Quake III: Arena

Mechanics

When it comes to mechanics, Quake III: Arena gameplay doesn’t differ much from what we could see in the previous games’ multiplayer modes. The gameplay is much faster-paced than in Quake II, albeit not as fast as the first installment. An arsenal of 9 well-balanced weapons has been left at the players’ disposal: Gauntlet, Machine Gun, Shotgun, Grenade Launcher, Rocket Launcher, Lighting Gun, Railgun, Plasma Gun, and a powerful BFG 10k, sharing certain similarities with the model from the Doom series. The weapons appear in at regular intervals, in the specified spots on the map, while each of them works best in different situations. In case of a death, the player loses all his weapons, and respawns with two random guns of rather meager stopping power.

The game incorporates a trademark of the series: power-ups that restore certain amount of health or armour, increase the movement speed or weapon’s stopping power. Some of the power-ups award invisibility, the ability to teleport or fly, or even a time-limited invincibility. One of the main innovations is the ability to earn various awards, rewarded for spectacular actions, such as crossing the map without dying, or a determined number of hits or frags.

Game modes

Unlike the previous installments of the series, Quake III: Arena for PC is focused mainly on multiplayer modes. Among the available modes, we can find: Free for All (FFA) – a classic deathmatch, in which every player is counted on his own merits, Team Deathmatch (TDM) – a team variant of FFA, Tournament – a duel between two players, and Capture the Flag – where the players are tasked to steal other team’s flags, while defending their own. Depending on the chosen mode, up to 16 players can participate simultaneously.

Quake III: Arena also includes a single player mode, which is a series of skirmishes against AI-controlled opponents. The skirmishes are grouped into seven chapters with increasing difficulty level. Access to further chapters is unlocked after beating all maps in each stage. The whole package is complemented by Skirmish mode – a clash with bots, in which we can freely modify the game parameters.

Technical aspects

Similarly to the previous games from id Software, Quake III: Arena visuals are on a high quality (for the 90’s) level, but the another generation of id Tech 3 doesn’t bring as many changes as the two previous installments. The map design has stayed true to the nature of the series, mixing gothic elements and modern technology. In comparison to the previous titles, the whole game is kind of minimalistic, and has a much vivider colour palette.

An undoubted advantage of Quake III is the open structure of the game, allowing players to create their own modifications. Superb audio effects are a highlight of the game, with an announcer commenting on the events shown in the arenas, and a really energetic soundtrack that incudes tracks from Sonic Mayhem and Frontline Assembly.