🚀 go-pugleaf

"muktheknieŽ" <mukhp@NOSPAMhotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:4ubbp15133gbhdphibvp797cleop6mfl5i@4ax.com...
> On 6 Dec 2005 06:56:36 -0800, "Craig M" <ncinftec_stud7@hotmail.co.uk>
> :
>
>>When most people think of first-person shooters, id Software
>>immediately springs to mind. The small Texas-based company has been
>>involved in almost all of the first-person shooters that are considered
>>classics. Quake spawned a rabid fan base on the Internet that still
>>watches id's every move. So when id revealed that the next game in the
>>series, Quake III Arena, would be specifically designed as a
>>multiplayer game, fans weren't quite sure what to think. But id's
>>purpose became increasingly clear when it released a succession of
>>Quake III Arena technology demos for public scrutiny. The resulting
>>game is not only worthy of its lineage, but it may very well be the
>>best Quake yet.
>>
>>While Quake III Arena's focus may be its multiplayer deathmatch
>>component, it does have a single-player mode. When playing alone, you
>>can go up against artificial intelligence-controlled bots. The bots do
>>their best to act like human players, and on the higher difficulty
>>settings, they put up an excellent fight. Each bot has different
>>characteristics that govern the way it fights. The portly biker chick
>>Lucy tends to duck a lot. Xaero, a Zen master and the final boss of the
>>single-player mode, is also master of the railgun. The single-player
>>mode is a lot like the kind in an arcade-fighting game, such as Mortal
>>Kombat. You'll move through several different competitive tiers, each
>>with different arenas and bots. At the end of each tier is a one-on-one
>>showdown; these fights take place in smaller, tournament-style arenas.
>>The bots are downright chatty - when you get a group of them together,
>>they'll hold small conversations with each other, which are displayed
>>in text onscreen. In team games, you can order bots around, or even let
>>a bot take control of your team and tell you what to do.
>>
>>The single-player mode is fun up to a point, but the multiplayer mode
>>is where the real action is. Quake III Arena moves very quickly, and it
>>has a real pick-up-and-play design to it. The game feels slightly
>>simplified as compared to other recent shooters, but for the most part
>>its simplicity is a good thing. The game has been stripped down to its
>>first-person shooter essence, and any extraneous weapons or power-ups
>>that might have gotten in the way of great deathmatch gameplay have
>>been omitted. However, a few things stick out as having been overly
>>simplified. For instance, as in most shooters, there is an auto-switch
>>weapons option that lets you automatically switch to the new weapon
>>when you pick it up. It's a convenient feature because it lets you
>>rearm yourself with a stronger weapon almost immediately instead of
>>having to press a key or spin the mouse wheel to select it. But when
>>you're in the middle of a close-quarters shotgun fight, you really
>>don't want to accidentally switch to the rocket launcher or railgun if
>>you happen to walk over one. In that case, you can disable the
>>auto-switch feature. Similarly, if you're running away from someone
>>who's firing BFG blasts at you, the time it takes to manually select
>>your new rocket launcher could be the difference between life and
>>death. A weapon-priority scale that lets you decide specifically which
>>weapons you'd like to switch to automatically, as in Unreal Tournament
>>or QuakeWorld, would have easily solved the problem.
>>
>>The level design and texture design throughout Quake III Arena are
>>quite good, even if the levels feel a little generic. None of the
>>levels ever feel like real-world places; they are one futuristic castle
>>setting after another, occasionally broken up by a level composed of a
>>bunch of floating platforms in the middle of a black void. That said,
>>the textures, especially the animated ones, are really amazing, and the
>>game engine allows for curved surfaces, which deliver a more plausible
>>feel to the architecture. The levels have obviously been designed with
>>gameplay in mind - most of them are great fun to play in. However, the
>>game seems to focus on levels that are great for only six to ten
>>players. With more than ten players, most of the maps seem really
>>crowded. Aside from standard deathmatch, you can also play team
>>deathmatch, a one-on-one tournament mode that acts like a scaled-down
>>version of the popular rocket-arena mod that appeared in Quake and
>>Quake II, and capture the flag. Unfortunately, capture the flag seems
>>almost like an afterthought. There are only four CTF levels included in
>>the game, and all of them seem suited to smaller teams.
>>
>>Like the great-looking textures, the game's 3D models and special
>>effects are very impressive. The character models and skins look
>>terrific, and the animation really brings a lot of personality to the
>>different characters. The various models are highly varied, and range
>>from giant hopping-eye creatures to skeletons. Models based on the
>>characters from Doom, Quake, and Quake II are also available. Curved
>>surfaces help improve the quality of the level design, but other
>>effects like fog and great colored lighting add even more atmosphere to
>>some of the game's levels. The weapon models also look good for the
>>most part, and they're easily identifiable in your enemies' hands.
>>Unfortunately, the sound in Quake III Arena is inconsistent. All of the
>>weapon fire is outstanding. The sound of rockets whizzing by your head
>>as you dodge from side to side is especially impressive. The different
>>character voices (each model has its own set of sounds) are pretty
>>good, though you may become annoyed with Orbb the eyeball's screeching
>>noises - all the more reason to kill him quickly. But the real problem
>>with the audio is the announcer, who says things like "five minutes
>>remaining" or "impressive" when applicable. Id obviously tried to
>>duplicate the sound and style of the announcer's menacing voice from
>>the Mortal Kombat games. But instead of hiring an appropriate voice
>>actor, id simply took a typical voice (specifically that of level
>>designer Christian Antkow) and pitched it down a few octaves to make it
>>sound sinister. Instead, it just comes off as amateurish. Given the
>>frequency with which the announcer speaks during the game, you'd think
>>that the voice would have received a bit more attention.
>>
>>Regardless of how it sounds, after playing Quake III Arena, it's easy
>>to see that moving toward a multiplayer-centered game was an excellent
>>idea. With cable modems and DSL connections slowly gaining mainstream
>>acceptance, the bandwidth is there for a lot of people to finally enjoy
>>a good deathmatch game at a high speed. Fortunately, provided you find
>>a good server, the game also manages to be playable over a 56K modem
>>connection.
>>
>>All things considered, it isn't a stretch to call Quake III Arena an
>>outstanding game. But whether it's superior to its rival Unreal
>>Tournament is less certain. If you're interested in sophisticated
>>team-play modes like those featured in Unreal Tournament, then Quake
>>III Arena comes up short. However, Quake III Arena provides the
>>ultimate deathmatch experience. If deathmatch is the particular style
>>of play you're interested in, then Arena is your game.
>
>
> Let's do the time warp agaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin....

Hey Craig, this game came out in 1999. It's almost 2006. Wasn't sure you 
knew those things.

I think I'll write up a review of monopoly. I'll post it here when I'm done.