Quake 3 Arena (Linux)

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

On a technical merrit, this game gets a "5."

On a gameplay merrit, this game gets a "3." That is, I really enjoy plots... feeling like I'm playing a key role in some momentous event. Half-Life... System Shock (1&2)... Deux Ex... all great examples of this. It's fun, but it's not "absorbing."

So, I give the game a "4."

The main thing to take away from this is that the Quake3 engine works GREAT in Linux. I recently installed the Linux binaries of Return to Castle Wolfenstein onto this machine. It also uses the Quake3 engine. Wolfenstein, so installed, is beautiful, and it DOES have a plot.

ID Software, who developed the binaries for this port and who developed the Quake-series engines, have singlehandedly proven that Linux is a great gaming platform, yet again. The Quake3 engine is being used everywhere these days, and there's no fundamental reason that ANY of them can't be easily ported over to Linux.

Well, that's not entirely true. It's true that there's no TECHNICAL reason that we can't have those games. And it's true that there's no MARKET reason that we can't have those games (minimal effort to create the port using all the same content, then a secondary distribution channel).

However, there is ONE reason... the illegal marketing practices of Microsoft. Will this play out like all the other "Competition with Microsoft" activities of the past few years? Stay tuned...


QUAKE 3 ARENA.............hmmmm...........do I like it?   May 15, 2002
Westley Merlin (USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

Quake three arena is a great game with a new set of 3d-graphics quality, but the game gets boring after a while.Actually the game gets boring really quickly, but i still like it.I like the
models, the weapons,the maps, the storyline, but once your in the game it gets boring real quick.I RECOMMEND a SHINY New pentium 2, 350 for maxium performance, and 600mb of harddrive space for maxium installation of performance.I recommend a 32mb3d video card.It also has to be opengl 100% compatible.A major powerful a3d sound card.128pcisdram at 100mhrz for map performance.and directx7.But, if you don't care about performance and just wan't to play the game, your requirments:pentium 2:233mhrz, 16mb opengl compatible 3d video card, highquality sound card,45megs of harddrive space for miminum installation,directx6, and 64spcisdram.But, if your a extreme hardcore gamer and wan't quake3arena to work absouloutly PERFECT, these are the requirements I reccomend:pentium3 500mhrz, geforce3 64ddr ram, 700mb of harddrive space, the latest majorist a3d sound card with latest drivers, maxium instllation, directx8.1, and 512pci800mhrz of rdram.take my advice.buy the game, enjoy it.your welcome.I reccomend it.


QUAKE 3 ARENA.............hmmmm...........do I like it?   May 15, 2002
Westley Merlin (USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

Quake three arena is a great game with a new set of 3d-graphics quality, but the game gets boring after a while.Actually the game gets boring really quickly, but i still like it.I like the
models, the weapons,the maps, the storyline, but once your in the game it gets boring real quick.I RECOMMEND a SHINY New pentium 2, 350 for maxium performance, and 600mb of harddrive space for maxium installation of performance.I recommend a 32mb3d video card.It also has to be opengl 100% compatible.A major powerful a3d sound card.128pcisdram at 100mhrz for map performance.and directx7.But, if you don't care about performance and just wan't to play the game, your requirments:pentium 2:233mhrz, 16mb opengl compatible 3d video card, highquality sound card,45megs of harddrive space for miminum installation,directx6, and 64spcisdram.But, if your a extreme hardcore gamer and wan't quake3arena to work absouloutly PERFECT, these are the requirements I reccomend:pentium3 500mhrz, geforce3 64ddr ram, 700mb of harddrive space, the latest majorist a3d sound card with latest drivers, maxium instllation, directx8.1, and 512pci800mhrz of rdram.take my advice.buy the game, enjoy it.your welcome.I reccomend it.