Quake 3: It's no Unreal Tournament, but...well, really that sums it up.
Written: Jun 19 '01 (Updated Jun 19 '01)
Product Rating:
Pros: Amazing graphics, great sound, smooth animations, not a system hog
Cons: Little variety, low replay value
The Bottom Line: A great game...but with Unreal Tournament filling the same specialty, and being slightly better, it doesn't make sense to recommend Q3.
If you are a dorm resident, or otherwise have access to a LAN, then the joy of the first-person shooter is probably nothing new to you. Getting a chance to blast you friends to kingdom come in what is, as of now, the closest virtual reality combat available, offers fun to no end. The excitement of yelling "Did you see that shot?" down the hall or vocally directing your roommates in a strategic flag assault cannot be duplicated by any other genre. And likewise, if you are familiar with the genre, you are undoubtedly familiar with the Quake franchise.
Designed by the same guys who brought you Doom, Quake can present an argument for being the game that sent the FPS into orbit, making it the best-selling genre of our time. But the downside of showing everyone else that there is money to be made is that others may jump on the bandwagon, and, God forbid, do it even better than you did.
The Wrapping Paper
Quake 3 carries on the Quake legacy without faltering. The graphics are GORGEOUS. The game has a arcade-type visual appeal, utilizing the bright colors that the earlier grimey, dungeon-crawling Quake series avoided wholeheartedly. But opting for a less gothic color-scheme doesn't hurt the visuals; this is the prettiest Quake ever. Your shotgun reflects the sun, your rockets blast piping hot smoke, your energy rifle shoots clumps of plasma that wriggle and splat, and your chaingun looks just like a spinning object should: dashing light and reflections this way and that. And when you pick up a power-up rune, you glow in a bluish energy shield that has to be seen to be believed.
The animations are also extremely smooth. Even running on a medium level computer (I ran it on 128 MB RAM, 450 MHz processor, and a 16 MB video card), the game didn't slow down at all. I ran it with nearly all the graphical features tuned up to high, and everything was fluid and smooth. Visually, this game cannot be beaten.
The sound is also groundbreaking. As your shotgun sprays its lead, you can hear not just the blast, but also the sound of air rushing through the gun's tubing at high speed, like the sound you hear when you blow quickly over the mouth of a bottle. All the sound effects are crisp and individual. In this game, you won't hear the same "bang" in two different octaves to represent different guns.
The Game
Unfortunately, and I don't mean this in a sarcastic way, once you start playing the game, you have already seen what it has to offer. The shell of this game is incredible. And admittedly, you will run around for a few hours blasting the weapons and viewing their superb effects, and admiring all the great player skins there are to choose from. But from here on out, you really have seen the best that this game has to offer.
The controls are great: arcade-like and simple. And the gameplay is straight-forward. The game isn't based on strategy or any of that fancy stuff, just fun. And you can't say anything bad about that. The game play is fast, straightforward, and all action. But where this game loses out is in its depth. There are painfully few weapons to use, and what makes this worse is that the weapons that you can use are the same ones we have been using since Quake 1: the chaingun, the shotgun, the lightning gun, the grenade launcher, etc. Not that these are bad weapons. They are just seriously, excruciatingly tired.
And as far as modes of play, you have your deathmatch and your capture the flag. Both are fun, but again, these have been used for ages. Nothing groundbreaking here. They are tried and true, but speaking only for myself, I have been playing deathmatch and capture the flag for years and the main thrill of it is diminished.
The one-player is all bot-play, just like online play but less fun and more repetitive. The bots aren't stupid, in fact they are quite human-like as far as bots go. But bots don't think, and if you crack their patterns, they are mind-numbingly predictable. Online, this game can be a blast, but single player...let's just say replay value isn't its forte.
It isn't that Quake 3 is no fun. It is definitely fun. Heck, I gave it 4 stars, and in a world saturated with First Person Shooters, 4 stars is pretty good. If Quake 3 were the only game of its kind, I would definitely give it a big fat 5. But I feel that Unreal Tournament does everything Quake does and better. Sure, the graphics aren't as flashy in UT, but they are still excellent. The important part is that UT has some truly unique weapons, each complete with 2 modes of firing, more engrossing games of play, and better maps. This isn't a review of UT, so I won't go on and on about it, but if you want to know more, I encourage you to read my review of it. If you have played UT and feel that it isn't for you, then by all means, check out Quake 3. But I can't recommend Quake 3 when there is another game out there filling exactly the same niche and doing it a bit better. Quake 3 is a winner, but UT is just a shade better.
Up for you here is a fabulous game Quake III: Arena . There is a total of 1 cds in a shrink wrapped jewel case.Shipping on this great game will be a f...More at eBay
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