Quake 4 is a good shooter, but a few codes of paint would of made it better.
The story behind Quake 4 is that the Earth is now launching an assault on the Strogg planet with full force. You play as Kane, a soldier in Rhino squad sent down to fight the Strogg in ground combat. About a quarter of the way through the game, you go through a horrible transformation into a Stogg. Now you have to use the ability of being a Strogg to help your team mates eliminate that Stogg threat once and for all. The story isn't really that good or interesting, very straight forward.
In Quake 4 you will be doing one thing only, shooting. There are a lot of things to shoot in this game. The gun combat is probably the strongest aspect in this game but even it isn't as good as other titles from its time era such as F.E.A.R or Call of Duty 2. Those other games are able to generate more excitement then Quake 4, but Quake 4's shooting aspect is still strong.
There are a few vehicles sections in this game where you man a tank or mech, but those are ruined by controls, especially the tank.
There are a few different forms of Stogg enemies you will fight in Quake 4. The main enemies you will fight are the standard soldiers, but there are bigger Strogg that have more powerful weapons. The enemies are cool and can be creepy at times.
There is an array of weapons in this game like machine guns and shot guns, but there are also cool weapons like the rail gun or dark matter gun.
Graphically, Quake 4 shows its age. The game looked great years ago, but now it looks really dated. Everything from the environments to the character models looks dated.
Sound wise the game sounds ok. The weapons sound awesome when the fire, but everything else just sounds ok.
If Quake 4 has one problem it is setting. The environments look exactly the same for the most part, the outdoor levels aren't that fun to play, and you don't spend much time outdoors Most of the game is spent running down corridors shooting things. The enemy A.I isn't all that great, so gun fights get tiresome after awhile. The first quarter of Quake 4 is good, but the last three fourths of the game just aren't that great.
Quake 4 does have a multiplayer component, but I really didn't get to play it. If you are buying Quake 4 for its multiplayer, then I suggest just not getting the game. I found 3 people online playing it and one of them was a hacker. The multiplayer might be a bit fun if more people played it, but don't bother playing this game for its multiplayer.
If you like standard shooter with basic gameplay mechanics, then you may want to give Quake 4 a try, if you want something with a bit of a twist or a good story then pass this one.