Quake 3 Arena for Dreamcast

Quake III Arena is a monster of a game. Despite being thoroughly bested by the gameplay of Team Fortress Classic and Unreal Tournament in the hearts of many critics and fans, it still boasts a huge online community, and is a proven cash cow. The reason is simple: Quake III Arena is fun. It's a no-frills deathmatch and capture-the-flag frag fest, pure and simple, so who really cares if the single-player mode is lousy and the levels and locations are uninspired (if expertly rendered)? The beauty of Quake III can be found in its curved surfaces, colorful graphics, streamlined network code, and loyal legions of mod makers. Quake III is a great and worthwhile game because its fans finished it, fleshing it out and giving us mods like Weapons Factory Arena and Strike Force. That leaves very high expectations for a $30 add-on.

Especially given the competition. Think about it. Team Fortress Classic has its character classes, Counterstrike has real-world weapons and unparalleled realism, Starsiege Tribes has expansive outdoor environs and vehicles, and UT has an assault mode and wicked bot AI. These are all features that Quake III ought to have incorporated into its gameplay with Team Arena. Sadly, it adds none of them. Instead, Team Arena adds a handful of new game types (nothing revolutionary), some brilliant new levels, a couple of new weapons, new skins, and a minimally streamlined interface. That's it. Whether or not the little contained in this shiny new box is worth your while depends primarily on how much of a Quakehead you really are.

There are four new game types aside from standard deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, and free for all. A wicked little mod called One Flag Capture the Flag is fairly simple, and is a heck of a lot of fun. The red and blue teams have bases and immobile flags. In the center, a white flag is spawned. The object is to race to the center, snag the white flag, and carry it to the enemy flag. This simple twist puts the flag carrier into the vanguard of an assault rather than a retreat, and it puts the enemy team on the defensive rather than attack when the flag is snagged. It's a great mod, and is a lot of fun. Then there's Overload, which challenges you and your team to invade an enemy base and destroy its skull statue thingie (which is easier said then done, since it regenerates over time). And Harvester is a wicked twist on deathmatch, wherein you gain skulls for each frag, and you get points for collecting them and delivering them to a special receptacle.

New weapons range from the new minigun (a hard-core machine gun that, sadly, seems way too powerful) and the revamped return of the nailgun, which will disappoint hard-core Quake fans in that it's really just an UT flak cannon in disguise. There's also the proximity cannon, which shoots sticky mines on surfaces. It's a cool weapon, much like the green goo gun from UT, and it's particularly useful in flag and Overload games. Inexplicably, the oomph of the rocket launcher and the railgun has been substantially reduced. I just don't get that. The rocket launcher was fine the way it was, and why even use the railgun if it takes three hits to make a kill now?

There are a few new power-ups as well. The doubler does what one would hope, essentially doubling your pleasure, fun, and death-dealing abilities. The scout makes you run really fast, but it has the annoying side effect of making you drop all your armor. You also can't grab any new armor while it's working. It's good for flag-bearing missions, and bad for just about every other task. The ammo regenerator does just what you're probably guessing it does, and incidentally does so for any type of ammo, while the guard power-up boosts your armor and health levels to 200, and regenerates them as you get hurt. It's nice to have that, but it really seems to mess with the game's overall balance. There are two new items in the game as well. One provides invulnerability for a limited time, and the other is called kamikaze. Set off the latter, and everybody in the area--including you--dies. It's perfect when the enemy is about to score with a flag, but stupid the rest of the time.

The audio has taken a decided turn for the worse here. The bot voice samples are inventive but poorly acted, and they sound like they were recorded in very low quality. The sound effects and music are also subpar.

Conversely, the new skins are interesting. You can be a walking corpse, a knight in not-so-shiny armor, and even an octopus-headed man, much like the mind flayer from D&D or H.P. Lovecraft's Great Cthulhu. The new skins offer nothing so interesting as a walking eyeball, but a little variety is always a nice thing.

Most of the new maps are just drab corridor locales we've seen before. A few include some jump pads at odd angles that admittedly make them more fun than they'd be otherwise. Basically, the new levels are no better than what you'll find on the net. And that isn't saying much. But a few break free from the mold, and dare to put Quake outside. Yes, you read that correctly: out of the corridors and into the great wide open you can go in Overload and the excellent Distant Scream. These levels are already getting the most play on the net.

Overall, there are many high expectations that id Software just couldn't quite meet in this package.