Game Review: Quake 3 Arena

 

This game, is probably still, to this day, my favourite First Person Shooter.

It was the reason I bought my first separate GPU, an ATI rage 128 pro.

I'd had my first taste of accelerated 3D gaming on a friend's PC playing Quake 2 with a Voodoo 2 card, and it was incredible.

We'd been waiting for the Voodoo 3 to come out, but it never did, so when ATI's 128Mb beast hit the shelves on August 1st 1999, people assumed they would be the new leader on the market.

So after buying a magazine with a free demo of the game, I knew I needed to buy the best gfx card I could find.

I couldn't afford to buy the full game as a result, but it was one of the most generous demos in gaming history. ID software pretty much invented shareware for gaming back in the 90's, so no surprise there.

Four complete levels, with full multiplayer, local LAN and Global internet. It would keep me busy for a while until I could afford the complete version.

Then my flatmate bought a new PC with the first NVidia Geforce 256 card. Nobody had heard of them at the time, but it was so smooth, 1024x768 at 60fps (or was it 30?) but it was unprecedented.

I was so gutted I no longer had the best video card, though the ATI 128 wasn't to be sniffed at. I was happy enough playing a demo of a game on the a 128Mb gfx card, that's how good they both were.

But, as soon as I heard the Geforce 2 had hit the shelves, May 2000, I bought one, swapped out the ATI card and started building a second system with it. I'd purchased the full version of the game by then

That's when we started playing everything at 1024x768, the new gold standard gaming resolution.

The game itself used cutting edge techniques to get more out of the GPU than any other game at the time, and was the most real looking FPS in 1999:

They very interestingly, and to no detriment of the game, made the entire thing an arena deathmatch game, even the single player campaign was just a progression through the levels and vs every character under AI control. And while I played plenty online and the occasional LAN game when I could get one set up, the single player, AI bot experience was enjoyable enough to hold its own.

My only two gripes with the game.

Firstly, the default controls were a relic from the days of the first doom games, and not set up for full mouselook, with the left and right giving you rotation instead of side strafe. Ugh! Who wants that?

Second, the default weapon was the machine gun, and it was weak. It would have made more sense to start everyone off with a pistol and have a more powerful automatic weapon.

An electric chainsaw gauntlet glove thing, for melee only fighting when you ran out of ammo.

The Shotgun was there as expected, and devastating at close range.

The Rocket Launcher - for lots of remote destruction, some incredible timing shots and of course the invention of the rocket jump. A hard to master technique that gave you a higher jump with the risk of blowing yourself up.

The Grenade Launcher, my least favourite weapon, devastating for dropping into lower platforms from above.

The Rail Gun, my personal favourite, for long range sniping with the zoom feature.

The Lightning Gun. For constant damage over time. This could have been so much better if the GFX were up to it at back then.

The Plasma Gun, for quick sci-fi kills,

And of course the BFG. like the plasma gun, only green, and ten times as powerful.

I may continue this review, there's so much to say, especially about the evolution of the game, Team arena, Quake Live, the strange juxtaposition of Quake 4, and the incredible modding community and open online multiplayer capabilities that have kept the game alive in some form up until now.

Excellent. Impressive.