Quake 3: Team Arena First Look

My eyes are starting to hurt... we've been going at it for well over 6 hours now here at the offices, and I guess it's time to give ya a little taste of what Quake 3: Team Arena is all about (although that's like explaining the damn creamy chocolate cake rather that letting the other person taste it).

Let's start with some of the basics and kinda work our way to the juicy bits from there. As many of you with an IQ that exceeds the complex routines of voting ballot hole-punching are aware, Team Arena is a team play add-on to id's Quake 3: Arena and it is the first official add-on developed by id since the legendary DOOM series. I guess id kinda kicked themselves in the butt after releasing Q3A and realizing that their team play is nowhere near the quality of say UT's Assault mode. Well, the id gang is back in action folks, and as we await the imminent release of the new DOOM, they've given the gamers the opportunity to frag it out with their buddies, or bots in Quake 3: Team Arena.

The demo weighs in at a hefty 127Mb but carries only one map - the Inner Sanctum, which is kinda anticlimactic considering the download size. Luckily, the Inner Sanctum is one of the prettier Q3 maps around. It took me around 3 minutes to get comfortable with it, and as far as I could tell, it's a pretty straightforward CTF map with basically two routes to the enemy base. Much like thousands of other CTF maps out there. What stands out from the rest though is its very, very pretty design abundant with curved surfaces, crisp textures, and simplistic yet highly playable and effective architecture.

As far as I could tell, there are only two basic models in the game: James and Janet, and three types of skins: Pagan, Stroggos, and dddd. The models are round and curvy as always, but I kinda got the impression that the skin textures are slightly richer, and that the light reflections look a tad better than in Q3A. Unfortunately, you can feel that in the FPS count too, although I've only exhibited jerky gameplay when I kick-started the server on my PC (blame it on my PIII600, GeForce rig; 8 PCs connected through a 100Mbit LAN here in the office).

Quake 3: Team Arena demo features 4 gametypes: Capture the Flag, One Flag CTF, Harvester, and Overload, and three Team Power-ups: Guard, Ammo-Regen, and Doubler (Guard being the whore power-up -- basically you have a whole lot of armor on ya, which makes you one tough cookie to break). I guess you can figure out the One Flag CTF concept yourself, so I'll just stick to the Harvester and Overload.

Harvester is by far the most interesting attempt at introducing a notable variation of the original CTF. Basically you collect skulls from the fragged enemies and run them into the enemy base for points (making this a reverse-collect-skulls-instead-of-a-flag CTF mode). You still have to collect skulls from your downed teammates though, therefore obstructing the enemy's attempt to grab as many of your craniums. It's the same as returning your team's flag to the base; only this time when you get the enemy skulls you run to the enemy base instead of your home base. In Overload, the whole point is to destroy a skull in the opposing team's base. As simple as that. BTW, Overload is by far the most unattractive and unimaginative gametype in the demo.