I've still not played much of the series, but I do like a bit of Quake and this is the third time it's made it onto the 1001 list, in the form of Quake III Arena.
The multiplayer scene that had sprung up from earlier titles was strong and lively enough to warrant a game that focused on that aspect of the game, and so Arena is, as the name implies, a game for the masses to shoot each other across the network with all manner of sci-fi weaponry at blistering speed.
So let's play the single player mode first.
Fun Times
Arena focuses on multiplayer mayhem so much that its single-player offering is literally a one on one multiplayer deathmatch against increasingly difficult bots. It might as well be called 'Training' or 'Challenge' or something because there's no story to follow or characters to invest in here.
Normally, I suppose I'd be a bit disappointed at that. I like a story, I like good characters, I like wanting to know more about the people, places and things that many games present. But I know none of that matters here, which leaves the underlying gameplay to be front and centre instead - and it's a good job I like it just as much.
Arena in a nutshell: Pick up the things. Point the things towards an opponent. Press the button. Put another number on the scoreboard.
The HUD: Familiar. The weapons: Familiar. The controls: So familiar I didn't even look at the defaults. I just hopped in and hoped we were good to go. Move, jump, quick weapon selection... we're good. Arena is what I expect.
It's a little dark in places, though I wonder how much that is to do with my settings as much as it is to do with the environments themselves. Like the two previous Quake titles, they're a blend of the past and the future. Metal castles, littered with bubbly ammo crates and health pickups.
They're a bit silly looking back, but it seems like a breath of fresh air when you're used to 'realistic' pickups in modern shooters. It's an arcade shooter that doesn't need to make sense. Of course the health pickup is a bubble that's easily visible from the other side of the room. Of course the weapons rotate like they're on display. Pick them up and shoot them already!
A few minutes into my first fight and I'm the clear victor. Fantastic. There's a lot of rust to shake off, and sensitivity to adapt to, but if this is the level of competition in the single player, I'm going to be fine.
Promisingly, in the second fight, my opponent, Phobos, saw it fit to kill himself with a rocket launcher early on, giving me an even better chance of winning the round.
Frustrations
Ah. I may have underestimated the ability of this Phobos fella... Suddenly, Arena started taking things seriously. It got harder. Faster than I wanted to. I need to up my game.
Arena rewards players who can aim straight, obviously, but also those who can anticipate and react to where players are likely to be. In an empty map bar Phobos and myself, every sound is a clue to where your opponent may be. Did I just hear a door open? Was a pickup just picked up? Is that splashing down below?
Knowing a map inside and out would reveal all these great secrets, but I don't know the level and I suspect Phobos might just do.
After one death, I found myself spawning right behind him as he ran around a corner. Perfect. I'd only have the bog-standard machine gun to work with, but I've been given such an advantage that future games would have to consider the idea of safe spawn points, starting characters away from the action as much as possible. But not here. Here I am one frag away from match point.
Or not.
And then it got worse. The round was at risk of being lost. The second stage of the single player mode, on one of the easier difficulty levels.
Through what I can only attribute to a fluke, I finished the fight on top. It had felt like twenty minutes since I started it, what with the running around an empty map looking for someone likely doing the same.
Right. That's enough of that. I'm ready for the carnage that is multiplayer. Not against humans, mind. God no. I want to frag and get fragged back, sure, but at a reasonable ratio. I'm doing this for fun, you know. Bots it is.
Further Fun Times
This is what I've been waiting for. I should have done this first, really. Spawn in a bunch of ridiculous looking bots, pick a level that sounds good - Q3DM11, for example. A name that rolls off the tongue - and get fragging.
A skeleton fires a lightning gun at an eyeball with legs. Doom guy shotguns an alien and I run around mopping up the stragglers as best I can. Lives are measured in seconds when everyone is after everyone else, and the target number for the win or the time you've got to get the most are all configurable by the host.
You can fine tune and play the type of multiplayer game you want, and it this is Arena. Carnage.
But it's not just kill or be killed. You can kill or be killed as a team if you want, but my second match would be one that I've always wanted to play, ever since reminding myself that Arena had this map and mode after watching a recap video of the series: Capture the Flag.
Capture the flag, with actual flags, on a map that only makes sense in a video game that doesn't really care about making sense. Is this the absolute height of first-person shooters? Is it all downhill from here?
After a slow, bumbling start, I get my head around the concept of bottomless pits and bounce pads and start to make some progress. I even play the fecking objective, which is a novel concept for some of the random strangers I've been paired with in modern shooters. After it clicks, we storm away with the victory, my bots and I.
Final Word
But Arena shouldn't really be judged on its bots. You can easily have both a fun and frustrating time with them, and if you just want a quick blast in a deathmatch of one description or another, then Quake III Arena, even after twenty years, can offer it.
I didn't dive into playing against people, mostly because I can't be dealing with the utter stomping I expect to receive upon finding and joining a server. But there are still players out there keeping the game alive. They're probably much better than you. Bear that in mind.
Arena plays like I thought it would, and that's great. It's slick, simple, and lets you get stuck into what you want to do without any hassle. It comes from a simpler time, where games were games and not 'experiences', and from time to time that's exactly what we need.
I'd like to tart up the visuals a little, to really get blown away by the game, but even amongst the smudgy darkness of my current settings, the frantic nature of the game shines through. Run and gun and snipe your way through the competition in a throwback to the good old days of multiplayer shooters.
Arena is a must play. It doesn't feel revolutionary on its own, but it's the start of something that is.
Fun Facts
Not that I was aware at the time of playing, but you can chat to the bots who each have their own personalities and responses. Telling one of them that 'You bore me' elicits a response of 'You should have been here 3 hours ago!'
Quake III Arena, developed by id Software, first released in 1999.
Version played: PC, 1999.