Ah, the first person shooter - so often the mainstay of so many consoles and possibly the most likely genre to really push the processing power of your favourite gaming device. Well, with the advent of the Xbox 360, its opening fifteen titles are one fifth shooters of this nature: Perfect Dark Zero, Call Of Duty 2 and of course Quake 4. Being a long time fan of previous Quake outings, I was keen to get my hands on the latest instalment on the latest dream console. Unfortunately, what I got left a bit to be desired.

The story is typical Quake, so fans certainly aren't going to be disappointed. After defeating the Strogg invaders in Quake 2, the fight has been taken to their turf. You play the legendary soldier who turned the fortune of the war in humanity's favour, landing at an entrenched position on the Strogg Homeworld. From here you have to first open up their stronghold and take out their anti-aircraft guns, before delving deeper and deeper into the heart of their military fortress.

Unfortunately, the gameplay is exactly the same - typical Quake. Some may not feel this is a bad thing, but considering how long the franchise has been in existence, you would have thought that something new and fresh could have been injected into the mix. After all, it worked for Capcom's latest Resident Evil outing. Instead you have a first person shooter that is entirely and unequivocally that, just a first person shooter. It's almost entirely linear and rarely veers from the tried and tested approach of blowing seven types of stuffing out of the opposition.

However, that's not to say it hasn't been done well and the gameplay certainly does have the polish that you'd expect from iD. Accompanying you are various squad mates, including a medic and a technician. At certain points in each level, should you need it, you'll get a health and armour boost. Other squaddies provide you with covering fire while you try to meet certain key objectives, be they flanking the enemy, finding an unlocked door in a maze of passages or becoming creative with the Strogg technology littered about the place. Sometimes, if you're finding the pace a bit too hectic, and these squaddies are with you, it's possible to retreat into a dark little corner and watch them do your job for you. Don't rely on this too often though, as you don't want to lose any of your mates as the game progresses.

That your teammates can take care of some enemies without your help doesn't mean the Strogg are weak and powerless, however - far from it. Not only are they strong and ruthless but they've been made remarkably intelligent too. In fact, I often found them predicting my moves a little too well. For example, if they see you holding the rather slow grenade launcher they are already ducking, diving and retreating before you've even fully pulled the trigger. Also, while some are taking you on frontally, it's not unusual to expect some to come from the side or even behind. However, sometimes a bit of weaving from side to side is all it takes to avoid their gunfire, as they're not always quick to change their line of fire once they've opened up. To help further, many of your weapons have a zoom facility, which is very handy for taking out those nasties with rocket launchers standing at the far end of long tunnels.

The level design is fairly good, varying from tight winding corridors to open playing fields. My particular favourite area is an entrenched position outside in the alien landscape, which opens up the more you progress through it. You're going to be here for a while initially, as many of the missions involve circumventing various sections of the fortress via this encampment, but sometimes you'll find Strogg jumping into the trench to take you on, or racing across open ground to reach the next bit before being picked off. There are also areas purely on rails, where you're atop moving vehicles of one kind or another, picking off all comers, and even areas of controlling vehicles in a basic manner, which all adds to the constant feeling of being in a warzone.

When it comes to the look of a warzone, Call of Duty 2 tries for the realistic look, while Perfect Dark Zero goes for a cartoony, yet detailed and colourful approach when it comes to their graphics. Both excel, which leaves Quake 4 sitting sadly between those two styles and never really excelling at either. For example, the skin textures of your fellow troops resembles plasticine and there doesn't seem to be that much animation to them. An attempt at realism has been applied though, given the correct proportions of each, which offsets the slightly fake feel. The enemy actually fare a little better, being cyborgs, half robot and half biological remains of their fallen enemies. They are very gruesome to behold and there's a certain Terminator 2 feel as you blow bits off them. In fact, the gore in the game is worth remarking on and it's no wonder it got an 18 certificate; what with arterial sprays and limbs flying everywhere, the vivid red and brown splashes aren't for the faint hearted.

