Now enter the world of Quake. The series that has been id’s baby for about five years; now the series enters its third, and arguably, best game to date. With stiff competition from other game companies like Epic Mega-Games (Unreal Tournament) and Valve/Sierra (Team Fortress 2), does id have what it takes to remain crowned as the king developer of first person shooters? Yes and no.

Quake III starts off by leaving the player in an eye-candy-induced coma. There is no game in existence that looks better than this. With dynamic lighting effects, curved surfaces, and some of the crispest textures you will ever see, id has once again raised the bar on graphics. The graphics are so good, in fact, than many newbies to the game will take a slug to the head just sitting and admiring the amazing animated textures and awesome effects. One such effect is that of the mirror effect. Quake III isn’t the first game to use the mirror effect (Unreal and Duke Nukem 3D, both used the effect), but it looks so good. The first map in the single player has you begin right in front of one such mirror. Do any action you wish, jump, strafe, or just shoot the mirror and see your reflection completely mimic you. Sure, people with low end systems will not be able to crank the textures up, and to fully experience them you need to be boasting a TNT2 Ultra card, or one of those new, super GeForce 256 cards. (For the Mac, a G3 with a Voodoo 2 or 3 is needed as a minimum for the best gameplay)

One of the many quibbles I had with Quake II was the multiplayer mode. It didn’t capture the essence of the series like the original Quake did. The multiplayer levels in Quake where tiny, with lots of confined spaces that lead to fast action paced gameplay. Quake II gave the player vast levels that, unless the server was full, you could go minutes without even seeing another person to frag. Quake III has the best of both worlds, as it should. For small capacity servers there are small maps (like the ones seen at the end of each tier, where you engage in a head to head battle) which provide fast, action packed gameplay in a small space. Then there are the larger maps (much like the open spaced levels with lots of jump-pads, and most of the capture the flag levels) which give just the right amount of space for the number of people who are playing.

The core to any FPS is the gameplay. If the keys are bound in awkward places, then the game will be less enjoyable compared to a game that lets you have full customization. Quake III: Arena helps you by letting you bind your keys to any button you wish (like most First Person Shooters), but there is not an option to load multiple configuration files for each player. If you work in an office building, or a place where your computer is used by more than one person and you are not able to use multiple config files easily, that could turn you off to the game when you keys have to be rebound every time you play the game.

For the most part Quake III: Arena is better than most of the first person shooters we have seen, but in one area the game lacks the innovation that a title of this magnitude should possess. The weapons are nice to look at, they make pretty effects, and they splatter your insides all over the place, but this is something we have all done before, and with these exact weapons. Where have we seen rocket launchers, machine guns, and shotguns before? In just about every other id game that has been released. Sure they look different but they are all there. The plasma riffle is back, as well as, the now finesse-lacking, BFG 10k (guess what BFG stands for). The BFG is no longer the super gun it was in Doom and Doom II. Missing is the traditional chainsaw/axe; now we have the gauntlet, a glowing hand-held razor blade that is supposed to humiliate your opponent by being killed by such a "low level" weapon. The only innovative gun in the game is the Lightning Gun (which has the best weapon effect in the game), but that itself is a less powerful version of the Thunderbolt from Quake I. All in all, the weapons in Quake III leave a lot to be desired.

Quake III does manage to do one thing above and beyond that of the other developers and that is to create amazing player models. The game ships with many different skins to begin play with, but they are more than skins. There isn’t one universal model that the skins are mapped on to, each player has a completely unique build, and structure. All your id favorites are there, the Doom Guy, Quake Guy and the Quake II Marine. Added are the walking eyeball (Orbb), the awesome looking alien Klesk, and about 30 or so other skins. Each character moves differently, has a different height, and will hold their weapons differently. This is the department where id really shines.

Still this is a deathmatch game that really relies on the net to get players together. Even if you don’t have an Internet connection at the moment, and still want to get the game, go ahead because id has a little surprise for you loners out there. Bots, or computer-controlled deathmatch opponents, have been included has an out of the box feature that really shines. The AI that makes up these virtual players’ minds is amazing. They duck, they run away when wounded, they go for the most powerful weapons, they snipe, and they act just like any other human player you would find on any server. The AI coding is amazing, and not even Unreal Tournament can boast better bots than Quake III: Arena.

One last and final aspect of a game that makes it fun and entertaining is the sound effects and music. The sound effects are the basic rocket explosions, gibbs hitting the ground, and machine gun fire, nothing really new here, but there are two aspects of the sound that make this game stand out. The first is the announcer with his highly devilish voice gives the game and extra kick. He announces the player’s names (bot names only) when you enter the arena, and will say certain things at triggered moments. He also voices over the tier cut-scenes that introduce the next players in the arena. The second aspect is the music. With a rock-techno tune to it, the music, is something you wish you could pop into your CD player and listen to. Unfortunately, you can’t do that. For some reason id is forcing you to buy the soundtrack separately. Why? To make more money I suppose. This is no Nine Inch Nails, but the soundtrack is one of the better ones to come out in recent months.

In conclusion, id’s Quake III is a solid addition to any gamer’s first-person shooter collection. It lacks some of the innovation of other games in its genre, but with the id and Quake names stamped on the box, it is sure to selling a million plus copies. Buy Quake III: Arena, you won’t be disappointed.