Quake Your Booty Now

I never really enjoyed first person shooters. Racing and fighting games are more my forte, but considering I wanted more online action from the Dreamcast and that the graphics look downright incredible, I decided to shell out $50 and take a chance. Like my proposal to my wife years ago, it was a chance I will never regret.

Fragging: is that what the kids call it nowdays?

There's not much to know: pick a character and go from arena to arena--going against one, two or three other--attempting to obtain the most kills within the time limit or simply just reaching the "frag" limit. For those not in the know, a frag is a kill. Fragging is another term for killing, and gibs are bits and pieces of your body that bounce around when you are blown up. Id chose developer Raster and they included plenty of maps and characters to choose from. There are 30 maps in the game: 20 of which you will traverse in single player mode and most of those and 10 more specialized Dreamcast-exclusive multiplayer maps.

Playing with yourself

Single player mode is adequate. It's more than enough difficulty to hone your skills. You have five tiers to make it through with four maps each. The fourth level of each tier contains a boss and you can't proceed to the next tier until you cleared the boss. You ultimate goal is to meet the MegaBoss at the end of tier five to be determined Arena Lord. But don't complete the game on the easiest difficulty because that's not something to be proud of. Try one of the other four difficulty levels for a true challenge.

Make it a twosome, threesome, or foursome (the best)

Multiplayer is where any First Person Shooter is at. Be it online or interdomestic, there's no better feeling than showcasing your skill (or lack of) and trash-talking your friends in a fragfest no A.I. can match. After getting comfortable with the controls, I took to the online kingdom to really see if the game could live up to NFL2K's excellent online capabilites. I connected within 40 seconds and 20 seconds later I was getting the beat down from three fellers from who knows where!

The greatest debate that is common among Dreamcast owners is lag and such. SegaNet recommends you signing up with them for the best experience with lowest latency possible. Pings (time it takes for date to be transferred from server to computer and back to server can range on SegaNet from 200-500 which isn't bad. But just on a whim I logged in under my own ISP and I have been equally impressed. My pings have not gone over 300 and while chatting with other Quake players, they have told me that they were using SegaNet and they were having the most problems. So until SegaNet gets either No Latency or wants to send possible opponents to my house, then I'm sticking with my ISP.

I admit that I am not that good. I'm average at best and have been bowled over by Quakers :) better than myself. But I don't play to win or lose (although winning is fun), I truly play just to play. The computer is fun, but I only perfect my abilities training against the computer.

Lions and Tigers and Bots, Oh my

If you tire of paying large phone bills because of online addiction, then Quake does offer intelligent and often challenging computer "bots" to play against. They themselves are selectable to five different abilities ranging from easy to extreme. I guess I don't have to tell you how brutal 'extreme' is. I'm still hurting from the smack down. The computers are decent to play against, but they have excellent aim, which coincides with my random shooting.

If Quake III was eye-candy, it would be a cherry Jolly Rancher

Not that you get to look at the scenery much, but Raster did an excellent job porting this game over from the PC. If you ran this on a PC and the Dreamcast version next to it, you would be hard pressed to find a difference. Everything is crisp and detailed and it's not hard to find your way through a map. After playing the Arena of Death map a few times, I had it down and memorized very quickly.

Special Effects are fun to watch from: the rocket launcher explosions to the melting of the combatants via a plasma gun and the sounds each weapon makes and the screams each player makes adds to the depth of the game. DISCLAIMER: No person should mistake a game for real life. If someone did mistake Quake for real-life, then perhaps they don't have a life to begin with.

I am please as spiked punch to have bought this game and have been extremely addicted since purchasing it. I have played about four to five hours a day since it's release and have not stopped. Someone may want to substitute me for another husband so my wife still knows we are married.

I don't regret buying this game, but my wife does.