Quake 4
Quake IV is the fourth entry in the Quake series, launched in 2005. The game was developed by Raven Software, using the Id Tech 4 engine (Doom 3 engine) and it's set in the Strogg arc, as a sequel of Quake II.
After the events of Quake II, the EDF starts the invasion to the Strogg planet in order to terminate the Strogg menace once and for all. The player controls Matthew Kane, a corporal of the Rhino Squad, and he must assist his comrades in the given objectives.
Tropes used in Quake 4 include:
Bear in mind that a lot of tropes from Quake II also apply here. Also, the Character tropes go to the Characters page.
- Air Vent Passageway: There's an escape using one in the level after Kane's Stroggification, just before Kane's first encounter with a Teleport Dropper.
- Exclusively Evil: The Strogg race.
- And I Must Scream: A conversation overheard hints that the victims that are Stroggified are, for a time, aware of their actions but can not stop them. This is later shown to be true when Voss becomes Stroggified.
- And the Adventure Continues...
- Animal Motifs: The squad names: Badger, Bison, Cobra, Eagle, Kodiak, Scorpion, Viper, Warthog, Wolf, and, of course, the Rhino Squad. There's also the Raven squad, composed by members with the same names as the developers of the game.
- Back From the Brink
- Badass Driver: Whoever is driving the truck in the early Nexus mission in Quake 4 has got to be crazy.
- Beam-O-War: The Railgun.
- Beam Spam: The Lightning Gun.
- BFG: The Dark Matter Gun.
- Big Damn Heroes: When the Rhino Squad saves Kane from the final part of the Stroggification process.
- Body Horror: The Stroggification process, where the subjects are put into heavy sedation and, as a result, are 75% paralyzed. Through an assembly-line-like process, they rip open your stomach, saw off your legs, fuse new legs and armor to your skin, put a big helmet on you, insert a control chip into the victims brain, and then activate said chip so he/she can serve the Strogg. Fortunately, Kane is saved from that last part by the Rhino Squad. Too bad the same can't be said for the many other poor souls before you that already completed the process, which you can see in the body jars moving around the facility.
- Boring but Practical: The Machinegun in single-player, especially because it's one of two weapons with a flashlight, the other being the Blaster.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: Many examples in the fourth, specially Gladiators. Heavy Hovertanks are this plus outright Demonic Spiders, while Light Tanks are fairly Level Five Onix provided you've got enough room to keep backing away from them. They're a pain in the ass, anyway.
- Boss Rush: Just before the final battle, Kane is locked in a small-medium sized room and forced to fight 3 consecutive groups of the Boss in Mook Clothing enemies: 3 Light Tanks, 3 Heavy Hovertanks, and 3 Stream Protectors.
- Bowdlerization: The German version removes the blood and gore and censor some scenes (such as Anderson's death) However, the dub wasn't changed to accommodate the censorship and so quite a few lines turn into non-sequiturs.
- Chainsaw Good: The Gauntlet, available only in multi-player mode.
- Cypher Language: The Strogg languange.
- Degraded Boss: The Harvester first appear as a Mini Boss-type encounter, then as a regular Giant Mook later.
- Dramatic Space Drifting: In the intro. Seems that is's just a marine contemplating the emptiness, then he turns to reveal a disfigured face and then half a body missing.
- Embedded Precursor: In some editions, the original Quake II was brought with the game.
- Enemy Summoner: The Teleport Dropper, that Strogg which looked like a bulldog, and could disperse several teleporters which summoned several Mooks. These can also appear at the Strogg teleporters on the game. Strogg!Voss also has this ability.
- Evil Sounds Deep: The Strogg voices heard throughout the game, including the Makron's voice.
- Exploding Barrels
- Fate Worse Than Death: Stroggification. As if being conscious through all that mutilation isn't bad enough, until your higher brain functions atrophy, you're forced to watch as your body is used to kill your fellow men.
- Flunky Boss: The majority of the bosses fit this trope, if you don't count the first Makron encounter as a boss.
- Giant Mook: Stream Protectors, Light Tanks, Heavy Hovertanks, and Gladiators.
- Giant Spider: The Harvesters are enormous and rather spider-like in appearance.
- Half the Man He Used To Be: This happens to an unfortunate Marine who attempts to enter a Strogg teleporter.
- Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Kane's first encounter with the Makron.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Although it's somewhat unique in that Kane does have to damage him significantly, otherwise he just straight out kills him (game over man, game over) instead of immobilizing him with his tractor beam.
- Human Resources
- Industrialized Evil: Stroggification.
- Keystone Army: The Stroggos. Once the Nexus is destroyed, every Strogg force perishes.
- Lightning Gun
- Major Injury Underreaction: When on the first to the Hannibal, you can hear this exchange when exiting for the field:
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Marine: Hannibal! I need a medic! |
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- More Dakka: Some vehicles.
- Nail'Em: The Nailgun. In the campaign mode, you can upgrade the weapon, so it can shot homing nails, by keeping the alternate fire button pressed.
- Nintendo Hard: General difficulty. The weakest, basic enemy Mooks can kill you in just a handful of shots. All enemies have noticeably more health, so that even mid-level enemies like Berserkers and Gunners take more than a full clip of assault rifle fire to kill. Your teammates are no longer invincible powerhouses, making all levels with them into Escort Missions. The game is already fairly stingy with Health and Armor on Normal, so imagine what all this is like on Harder Than Hard. Legendary has nothing on this.
- Nitro Express: One Escort Mission has a demolitions expert carrying explosives that will "take out half the mountain" if set off.
- No OSHA Compliance: Any Strogg facility you could think.
- Nostalgia Levels: Quake IV, Multi-player-wise, plays this straight with its remakes of "Claustrophobopolis", from the first Quake; "The Edge" (plus a CTF version) from Quake II; and "The Longest Yard" and "The Very End Of You" (renamed as "Xaero's Gravity") from Quake III Arena. Subsequent patches added also "The Camping Grounds" from the latter.
- Not Using the Z Word: Played straight with the actual monster names, averted in-game where one of the marines panics after getting bit by a "zombie" before being corrected that they're just botched Strogg.
- Orange-Blue Contrast: A variant. The Marines are, rather than blue, olive green, while the Strogg are orange. This is reflected in their respective UIs as well as in their uniforms. It also makes Matthew Kane stand out even more, post-Stroggification, when standing amongst the rest of Rhino Squad.
- Point of No Return
- Second-Hour Superpower
- Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom
- Space Marine
- Spider Tank: They're called the Harvesters and Kane find them four times: the first two before the Nexus tower as a human, the second when Bidwell dies and the last once you've escaped from the Strogg Medical Facility as a Strogg.
- Strapped to An Operating Table: The entire Stroggification process, although the victims aren't strapped to the tables--they're just heavily sedated.
- Suspicious Videogame Generosity: Used right before the first Makron battle. Kane runs down a hallway lined with ammo to an obvious ambush. After taking out the two (relatively) easy Stream Protectors, the Makron shows up. In spite of it being a Heads I Win, Tails You Lose scenario, if he doesn't do enough damage to it first, he will die; he has to "win" to advance.
- Translator Microbes: When Kane is Stroggified, the chip implanted in his brain lets him read and hear the Strogg language as English.
- Unwilling Roboticisation
- You Don't Look Like You: The entire Strogg race.
- Zombie Apocalypse: The level before the second squad intermission is all about this. They are called "Failed transfers" and "Slimy transfers".