I always wanted Quake III. Knew if I got it I'd
never get any work done. But as soon a had some money in my hand I simply
couldn't hold back. So I manged to swap my copy of Indiana Jones and the
Infernal Machine with a brand new copy of Q3A paying $33 for the difference
As luck should have it I had broken my
computer and had sent it away for repairs. As soon as I brought it back,
praying that I wouldn't drop it in my eagerness, I loaded up the CD and away I
went.
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Yep, that's a mirror way up
there. |
Well, lets just get straight to the point. The
graphics engine is stunning, the weapons are exemplary, balanced to perfection,
and the gameplay is fast and, well, fast. Yet the shortcomings of the game tend
to balance out the good stuff holding it back from gaming perfection.
Shortcomings? You ask? There are plenty, and
most are real bad.
First the good stuff.
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Mirror, mirror on the wall who's the horniest of them all? |
The graphics are certainly impressive. The
curved architecture lends the surroundings an organic, realistic look, which
makes the job of splattering gibs all over 'em even more enjoyable. The
textures on the walls are truly beautiful, some even harking back to the good
ol days of Doom, and yet even at the highest texture quality and 32 bit color
as soon as you walk right upto them they start blurring up. This is in contrast
to even the original Unreal, where when you walk upto a wall the finer details
in the textures appear the closer you get. And still the water model can't
shake a stick at Unreal's.
Buy this Game from
Amazon.com
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The bot animation is extremely realistic. The
running, jumping and changing weapons looks just right. Playing in The Temple
of Retribution, once I was running at the walkway above the lava pit with a
rocket launcher. Grunt was on the platform above the railgun and jump pad. He
looked at me, saw I had the rocket launcher, jumped down on to the rail-gun and
before I could aim my rocket, whipped it up and railed me. That entire episode
highlighted the extreme fluidity of the animation and its effectiveness in
combat.
The bots themselves, 32 in all, are extremely
varied (humans, enhanced humans, robots, mutants and aliens) and posses their
own unique personalities (supposedly), though this seemed only to manifest with
their unique individual hit sounds and each bot having its own preffered weapon
and level of accuracy. E.g. Major can easily keep her crosshairs deadlocked on
an opponent regardless of whatever dodging and strafing she does, while Grunt's
lock might waver significantly. And even though Orbb holds his weapon above his
head the first person view has him holding it below him.
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Quad+Railgun=Impressive |
The best thing about quake 3, in my opinion,
are the weapons. They have been refined and balanced to perfection. Sure, it
might sometimes feel that the default weapon, the machine gun, is underpowered,
but in most occasions, in the hands the bots playing in nightmare, I felt that
it was actually a bit too powerful, each hit ripping off 7 health
points.
The shotgun is extremely effective at short
range, though the long reload rate makes it cumbersome, and useless at long
range. It fires 10 pellots each causing 11 health points in damage. Its quite
usefull with a Quad, though it's never been my preffered weapon, on any
occasion, something to use as a last resort, or for surprising an opponent from
behind.
The rocket launcher is just perfect, lets
leave it at that. Sure the blast radius is low. But that just forces you to aim
it better instead of depending on its blast damage. Excellent!
The railgun- the coolest weapon ever.
Exquisite, as well as deadly: a classical masterpiece of a weapon that just
feels divine. Nothing beats clipping an opponent with hot uranium slugs! Tricky
to use at short range, combined with the xoom mode its the ultimate sniping
tool. One problem: It seems to take eons more to switch from a charging railgun
than from another weapon. :(
The lighning gun is nothing special but it has
its moments: the fuck is dodging like crazy just in front of you while pumping
you with buckshot and there's no rocket launcher handy! Nows the time to dig
deep into your arsenal and whip out the good ol lighting.
The less I see of the BFG10K the better. Its
too damn powerful and rate of fire too high. No chance in hell you'll outlive a
guy cradling this baby in his arms. Still, there's nothing like having the only
BFG and a roomful of potential gib to satisfy the ultimate cravings. The
Quad+the BFG=Bliss, Nirvana, In
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Lovely |
Bed with Elle, Claudia and Cindy at the same
time..
Ahhh the Gauntlet. Er, No.
The grenade launcher. Useful when backing away
from an opponent and firing from above.
The maps.
