Been playing more of Quake 4, and enjoying the storm of heavy strogg; a company of tactical transfers backed up with a platoon of Iron Maiden, Light Tank, and Gladiator units for all intents and purposes.

I’ve noticed that Quake 4, kind of like DooM of old has a “Flinch” like pain chance for different kinds of enemies. You hit them, they feel “Pain”, and are momentarily stunned; typically causing a pause in their movement and potentionally curbing their attack rate.

It has made fighting the Light Tank much easier actually, keep just outside punching distance but to close for its other weapons to be practical, and hose the thing with the Hyperblaster until it goes down. Especially since light tanks in Q4 love to try close in and use their brute force, it is a very effective technique when terrain permits; IMHO someone must’ve been thinking/watching Judge Dredd when they designed that Strogg. Also during the network node segment, I was pinned to the wall by a light tank…. but it went down before I did, due to pouring massive amounts of plasma into it lol.

Those Iron Maidens however seem to have a much lower pain chance, the lighting gun and hyperblaster are useful simply for their fire rate, although I wouldn’t suggest bringing the lighting gun to bear versus more then one Iron Maiden lol. The hyperblasters use is purely due to damage rate, it won’t cause enough pain to prevent them from shoving a rocket down your throat. The best weapon to deal with those things seems to be the trusty old rocket launcher, fire a salvo rapid fire and bingo—its lights out. Up close and personal, the shotgun also seems to be very effective when combined with double taps hehe.

Generally I’m not a fan of the Mega-hero with at least ten guns, more ammo then a dump truck can carry, and hordes of enemies that can each suck up as much fire as an Abrams school of game design, but Quake 4 has a nice balance. Most threats can be easily neutralized with suitable kit, Iron Maiden, Light Tank, and Gunners are not hard to bring down; a Gladiator on the other hand will warrant a big freaking gun! The real danger comes with numbers and terrain, plus like most games in the “Classic” style of level design: you will get loaded up with supplies before the real big nasty fights happen. Of course, this is almost always so close to the build-up to a pulse pounding, kick a hole in the wall, and pass the shotgun shells kind of brawl , that it ruins the suspense. Some games however can keep that suspense factor going, by shaking things up, so you really won’t know what is coming up, unless you play the game a lot or have a good memory (I do) for such things. I actually liked how in F.E.A.R. the replica troops that make up most of the games enemies are very easy to neutralize, almost realistically so; and there are only a few threats that are “Heavy” enough to make you nervous.

That being said though, a boss fight should always be expected to be worth a speed run and challenge you to complete it successfully, hehehe.