Quake 3: Team Arena Review

Alongside with these main features, id has gone out of their way to make the CTF experience as intuitive and fun as possible by including a range of subtle gameplay improvements. Everything from the extremely intuitive and easy to use interface to the little blue and red pointers, which give directions to newbie players is so in-tune with the wide range of users that it makes Team Arena the most accessible CTF game I've ever played. Single player bot AI has been much improved over the lackluster team performance in Q3A, and you'll even notice some advanced tactics like: bots criss-cross running in large outdoor maps, so that they could survive your little Rail-camping killing spree (OOPS, I said killing spree), and providing cover for the flag runner... Still, don't expect too much from your AI teammates. They are a little too timid in a sense that they tend to defend and stay in numbers, rather than fight more aggressively to get the flag.

The best proof of that is letting the bots play for a while without interfering. You'll see a typical soccer score; after 45 or so minutes of play - 2:1 or something. Further more, bots (as usual) tend to hover around specific areas of the map as they definitely have predefined waypoints for each of the maps. I really haven't noticed they were learning new ways of going about the map during gameplay.

The best thing about Team Arena are the incredibly designed maps and the way it all fits in with some superior texture work and an easy to use GUI and teammate comm. interface. The maps are varying and they range from predominantly close-quarters to almost Tribes-like outdoor maps, like the Overdose. And speaking of Overdose (one of my favorite maps - two simplistic Goth castles and a large outdoor grassy terrain) I was really pleasantly surprised to see that id took care of such detail as limiting your Railgun ammo to only two slugs, so that you don't just crouch on one of the guard towers and rail every player that comes your way. Other great example of gameplay balancing is what I call The Edge technique (Q2DM1) of successfully combining open (Rail-happy) and close quarter to mid-range (RL-happy) places like what can be seen on Temple of Pain. Some maps, like Assassin's Roost are just flat-out gorgeous -- artistically, as well as in a way in which they've been perfectly modified to fit the CTF style of play.

id's map designers have really gone all-out when they included those wormhole-like portals on some of the space maps. I don't dig space maps that much, but the effect is fresh and it's fun. That demo map is about the dullest map in the whole game now that I've had the chance to play on all the rest. Maps like Fallout Bunker and Base Siege provide for some amazing base battles, as they've been designed like these fortifications (figurative speech), which need to be penetrated by the opposing team. Hmm, I guess that's why they call it Base Siege (duh). Props to id for letting us enjoy several different styles of CTF play, simply from having to fight on such diverse maps that allow the implementation of so many different tactics.

All this, makes Team Arena a true tribute to the CTF mode of play, and it separates it from some of the low quality mod work you can download on the net. This is a great mainstream product, both for the casual and hardcore CTF players. Why id didn't include it in Quake 3: Arena is another matter. It is also the best CTF add-on pack out there, which means cash-spending time if you're a consumer looking to play the best games for a specific type of online gameplay that money can buy. That alone is I think enough for every CTF fan to buy this add-on. But if you are jaded with the same old, same old and are looking for something new in online action gaming I advise you to save your money, because you won't find any new modes of play in Quake 3: Team Arena. It's simply a kickass CTF pack. So, deal with it!