The big one…

Setup

Well, as you can expect, everyone was pretty eager to set up and get rolling. David and I got set up in the main hallway room. Being the spoiled "l337" players that we were, id hooked us up with zippy Athlon systems, TNT2 Ultras, and 21" monitors, running Win98. My system was a 600MHz "clunker" which on default settings was able to blast through most of the game without chugging. Considering that this is one of the fastest CPUs available today, it'd better be a top performer, right?

Well, interestingly, with the advent of 3D acceleration, new generation games have been able to increase in complexity without seriously hampering hardware (well, for the most part). But the difference between Quake 2 and Quake 1 was a far cry from the flames that came about when Doom fans found out Quake just didn't like their 486s or low-speed Pentiums. The fact is that better hardware is always around the corner, and we're finally approaching the point where high resolution play will be acceptable even for the competitive player.

Start'er up

The single player game for Quake 3 is divided into 6 episodes, called "tiers." The entire game is based on free for all or 1 on 1 versus AI players, or "bots," programmed specifically to behave and play like human opponents. Each tier has four maps, the first 3 named Q3DM1, Q3DM2, etc., except for the 6th tier, which contains 4 standard maps. The last map in each tier is a one on one against a bot specializing in certain strategies and weapons, named "q3tourney1, q3tourney2," and so on, up to Q3tourney6. So that's one training map, 19 standard FFA maps, and 6 Tourney 1 on 1 maps, and 4 CTF maps.

As with most id games, there are several difficulty levels, which primarily controls the behavior and aim of the bots. The tentative names are "I can win," "Bring it on," "Hurt Me Plenty", "Hardcore," and "Nightmare." The names are subject to change, but it's likely that "Hardcore" and "Nightmare" will remain as is. Dave and I both started out on Nightmare (whee) mode, and our job was primarily to make sure that the Nightmare mode wasn't too easy to pass, or too ridiculously difficult to bother attempting. Ideally, I think id wanted Nightmare to be unbeatable, but realistically so.

First Impressions

I loaded up the game to set up my player configuration. Of course, the first thing I wanted to do is check out all of the new models and skins. We've all seen Visor and Sarge, and those lucky enough to visit the Quake 3 Bus got a quick glimpse of Orbb and Major, the eyeball and female Quake 2 marine. Well, Paul Steed and Kenneth Scott have been hard at work with models and skins, and the game is filled with a number of unique models, including "Phobos" the Doom Marine, "Ranger" the Quake 1 guy, the rollerblading "Slash" and leather-clad "Mynx," beer-gutted "Bikers," and the alienish "Klesk," "Tank Jr.," and more.

What was immediately noticeable upon starting a game was the crosshair. By using the command "cg_crosshair 1-8", you could choose from a number of stylized crosshairs, very similar to the current double-curve version in Q3test 1.08. All of the crosshairs are white, semi-transparent or fully opaque, with a 4-pixel block in the middle as a targeting reticle. My favorite of the group was a simple ring 10-12 pixels out around the dot. Of course, if there was a single pak modification id wouldn't mind players changing, it would probably be for custom crosshairs.