79| Quake III Arena / Quake Live

Released: December 2nd, 1999

Definitive Version: PC (All major OSes); Also on: XBLA for Xbox 360, PS2, Dreamcast

Let's get this out of the way. I was originally an Unreal Tournament guy. I was introduced to that series through my cousins who, at the time, recently purchased a new PC. I was confused about the game at first because it seemed very strange as they installed some mods in the game that allowed them to play as strange characters, such as The Mask from the movie "The Mask", the Jim Carrey film. However, when they actually started playing the game it looked very cool. It was a lightening fast paced multiplayer first person shooter. When I tried the game I was hooked. Unfortunately it wouldn't be for another seven years or so before I would play the series again. When I got Unreal Tournament 2004 with my newly built PC, I fell in love. The speed, the adrenaline, and the chaos. At the time I heard about Quake III, but never really gave it a shot. I finally did after a period where I no longer had a high-end computer, and I was very surprised. Sure the game didn't have the variety of Unreal Tournament, but it made up for it with it by dialing up the speed and chaos a few more notches. And overall felt like a more competitive game as most maps were small to moderately sized  with occasional open areas designed for deathmatch. This is in contrast to many of Unreal Tournament's maps which were often huge landscapes and felt more akin to something like Halo. These two things combined made me prefer Quake over Unreal.

The gist of this game is that it is an arena shooter through and through. If you want to give someone of an example of a platformer, you give Super Mario Bros. If you want to give someone an example of an arena shooter, you give Quake III Arena. The game starts off with the player choosing which mode they want to play. The most popular mode, deathmatch, involves multiple players online moving across the map shooting one another, as they gather weapons and health until who ever racks up the most kills wins. It's a very simple concept, but it works flawlessly. Another thing that makes the game stand out from typical first person shooters, isn't just the speed, but the mobility. Players will be able to jump and hop all throughout the arena as they can go up platforms and different levels of the map in order to get to the perfect spot to raise hell on your opponents. However, the maps are designed in such a way that makes camping dangerous. There isn't a spot you can stay in too long before you won't be spotted as no place is too well hidden. All these things add up into a very frantic and fun game.

The game was updated and released as a free to play browser game on August 6th, 2010, however it was later changed to be priced at a whooping $10. What was once the most technically demanding game on the market can now be played on a Chromebook. The game is fantastic, but like all updated iterations has old fans complaining about the changes. No matter where you stand though, both games have active communities and both games are a blast to play. Almost twenty years later Quake III is still one of the most active first person shooters around. Its staying power really displays how timeless it is. With an entry price of $10, there is no reason not to at least try the game.

Man, this game has so many great memories for me.

First off, this is easily one of the best multi-player shooters ever made, if not THE best. In terms of its feel and style of play, to me this game is to MP FPS what say FF7 is to JRPG's....its just the pinnacle of what you want and something you point to and tell people THIS was where it was at, THIS is what mattered.

This game was my introduction to online shooters...I mean, talk about a dream scenario. I didn't play on the PC though...I didn't even have my own PC until like 2005. I was introduced to Quake 3 and online shooters via the Dreamcast...another reason the Dreamcast was such an important console to me. Hell, I was surfing the web and posting on forums for YEARS because of the Dreamcast....but I digress.

The Dreamcast port of this game was amazing too. Its really not much worse than the PC version. I believe it is considered one of the best PC to console ports of all time, in fact. But man, I was ADDICTED to this game. I remember coming home from work every day and just going right to my Dreamcast and Quake 3 until like 2am every day. I could not stop playing. Its funny because 4 years later when everyone was all amazed playing Halo 2 online, I was like yeah.....you guys are 4 years late you could have been having this fun a long time ago.

In terms of fast paced arena gameplay, this game is perfect. The size and design of the maps for the amount of players cannot be beat.....just constant action. The fast pace is what really impressed me...I mean going from Goldeneye and Perfect Dark split screen at 20 frames per second to this was incredible. This game released on Dreamcast at the same time as Zelda: Majora's Mask on N64 and Shenmue....and it made me hold off for months on those two because I loved Quake 3 that much.

Punk Rebel Ecks said:

Did you play the game on a mouse and keyboard attachment or on the Dreamcast controller?

Both, but I had a hard time getting used to kb/mouse at the time so I usually just played with the pad. I played the game so much I actually got really good with the pad...used to come in 1st place all the time. Once they started letting PC guys play Dreamcast guys though, it was tough. But I still used to win my fair share. That was another cool thing....you could actually play PC created maps on the Dreamcast. All this stuff that most consoles today don't even allow, Dreamcast was doing and Quake was doing. I also loved being able to go into a lobby and see exactly what maps and games you wanted to play, instead of the post-Halo 2 way of FORCING you to play whatever pops up.