The guns are as a shiny and dangerous looking as you might expect and sometimes show much more detail than anything else you can see. This unfortunately does lead to a bit of incongruity, where the contrast between what you're holding and the landscape becomes an issue. On occasion it doesn't seem that much work has been applied to the landscape. The plastic feel applies again, such as the dirt or sand around the trenches. It seems sometimes like a child has gotten some Play-Dough and just gone to town with a cookie cutter. This isn't always apparent though, and some massive open areas deeper within the complex can be quite breathtaking; it's just a pity these areas aren't prevalent throughout. Another thing you may notice as you progress further into the fortress are some remarkable similarities between Quake 4 and Doom 3. While I appreciate that the Doom 3 engine was an ideal core foundation from which to build, it would have helped if the graphics had received a bit more of an overhaul. In particular, door locks look almost exactly the same as in Doom 3 and even the armour on your human compadres is remarkably similar.

There are things going on in the background all the time, be it a wide variety of different lighting effects, planes flying overhead, smoke trails in the distance and so on. This is all handled well, but when the graphics describe explosive events a bit closer to home I noticed a frame rate drop. Some of the bigger explosions, while beautiful looking, suddenly caused a strange lag effect, which was quite disconcerting when trying to aim at the alien hordes. When combined with a sudden influx of the enemy things can get a little choppy. While this is fairly minor, it's not something you'd expect from a next generation console graphics chip and it left me feeling a little let down.

There aren't any problems with the audio side of things, but at the same time there are few nice surprises. The only thing that really stands out about the sound is the surprisingly good quality of the voiceovers. The actors, instead of sounding stilted and over-rehearsed (a problem with many story driven games) they actually sound quite fresh and real. From barked orders to surprised shouts, or jokey conversations in the lull between battles, I quite looked forward to the squad members' chitchat. Otherwise it's a pretty run of the mill aural experience. Guns blasting, explosions crash and boom, aliens meet their ends with bizarre wails and splattering sounds emanate from blood-drenched walls. It all fits, it's all Quake, but it's all been done before. On the plus side, the background music knows to do just that - stay in the background. It rarely rises to any kind of crescendo over the action and sometimes there isn't any at all. These quiet moments always seem to be before a giant firefight and are fairly well placed to maintain tension. It certainly isn't a score by John Williams or Danny Elfman though.

Once you've been through the single player action, which may take you between 15 and 20 hours, you can turn to Xbox Live to take on fellow combatants around the world. While this aspect is technically accomplished, there's nothing new to be had, nothing that you haven't played a million times on your PC, or on the previous incarnation of the Xbox. Deathmatch and Capture the Flag are back, while a new Tournament round allows you to go one-on-one against a foe, climbing up the Tournament tree as you beat them off with your massive railgun or rocket launcher. Xbox Live records special achievements made during the single player game, which is always nice to crow about with your online chums. Aside from that, there wouldn't be much else to do if it wasn't for the nice inclusion of Quake 2 on a bonus disc, alongside some 'Making Of' stuff. It was certainly a blast from the past and runs well on the 360. It's a pity they didn't open it out to Xbox Live as well, but it still allows four player split screen action and LAN multiplayer matches, so that's pretty good.

If you're looking for a quintessential Quake experience, then outside of a top spec PC this is where you're going to get it. The storyline continues the tale of the Strogg-plagued soldier we've come to love in previous instalments and has a nice twist that took me by surprise. The action is as intense as it ever was and there are set pieces that are the staple of all the past Quake experiences. However, the feeling is marred by the lacklustre sound effects and graphics that try to emulate two styles but don't really hit the spot for either. When you consider the unoriginal multiplayer offerings, you may find the game a little limited. It's a shame, as I've always wanted as many of my friends as possible to come visit the Quake arena with me, but when it comes to the 360 I'll be taking them on a tour of 1945 France instead.

Reviewed by Dave Wynn for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).