Quake III: Arena Developer: id Software Publisher: Activision Category: : 3D First Person Shooter System Req: Pentium II 266Mhz, 64MB RAM, D3D/Glide accelerator (not needed but advised), Windows 95/98 Might look like: Unreal Tournament Date posted: 26 March 2000 Written By: Pieter - This game was Pentium III 450, 128 MB RAM, TNT2 Ultra, Windows 98 - A little Introduction Finally Quake III: Arena has been released in Europe, the moment we've all been waiting for. During this time we could entertain us a bit with Unreal Tournament which was already available at the end of November and which also showed us awesome graphics, highly intelligent bots and a fluent gameplay. Well the release couldn't be planned better, because I had just completed Unreal Tournament so it was time for a new game. But Q3A isn't just a normal game, normally it should have been released at the same time as UT to see which of the two games would be the best, but due to some things we had to wait until Christmas. Of course this game was worth waiting, because the Q3A graphical engine is just great. Smooth graphics and still fluent gameplay on high resolutions. More about this later. Same concept as UT? As I already told you, Quake III: Arena is about the same concept as UT. I mean that you can also play the whole game offline in "Single Player" and online in "Multiplayer". The Single Player mode is split in 7 Tiers, 7 parts with each of them 4 levels to complete and enemies to kill, only the final Tier has just 1 level which is quite logic, because it's the end where you'll meet the boss and I can assure you that he isn't easy to kill. When you start Single Player you can choose a name and a skin to play with. These skins are very cool, you can play as a skeleton, a dark angel, a hot chick, a clown, a monster with a huge eyeball etc. There is choice enough to scare your opponents, you can even make or add skins to the game and then play with it. A cool option. Also very useful when you are in a clan, each member of a clan will be recognized to its skin. The weapons in Q3A aren't as very destructive as in UT, but they are effective. You also don't have to choose between 10 weapons with secondary fire etc. No, you only have a couple of weapons, including the famous rocket launcher, a shotgun, a plasma-gun, a nailgun and some more. All the ammo are displayed in small 3d-animated boxes, every box has its color and sign.    Hell of a game! One thing that appears to me is that the levels are much smaller than in UT, I think it's much better, because you don't have to run 1/2 hour to find someone to kill. The maps are limited to a couple of rooms and some outdoor places, but no more so the action of killing is being hold by searching, but everywhere you go, every corner you pass you'll see an enemy to kill. I don't wanna crack down UT, but I must say that the maps were beautiful but too big. And in some levels you only have one opponent to kill, so if these levels were huge, you would be playing this level for hours until you have reached your 10 or more frags. In most of the levels you have about 3 or more enemies to blast away. If you choose to play on 'I can win' (difficulty setting), the enemies won't move much, they'll just run around to collect some ammo and to search for more weapons. It's fun 'cause you'll always win, but there is no action ;-( In contrary to the 'Nightmare' setting where you don't even have the time to live for a couple of minutes, just run around and hit them in the head to improve your chance of capturing a weapon. The action at this setting is just so overwhelming so the game is just like a movie where you see people dying all the time. I recommend the average setting, there is a lot of action, but you have the time to look forward to the weapons and practicing helps a lot. In most of the levels you have jumping platforms which you can use to jump to another part of the map (just in case you didn't get it ;-) Most of the levels will look like hell, red/brown-colored walls, lava, torches hanging on the walls and moving walls, by the last I mean that the walls look red and they move. You won't notice that the first time of playing, but it's quite cool when you see that the walls and some other things are alive. All that is nicely done by Id Software. Next Page Up Previous Page If you want to review your favorite game, or if you work with a computer game company and want your products reviewing, mail info@playdevil.com. All contributions are welcome. Any problems and/or suggestions are always appreciated on webmaster@playdevil.com Nothing of this entire Site, animation & logo's included, may be reproduced, stored, saved, transmitted, in any form or means, electronic, written or otherwise without the prior permission of PlayDevil. Other Logos & Names are Copyrighted Material of its respectful owners. All Rights Reserved. PlayDevil Productions © 199/8-199/9-200/0 "rip your own stuff"