Nothing you haven't done before, but still delivers a fast paced, entertaining experience.

User Rating: 8.5 | Quake 4 PC
Quake 4 is the fourth installment of the popular Quake series. The sequel to number 2, it takes place during the same war against the Strogg as the game Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.
In it, you assume the role of Matthew Kane, a member of the famed Rhino Squad. He and the rest of Rhino are tasked with spearheading the invasion of Stroggos, following the defeat of the Makron in Quake 2. Your squads landing craft is shot down in the opening scene, resulting in a nearly solo adventure through the Strogg homeworld to re-join your team and bring down the Strogg hold on the planet. Occasionally you will be accompanied by other marines that offer you health packs and armor repair, as well as weapon upgrades. Throughout your journey, you take on such tasks as shutting down the Tetranode, the center of communications for all the Strogg, as well as blowing up hangars, disarming anti-aircraft cannons, and a fight with the newly rebuilt Makron.

The game features many familiar weapons such as the rail gun, rocket launcher, assault rifle, handgun, shotgun and grenade launcher, but also has a few series classics like the nail gun, lightning gun, and Hyperblaster that help add to the variety. All of the weapons control well and generally feature some form of secondary fire or zoom. Reload animations are not highly detailed and are short, but are good enough. Weapon models are very detailed and are interesting to look at. The lack of a constant flash light is still a bit frustrating, but easy to get used to.

The environments are well designed and higly detailed, but lack variety. They all have a very creepy feel about them, and usually have writhing organic body parts worked into them in some fashion, which adds to the creepy vibe. Shadows and effects are first rate. Enemy detail and variety is also kind of lacking, but good enough to not get old too quickly. Bossfights are challenging and fun.

A couple of times you are stuck in the pilots seat of a tank or walker. These missions help keep the gameplay from getting stale, but feel a bit tacked on. They don't feature anything too unique or enjoyable. Another thing that needs to be mentioned is the Strogification Process cutscene, in which Matthew Kane has robotic parts installed on his body. Its gruesome, unique, and very awesome. One of my favorite cutscenes.

From a technical standpoint, the game is great. The graphics are clean and smooth, with very sharp and detailed textures and prove that the Doom 3 engine is very capable. When playing on max settings on the PC, the game can still contend with the newcomers in the market, though it takes a decent amount of graphical horsepower to accomplish this. The game can be optimized for dual cores with a patch, and if your running a dual core processor, will significantly improve your performance.
I have no experience with the 360 version, but have heard that it doesn't run as well and has graphical issues.

Overall, it doesnt introduce a whole lot of new ideas or gameplay elements, but the singleplayer is a great ride. There are better, more in-depth games out there, but for FPS fans and fans of the series, Quake 4 delivers.