Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Over at Wonderland, Alice is poo-pooing Q4 already:

Now, I'm a quake die-hard, right to the point of skipping Q2 because it was *crap*. Yes, it was. And now we get details of the upcoming Quake 4, which was slavishly awaited-for a year or so after Quake 3, then very-hopefully-so two years after, resigned-and-bored-now by three years later, and today - SIX YEARS LATER - it's more like, Quake? Four? Care?

Raven, wtf have you been doing?

"Earth is under siege by an alien race. The Strogg are cybernetic warriors--a mechanical frame and decaying body parts stabilized by flesh consumed in a systematic annihilation of other species and civilizations. In a desperate attempt to survive a Strogg attack on Earth, an armada of Earth's finest warriors is sent to take the battle to the Strogg home planet. Earth's initial assault force is nearly annihilated immediately, but one marine manages to infiltrate the base, bring down their planetary defence systems, and kill the Strogg's collective brain and leader--the Makron. Earth assumed the destruction of the Makron would end it all, but it didn't.

That's where Quake II leaves off and Quake 4 begins."

Yawn. Wake me up when it's over*. Also, please get some decent sci-fi novelists in to write your storylines, guys. Go talk to Marc Laidlaw or something, please.

Ok, first off, if you think Q2 was crap, then you need to have your head examined. Quake 2 may simply be the best video game ever. If nothing else, Q2 was the first 3D game that had a "3D Design" where you woried about the entire sphere around you and didn't run through a Skinner maze.

At anyrate, who cares what the story for a Quake game is? Does anyone care about character development or whatever in Doom or Quake? Hell, I don't even know what the story *is* for Q2, except that you get dropped into the planet in the little tube thingy. Don't care. The point is graphics and gameplay. If I wanted engaging fiction I would play Myst 12 or some crap.

Also, /. Games has some Q4 goods as well.