Product Description

This is the highly anticipated next instalment in the Quake series of adventure games. Quake 3 Arena continues the action of the earlier two games but adds more intense action, surreal graphics and a phenomenal multiplayer mode. The game also features body armour and health kits to help keep you alive.

Quake 3 makes for an exhilarating single-player game, but to truly discover what makes this game great, try out the mulitplayer mode for up to 32 players, in one-on-one matches or group conquests.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10723 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: ACTIVISION
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platforms: Windows 95, Windows 98
• Number of items: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
As in its dozens of first-person shooter ancestors, id Software and Activision's Quake 3: Arena transports players into a violent, virtual world filled with deadly weapons, impressive power-ups and intense combat. Players compete on 26 maps in either death match (free-for-all or team play), with goals to rack up as many kills as possible; or capture the flag, a team-orientated game with scoring based on the number of enemy flag captures. Though presenting the best death-match experience around, Quake 3's two game types lack the variation and originality of a similar game, Epic's Unreal Tournament.

Although you'll need the latest video card and computer hardware, it's impossible to dispute the sheer beauty of Quake 3's 3-D engine. The 26 maps are filled with exquisite architecture and impressive special effects; further, Quake 3 provides dozens of highly detailed player models to choose from. If you've played other id Software first-person shooters, the weapons should all look familiar: machine gun, shotgun, plasma gun, grenade launcher, rocket launcher, lightning gun, railgun and the BFG 10K. Though impressively rendered and balanced, you've likely used them before in id's Doom, Quake, or any number of other first-person action games.

Hopping online and competing against other Quake 3: Arena players worldwide requires only a 56K or better Internet connection and a few mouse clicks. Quake 3 offers an infinitely replayable multiplayer experience (and a violent one--not for youngsters), but an unsatisfying solo game. Its single-player tournament mode--a series of death matches against computer AI bots--serves simply as a massive training exercise for multiplay. --Doug Radcliffe

Pros:

• Cutting-edge graphics
• Near-perfect death-match multiplay
• Detailed player models
• Beautiful level architecture

• Uninspired single-player experience
• Lack of game variations
• Unoriginal weapons

Manufacturer's Description
MONSTERS IN THE MACHINE
A seething hive of computer-spawned opponents will leave you longing for a scrap of human sympathy. Each has its own special way of hunting you down and bringing you to your knees. Encounter a world of hurt in arenas rife with deathtraps, hazards and ruthless foes who play with your already twitching mind. Just when you think you're good ... you're dead. Unbridled fear goes state-of-the-art with smothering fog, flickering shadows and retina-searing weapons effects that will push your graphic accelerator to the limit. Experience relentless multiplayer deathmatches over the Internet with bristling response times and controls.

Customer Reviews

Quake changed my life!
Quake must be the most influential and inspiring game I have ever played. I remember back in 1996 when the original Quake was in the shops, I managed to persuade my dad to buy it for me but it didn't work on my PC back then because I didn't have a floating point processor. Man, I was gutted. I was able to see it working on my cousin's PC and I was absolutely blown away. I couldn't wait to get my PC upgraded so that it would work. Eventually it all came true! Quake was original, medieval and that was what was great about it. Quake II wasn't as good, because the story was naff and it wasn't medieval anymore. Quake was primaily based on multiplayer and this is what Quake II picked up on, so the deathmatch maps got better, but the single player wasn't very good. Quake III made the right moves and went back to the originality of Quake with medieval maps and the deathmatch levels were fantastic.

Everyone raves on about Half-life, Halo, Unreal, and I will be frank, these are great games, but ID Software made the Doom series in the 90's, so for me ID Software's games have always been the most original. For me, putting Doom and Quake next to these other first-person-shooter games... how can I explain it, it's like getting one director to make the first movie and another director to make the sequels. The sequels are never as good as the first and they essentially (apologies for sounding blunt) "steal" from the original that made it happen.

Quake III for me is an amazing game. Doom, Wolfenstein and Quake - they are all different games, but because they are from ID Software, you can be rest assured that you are getting a blinding game. Not only that but Internet play that is better than it is in any other shooter game, rest assured. With Quake, you get expansion packs, you can make your own maps, mod's weapons, bot's (enemies), and download other people's stuff as well. Perhaps these other games, you can download stuff for them too, but looking at my watch - they are a little bit late, Quake came up with the idea ageas ago and if it means I have to keep this PC in order to play my Quake games, then so be it.

I am a bit worried about Quake IV, as it is not by ID, but it is by Rogue Software (who made an expansion pack for Quake I and II), so it might not be bad. Hopefully it will still keep the Quake community going. Well I'm sure the Quake community will ever die out. Doom III is coming out soon and I can't wait for that. Quake changed my life. Quake III changed my life and nothing seems the same to be without Quake on my PC, it's never too late to catch up with the series. goto www.planetquake.com to find out what the fuss is about!

Quakin' in my boots..
Well, what can i say? This is Quake III Arena, ID's bad-boy and wet-dream material for fragsters everywhere. This time around the game's purely deathmatch - no more mission-based malarkey (if you're flying solo, you play against computer controlled 'bots), just a variety of arenas to kick ass in. Or have your ass kicked, as the case may be; the computer AI is pretty tough, but adjustable to your own skill level, making it a worthy challenge for both small children and veterans alike. The graphics are beautiful, if macabre; techniques like 'volumetric fog' are used to great effect in the many gore-stained arenas, and the textures have moved along a notch from the grey colour scheme of Quake II. Same too goes for the sound; from the thud-thud-thud of machine-gun fire, to the frankly nasty sound of rending flesh, Q3A sounds like the Marquis De Sade's CD collection.

Any drawbacks? Hmm.. Well, i suppose you could say all that violence is distasteful - but then in today's drive-by society, who cares? Quake III Arena is a beautiful masterpiece of online gaming that has stood the test of time.

Add on to my previous review
There have also been countless modifications (including alternate weapons fire!) and new maps for Quake 3 Arena. I am a Quake 3 Arena mapper myself. So if you don't like the way Quake 3 Arena comes (but I am sure you will), just download a couple of modifications and maps from the Internet and you'll have the game as you like it :D