Quake 4 Trailer

Ok, this is rather old, but the Quake 4 trailer is finally available in streaming video, MPEG, and Flash. It really must be seen to be believed, but here's a snippet from Andrew Park's summary:

. . . Kane's squad is thwarted by the Stroggs, captured, and then sent to the "medical facility." Apparently, the Strogg idea of a medical facility is a mechanized conveyor belt where still-living victims are strapped to metal slabs and "assimilated" into brand-new Strogg soldiers. This was a particularly grisly sequence in which Kane (who, from the first-person view, can see only his bare feet twitching as he lies down on his slab) gets ferried from station to station, where he witnesses what's in store for him next, as he can see another soldier just ahead of him on the conveyor belt. Kane then endures a series of gruesome "operations," including having a gigantic needle jammed through his skull, and having two rotating blade saws actually slice off his lower legs below the knee to replace them with artificial legs. Kane fades in and out of consciousness as he is whisked past various terminals, and he begins to realize that he can actually understand the Strogg language (which had previously been nothing but jumbled symbols on the compound's computer readouts).

Through a stroke of luck, he is rescued just before the final part of the Strogg assembly line, which would have implanted a control chip in his brain. His body was suspended above an amniotic tank just as another squad of marines bursts into the compound. Before one of them could put you out of your misery, another recognized you and instead brought you down from the tank to join them, to considerable disagreement from the rest of the squad. From this point in the game, Kane will be equipped with the superhuman abilities of the Strogg, including faster running and higher jumping. Also, his ability to understand the Strogg language and interface with Strogg technology will make him the linchpin in crippling the enemy's communications . . .

Much as I prefer multiplayer titles (Unreal 2k4) over their single-player counterparts, I'm awfully excited about Quake 4 -- for one thing, the developers for the Quake franchise have traditionally put a lot of work into concocting a knotty storyline for their titles (viz. Quake 2 vs. Doom 3). Secondly, id is working with Raven, which is a relief -- Raven is *much* better at level design and fight choreography than id (viz. Soldier of Fortune vs. Doom 3). Finally, going back to the first point, I can't get enough of the sterotype of the grizzled war general coming back and kicking major butt -- I mean, General Hummel from The Rock, Master Chief from Halo 2, Major Creed from Daedalus Blue . . . totally drool-worthy.

Anyway, the fourth fiscal quarter of 2005 is looking better every day -- some say that gaming is growing more violent, uncreative, and mindless, but I'm perfectly happy with shelling out cash for yet another gory, post-apocalyptic first-person shooter :)