QUAKE III: TEAM ARENA
Developer: id Software
Publisher: Activision
Game Type: First Person Shooter
Similar To: Quake III: Arena

Date: 01/02/2001
By: Rice

    With Quake 3 out the door and head honcho Carmack researching engine technology for the new Doom game, the rest of the id squad were just sitting around twiddling their thumbs. They then thought to themselves, hey, I bet we can milk some more money out of the public if we released an expansion pack for Quake III! Lo and behold Team Arena, the brainchild of id Software's restless employees.

    Team Arena is a rather self explainatory evolution from Quake 3 Arena. It's basically Quake 3, but more focused on team play. There's traditional CTF, plus you have three new game modes geared towards that goal:

Better graphics in Team Arena mean heftier system requirements than plain ol' Quake III.

1. One Flag CTF: A white neutral flag resides at the middle of the map. You need to get it, and run it through the opposing team's flag in their base. One Flag CTF is pretty fun, but you can easily just place a guy in the middle to snatch the neutral flag whenever someone caps it. It ends up as a chaotic race towards the center of the map.
2. Harvester: Kill an enemy, and a skull will respawn in the middle of the map. Snatch the skull(s), and deposit it in the opposing team's base. Harvester is like glorified team deathmatch. Kill as many people as you can, but in order to score, you have to deposit their skulls.
3. Overload: Destroy an obelisk with 1000 hitpoints in the opposing team's base. Overload is really tedious because the enemy respawns near their own base, taking down that 1000 hit point obelisk is tough. Plus its health respawns over time too.

    In the end, traditional CTF was still the game of choice at a recent LAN party where Q3:TA was the main attraction.

The white neutral flag from One Flag CTF.

   Along with the game modes came the powerups. It's nothing new here, because even in Quake 2 they had powerups built in for free in CTF. This time, you can't drop them and pick up a new one. They are as follows:

1. Scout: A green 'S' that increases your speed considerably. However, it disallows the use of armor and wipes out any that you had prior. Ideal for mad dashes for the enemy's flag.
2. Doubler: A red 'D'. Doubles your damage. Duh. Try to get the quad along with this one. Muhaha!
3. Guard: A blue'ish, purple'ish 'G' that when first picked up, will give you instantaneous 200 health 200 armor. Health will also regenerate automatically, but the armor won't. The best powerup (IMO) of all. If you're good, you're indestructable with this baby.
4. Ammo Regen: A yellow 'A'. Regeneates your ammo. Duh. It also enables you to shoot faster. The most useless powerup (IMO) of all. Only useful to snipers.
5. Kamikaze: A chrome skull that will detonate upon your death. You can also self-detonate it as a form of "taking one for the team". This is the most fun relic in Team Arena. The detonation it creates is massive, and will shake the entire level.
6. Invulnerability: A purple ball with a silver Q3 logo wrapped around it. When activated, you become invincible. The drawback is you can't move. You can shoot, however, which makes this the ideal relic for Overload games. Just nab it, jump in front of the enemy's obelisk, activate it, and fire away.

Heh heh... someone triggered the Kamikaze.

    And lastly, three new weapons:

1. Nailgun: It's nothing like the OG Quake nailgun. It's more like a shotgun, except it ain't hitscan and shoots out nails. Good for close range battles, but that's it. Lacks the oomph of UT's fabulous Flak Cannon.
2. Chaingun: Straight out of Quake 2, baby. It'll mow down armor-less enemies like grass, but it eats ammo like popcorn.
3. Proximity Mine Launcher: Shoots out spider-mines that'll cling to anything and explode if an enemy (or you) wanders into its proximity. Sort of like the green gloob gun of UT, except not as fun to use.

An upclose shot of the chaingun.

    id also included new maps out of the wazoo. They're all pretty sweet, especially the huge rolling terrain ones. In those, you better have at least 8 on 8 or else it's gonna be tedious. Would've been awesome if they included vehicles for those maps, but then again, that might be treading on Starseige Tribes territory. I also recommend the Vortex Portal level. Them portals are psychedelic, baby! =)

    It all sounds nice and dandy so far, until I mention that its asking price is $29.95. Excuse me? Thirty bucks for anything that could've gotten for free as 3rd party mods online? The nerve of those people. Granted, all these new additions are in-house developed by professionals, but hey, it's still a ripoff. They offer nothing even remotely evolutionary! It's all been here, done that, except wrapped in a pretty package with an id logo stamped on it and a price tag that really should be < $10.

Team Arena includes massive levels. Some even bigger than UT's Lava Giant.

    On the other end, Unreal Tournament's been more than generous. Their awesome bonus pack that included new maps, relics, character models, and mutators costed nothing more than some download time. Additionally, the base game itself already had team based game modes such as Domination and Assault. It was sort of poetic gaming justice that we closed our LAN party with a franatic UT session which was most fun I had in a long while.

    I'll stop before I turn this into a Q3 vs. UT argument again. Team Arena's fun, no doubt, but someone oughta smack their marketing department or perhaps their publisher Activision some sense. I'd recommend TA for any LAN party, but I'd slap you if you'd actually shell out dough for it....... and THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is the closest I will ever publicly recommend piracy on Rice World. =P

Going through the vortex portals is gnarly, dude!

Final Grade: C
Summary: Some new maps and new gameplay modes. Not worth the $30 price it demands.

Gratuitous Screenshots:

Slowly chipping away at the opponent's obelisk in Overload.

When you activate Invulnerability, you're protected behind a stationary electric web.