After palying the demo I figured most of the
maps bundled with the full version would be pretty good. I was wrong. Turns out
the demo comes with the two best maps in the entire game.
Most of other maps suck big time. Stuffed with
too many jump pads and accelaration pads that fling you up the moment you set a
foot wrong enabling all the other idiots to rail you at their pleasure.
One such horrendous level is the aptly named
Bouncy Map. That said there are a few beauties and all time favourites. The
Temple of Retribution, The Longest Yard, Hero's Keep and few others are all
memorable creations. I plan to stick to these for the next few years.
Okay. Now thats out of the way, lets get to
the real reason that Iam writing this review. The nagging problems in this game
that sometimes makes me wanna rip that geek Carmack's guts out.
The weapon switching system is totally fucked.
Theres no way in hell to prioritise the weapons, only an option to set
autoswitching weapons on or off. If you set it 'on' this is what happens:- Your
in a heavy rocket fest with a bunch of opponents. You already hit one of them
dead on with a rocket and just need one more shot to finish him off. The guy is
dodging and jumping like theres no tomorrow, and so are are you. You see him
backing into a corner to get the 25 health. Ahh now you got him. You just have
to aim at the health and he's in gib heaven. Suddenly you run into a railgun
that some fuck had dropped just moments before. You press fire. Instead of
firing the rocket launcher you watch helplessly as you switch weapons. Seems to
be taking an eternity. Before you realised its the railgun you picked up, you
see the flash of the high speed missile bearing down on you, seemingly tracking
you
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DOWNLOAD
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Get the Demo Files of my exploits in Quake
III in NIGHTMARE. Just unzip them into your Q3A Demos folder and
your away. Watch and Learn, Grasshopper.
Also check out my Ultimate Moves Collection.
You might even be able to match my advanced moves.
Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.
You might need this
model before you can run the files. Relax, its worth the get, Trust
Me.
GET
Nightmare Battles
GET
the Ultimate Moves Collection
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down and boom! youre dead.
If that hasn't happened to anyone else out there,
I'll stop quoting Star Wars lines, promise.
If you set autoswitching to 'off' you have to
maually press a button to switch between say the machine gun and the superior
rocket launcher you just picked up. This is just not fast enough.
Hey if you only play in 'I Can Win' its no
problem. But try Hardcore and above and you'll suddenly start wishing you were
playing Unreal Tournament. All that experience with Doom, Doom2, Q1, 2, got
Carmack and Co nowhere when it came to the most basic of shooter
functions.
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Great map, this. |
What else? Bot AI. Never seen a stupider bunch
of bots ever. Sometimes they stand still in the middle of battle to chat with
the others. In nightmare mode they cheat horrendously by having inhuman computer
assisted accuracy, but the're still as stupid as on the lower difficulty settings.
Seen bots actually firing the shotgun at an opponent on the other side of
the map, while ignoring another bot that keeps pumping him with bullets right
next to him.
The bots sometimes ignore the Quad while
picking up a weapon right next to it. Ignore the Quad? Get a life. Why would
you wanna rocket jump when there's a jump pad that takes you to the same place,
and nobodys around? I dunno. Ask them bots, mate.
Well blow me down, but aren't bots supposed to
be mimicking human opponents? Carmack should have paid Epic to hardcode the AI
and then some more to shut up! Man wish I had a system with a voodoo3 so that I
could play Unreal Tournament forever.
Why the hell does this thing not hav location
damage? It would be so good to have an oppenent killed faster by shooting at
the head. Curved surfaces, my ass. I need my headshots.
Whats with the announcer dude. Been
chainsmoking for a thousand years, has he? This guys just plain annoying. Just
shut the fuck up and let us fight, you idiot. His string of "You have
taken the lead', 'You have lost the lead', 'You are tied for the lead' is way
too much. Denied.
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Best map in the game. |
Sure, Quake3, is loaded with problems
(soundtrack? er, cut the music, quick) and letdowns (Oops! up again.Shit,
missed! AHHHH!) and CTF (tried it once, never again), but hey nothings perfect.
So why is it that I find myself playing more Quake3 than Unreal Tournament? Er,
probably because I don't have UT? Just the demo.
But still why did I buy Q3A and not the tried
and true Unreal Tournament? Cos my TNT2 doesn't do Unreal like it do Quake, er,
does. Also I was seduced by them curves. Never Again. [ If
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