Quake 3 Revolution
Review of Quake 3 Revolution
Quake III Revolution is a first person perspective shoot-em-up set in the mould of past frenetic titles such as Doom, Duke Nukem and Exhumed/Powerslave. However, I think it best to warn you early on that the gameplay strays away from what may be considered by many as the norm.
In the past these types of games requested the player to slip on those bicycle clips and venture through several dingy demon infested catacombs from Hell. Around every corner your worst nightmare was expected to pounce from the shadows and let rip with a barrage of fiery fireballs, leaving the main objective to shoot everything in sight or simply survive to the end of the level. Most of these games, as a bonus, provided some sort of split-screen or link-up Deathmatch mode to expand lifespan. This obviously worked a treat because the first Playstation game I acquired was Doom and almost 6 years on I still enjoy the occasional blast on link-up.
Lets be kind and say that Quake III attempts to break new ground for a fps (first person shooter) by offering nothing more, and nothing less than pure, unadulterated Deathmatch. It could be argued that there are several variations; capture the flag, elimination, skirmish, etc. but generally should you frag the most opponents, then the level is yours.
What..? No single player mode..? I hear you gasp.
Well this is the clever bit. 26 lavish arenas have been thoughtfully prepared for a single player campaign. Simply select one of the 5 varied warriors (each with individual attributes) and prepare to enter a multi-leveled arena for a battle against a set number of bots (CPU controlled characters). As a level slowly loads up, a simplified description of the current challenge is shown on screen. Your character is then warped into an arena littered with weapons, ammo, health orbs and armor. The chase immediately begins… searching out opponents, while grabbing any power-ups in your path. Once an enemy (or your own character) has been killed they randomly regenerate elsewhere… minus the gathered goodies, of course. The mayhem continues until the campaign scenario has been met. Sort of a beat-em-up-shoot-em-up!
For example, Kill Vs Time involves fragging a set number of enemies within an allowed time (10 to 15 mins). Possession instructs you to keep hold of the flag for a certain amount of time (2 out of 10mins) whilst several bots do their damned best to snatch it away… using bullets of course. There are five tiers of five challenges culminating in an Elimination round, a battle against the toughest opponents from the previous tier… sort of a mega Boss shoot-out.
As a multiplayer game Quake III Revolution allows up to four human players to frag the hell out of each other in a 4-way spilt screen mode. Furthermore, if only 1 or 2 players take part then 5 and 4 bots can join in respectively. There are 41 selectable characters to choose from, or you can add your current single player character to the list. Theres even a Multiplayer League table that logs the records of all your game characters, so you can set up your very own Clan matches.
Porting the graphics across from the PC version onto PS2 was no mean feat, but rest assured that cometh the day when the medals are being handed out the Bullfrog team will be standing proudly in line with their chests pushed out. Not only have they managed to get everything running smoothly at 60 frames per second, but also theres barely a slip when all-out chaos hits the TV screen. The character models move around like greased lightening making a challenging target whilst retaining every shapely detail perfected for the PC version. Even the hand-held weapons of destruction look excellent with some awesome lightening effects when fired.
The playing arenas have to be seen to be believed with all of the PC levels immaculately replicated, plus five PS2 exclusives. Design has obviously taken precedence in their original structure and I was overjoyed to see that the spring platforms that hurtle characters high into the air were in abundance. There is no sign of any pop-up or aliasing, while the only visible sign of fogging is in those levels deliberately shrouded in mist. Its so much better when fog is meant to be there, dont you think? The net result is a game that successfully pushes a high end PC product into the memory footprint of the PS2, while retaining all the detail, texture resolution and speed of frames.
With so much action going on it would be easy to miss out on the high quality sound effects. Heavy rock music has always been the perfect accompaniment to shooters and blends perfectly with the gravel voiced commentator who racks up the current frag totals and clock countdown. If you have a good quality hi-fi system then the weapon effects may just cause your neighbor to call in the troops, because it will truly sound as if a full-scale war is going on in your pad.
Overall, Quake III Revolution is a worthwhile port of an awesome game. Ignore the bitching youll hear about this not being Internet compatible, because if thats what you want then go buy the PC version. This is purely for those who cant be bothered with low pings, occasional lag, push latency, inferior 56k modem connections, compatible graphics cards, approx 2 minute Deathmatch lifespan… and all those other niggles that raise their ugly head with online gaming (Counter Strike rules!).
OUR PLEDGE: We promise that we have fully played 'Quake 3 Revolution' before writing this review. The scores given above are our honest opinion and were not influenced in any way by the manufacturer or distributor of the game.
This review was written by Martin © Absolute PlayStation
Click here to view our 13 Quake 3 Revolution in-game screenshot slideshow
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