We as humans are fascinated by the dead and horrific events. We can’t help but stare at road accidents and masses of gore. Yet when it comes to games it seems strangely satisfying to blow someone apart with a big ‘blooming’ gun. Hail Quake III Arena and let the blood spilling commence! Kill your mates! Quake III Arena is totally focused on deathmatches and competition, so those expecting a deep quest like Half Life will be sorely disappointed. There are still single player levels but you’ll still be in a deathmatch situation pitted against up to three other opponents. It’s still absolute carnage and will provide perfect practice for your battles with real people. This of course forms the main part of the game. Multiplayer opinions here appear in stacks with free for alls, tournies, capture the flag and Team Deathmatches. The levels are fairly compact which makes for a faster game. These same levels are also brimming with weaponry and several hazards designed to catch out the unexperienced. Design is clever and none of the levels are a real downer. In fact the only real letdown is that you can only have four players in a deathmatch. A mere four, even online. The PC version could handle a legion of 32 but the Dreamcast can’t. It might be the memory or the servers but it just prevents total mayhem. Still this isn’t so bad as your brain would probably have melted anyway. Killing in a virtual world is clearly a good thing but you’d be hoping to whoop ass in style. True to form this is the case as pain can be unleashed in several different manners. Included are the compulsory and utterly useless Gauntlet. Next level up is the rapid but fairly weak Machine Gun. More painful deaths are associated with the shotgun and plasma gun. Tricky Grenade launchers, lethal rockets. Then again frying your opponents sounds fun with a Lightning Gun. Maybe impaling them on a rail gun shot? Or just mercilessly blasting them away with the BFG-10K (Guess the abbreviation!). Ah the choices... Another turn in the debate is the best control method. The joypad is excellent and the analogue is super sensitive, which once mastered is ruthless. The keyboard and mouse is the other option which can give that slight bit more accuracy but you will have to shell out another 40 squid. That might make the choice a bit easier. Quake III Arena is the ultimate deathmatch experience and you’ll be spraying the blood in no time. The graphics are excellent and the soundtrack intense. Unfortunately the lack of any big one player quest or revolutionary weaponry just harms it a little. Still it is a shame to miss it and at the time of writing it is the only option available. Just as well it’s excellent then. Be merciless and frag the ones you love today! BONUS! Guide to Quakeology! Do you have problems with foreign languages? If you do you’ll be baffled by Quake speak. Let us be your translator:- Jinking - moving left and right whilst firing, you can also go in circles Gibbing - from the word ‘giblets’ this is killing with such ferocity that all of the opponent that remains is his guts Frag - Just another word for kill FPS - an abbreviation of ‘First Person Shooter’ Rocket Jumps - Dangerous and should only be used in emergencies. Involves firing a rocket launcher at your feet, with the recoil sending you skywards. Shouldn’t be attempted if you have low energy - guess why! Quad Damage - This power up allows you to deal four times the damage. Respawn frag - fragging someone immediately after regeneration. Camping - staying near weapons making you almost invulnerable. Very unsporting.
Quake 3 Arena for the DC was a FPS. It had a lot of emphasis on multiplayer action and online play. The game had a lot of characters to choose from, complete control customization, chatting macros to make online chatting... Read Full Review
Quake 3 is a sequel to the quake series but instead of taking you to the strogg universe it takes you to a multiplayer only game that mixes some of the characters from Id most popular games and other new characters in a ... Read Full Review
