Opposable Thumbs / Gaming & Entertainment

Hope you didn’t buy your 360 for Quake 4 …

The reviews are in, and Quake 4, one of the 360's vaunted launch titles, is …

Quake 4A good friend of mine, Adam, is a Quake god.  No, really—he even has the trophy to prove it.  So naturally the talk would turn to Quake 4 on the 360 as the launch date neared. 

"It's really the only reason I'd buy a system right away," he said.  He decided to pass on a 360/Quake 4 bundle, and if the reviews are any indication, it was a pretty smart choice.  Because the reviews are, in a word, disappointing.  The issues seem to stem from poor code and not the console itself, and 1UP puts it best, saying:

Regardless of whatever else it does, a Quake game must nail one thing: a rock-solid framerate. It's a non-negotiable point, and, on the 360,  Quake 4 doesn't have that. Without a reliable way to measure what it drops to there is no reason to speculate, but it significantly disrupts the game. Imagine the eye-straining irritation of a computer monitor set to 60 Hz refresh, and you're trying to play a game in-between the flickers.

And the most annoying part is how impossible it is to predict when or where it will strike. Had the game been locked-down at say 30 fps, or even 25 for that matter, you could adjust to it; many might not even have noticed it. Instead, because it bobs up and down, you can't help but be distracted. Everything will be gliding along fine, and then, seemingly from out of nowhere, a slowdown hits that makes you feel like you are uncontrollably blinking.

But the GameSpot folks do let us know of a consolation prize: a bonus disc with various trailers, gameplay footage from the game's development, and a fully-playable 360 version of Quake II.  No such luck with online play, but you can get three other friends playing together in split-screen mode.  The port is cold comfort, seeing as how folks are paying money for Quake 4, but at least you get something playable.

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