One would be forgiven for looking at this game and think that it is not, in fact, a superb kid's game. But I assure you, at 3 years old I was having quite a joyous time with it.

It teaches all sorts of important skills to the young mind, like "spatial reasoning" as you platform around the space levels and aim long rocket shots across the map. It also teaches you practical life lessons like "getting hit with said rocket will turn you into meat chunks, so don't play with explosives." And for today's world of ever advancing technology, you learn the most important lesson of all: how to exploit pseudo artificial intelligence.

So if you haven't started your own LAN party yet to gib bots with your children, maybe you should consider it. The memories will be well cherished.

In this game everyone is the same as you are in terms of hps, armor, movement etc. This is why you can take a fairly accurate guess at how fast the enemy can move and the shots he can take. There's no headshot multiplying the damage you inflict meaning it stays the same no matter where you hit. Since headshot isn't a mechanic and instant killing becomes hard as result, killing on sight isn't always the best choice and gameplay goals change. Some players who reach high skill to obtain perfect aim learn to stack armor etc in order to control the map instead. They learn what paths to take based on where things spawn and how to choose between mega and armor when these spawn at the same time. The armor system is pretty much the only one in the arena realm that always gives you something to do after you take an armor or something and chase after another pick up, while too many arena fps fully stack the player and send him chasing after the enemy in the middle of some map rather than having players come up with plans.

tldr, there's a million valid reasons why arena fps die but people keep coming back to old simple quake stuff to get more consistent mind reading than in most fps. It's great

We have a love/hate relationship for Quake III as a whole, while the id tech 3 engine is our favorite for its legacy of excellent early 2000s shooters, including Medal of Honor Allied Assault, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, and/or Call of Duty; it also marks the end of Quake as a single-player game.

Its damage was not as distinguishable as Quake 4, the full game was a hard hit, offering what seemed to us like an incomplete game demo. Its engine being the powerhouse used up to 8 years past its release, its a shame that its parent game did not fully benefit from id tech 3's legacy.

Quake III was more of the same, this time focusing on directly rivalling Unreal, featured many networking QoL updates, complex bots able to wander labyrinthine maps and seek cover; something not seen in Quake II (... and far superior to Unreal). Its singular death-match mode did well to showcase its curved surface, fog, and specular lighting. While Quake 3 was unrivaled in its speed, it was mainly limited to railgun and rocket launcher; Unreal 99 was a much slower game, with a far superior array of weapons.

"An Fun Arena Shooter, But A Bit Too Dated"

"Quake III: Arena" was the Quake series' departure from the traditional single-player FPS focus of the era, and instead provided a near-fully focused multiplayer experience (with some singleplayer content). While a compelling game for many multiplayer fans at the time, I was barely a fetus when this title came out and thus "just" missed the mark of playing it myself with my own barely developed hands. Thus, here I am now critiquing a game from my birth year trying my best to combine my understanding of its value to the industry with my delayed experience of playing it myself. This will be fun...

I mostly focused on the singleplayer aspect of this game since there are very few legitimate servers still in existence, and every time I tried to join one of those they would be empty or full of AFK players. Thus, my experience was with the solo arena mode...and it wasn't half bad! Granted the concept of fighting AI opponents in a random stage got a bit repetitive, but each stage was unique and provided a lot of action to get accustomed with the mechanics in this title.

The mechanics are pretty much the same as other Quake games. Here, you will pick up weapons from specific spots around each map as well as ammo from similar spots. There are some upgrades around the map as well that can make your character deal more damage or run faster, and there aren't too many that complicate the game flow or mechanics too much.

Enemies are pretty stupid at the "normal" setting (forgot the name but it was the perceived middle difficulty). They'll be entertaining and run around the map fighting you or each other, and are capable of getting some kills (mostly not on you though). Maps are designed with enough verticality and size to allow for some breathing room between fights, and the textures are about the same as Quake II's.

However, I didn't really get to experience the game's multiplayer, which is what the game was designed around. The singleplayer version of it was alright, but there weren't enough servers in my tie zone to get into games consistently, and honestly playing it this far down the line it would be lacking the original feel anyway. Therefore, I can't review the game based off of that component.

It is still a weird thing to me that ID Software decided to create a multiplayer focused Quake so early on in the IP's lifetime. While it definitely increased the game's popularity in the short-run, in the long-run it stifled the game's potential for solid singleplayer adventures like in the first two titles. I'm aware that Quake IV was somewhat of a return to form, but the lack of future sequels afterwards proved that the original formula lost its audience in ID Software's eyes.

Overall, this is a game that I can Recommend despite difficulties in actually experiencing its multiplayer components. It has a cheesy, basic, but fun solo arena mode, and the mechanics are solid, yet familiar enough to get some enjoyment out of. Try this one out if you enjoyed the first two and would like an arena style version to mess around in, but don't be surprised if there is a lack of content in that same regard. It's a classic FPS multiplayer shooter that had its day and age, but as far as solo play goes its a bit generic now.

Final Verdict: 6/10 (Above Average)

Fact is you're either a Quake III person or a Unreal Tournament person and for Quake III I fall into the latter category. While the game is perfectly fine it just suffers from not being Unreal Tournament.

The weapon selection doesn't feel quite as interesting as Unreal Tournament, the overall graphical design and aesthetic doesn't click with me as much as Unreal Tournament, its not quite as fast as Unreal Tournament is and the amount of modes available doesn't touch what Unreal Tournament can do and I know its not its fault, both games were basically created side by side and both released almost around the same time....

But I cant help it. Whenever im playing this I just know I could be playing something similar but better and that just throws the cold bucket of water over what probably should be a fun blast. I will say the lack of modes is the biggest turn-off for me on this game. Oh well. Back to Unreal Tournament I go.

If you love to shoot people then baby, this is your game. You win some lose some but get some fucking sick frags out of it!

This game is one of the greatest classic multiplayer shooters of all time. The graphics are awesome, the gameplay is a lot of fun and the weapons are sick. The campaign rocks and multiplayer is the highlight for me. So much fun!

If you love playing games like Doom, Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament then you need to play Quake III Arena. It's such a classic that is still so satisfying to play after all these years. Way better than those crappy modern day shooter games you maggots are used to! (Sorry, Sarge moment kicked in kek)

Remaster please. Bring back the golden days of shooters! We need some frags.



P.S Railgun is so satisfying to use.