well.

Needs a Processor with SSE instructions

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: October 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Installs fine but wont Start on my AMD Athlon CPU cause it does not have SSE support.

Yeah like i'm gonna buy a new motherboard and CPU just for this P.O.S.

Waste of Time and Money!!!

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