Sound and Interface

Pop, pop, fizzle

We were a bit disappointed that Quake 3's weapons feature some rather blasé sound effects. The shotgun doesn't sound nearly as bass heavy or impressive as it could, and the lightning gun's sound feedback has (excuse the pun) lost a lot of its thunder. The rocket launcher is probably the most ho-hum of them all with its average sound feedback. The soundtrack is nothing to write home about either - there are some decent tracks from Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly, but nothing so compelling that you'd want to drown out the sounds of battle, which can be important. As far as 3D support goes, Aureal cards with A3D 2.0 can get the benefit of 3D sound effects but we understand that this actually will eat into your framerate to a significant degree. It's not that difficult to pin down the source of sound effects without it anyway.

Nice details - bubbling, reeds, and skeleton

Who's this?

"Impressive"

On the plus side, Quake 3 rewards players with a visual and audio cue when they do something right. The announcements are actually quite reminiscent of Mortal Kombat. Getting two kills within two seconds merits an "Excellent," denoted with a little yellow seal. Hitting two straight rail shots earns you an "Impressive," from the announcer and a light blue bullseye. The seals are visible to other players in the arena (they pop up over your head), so watch out! It's human instinct for everyone else to want to knock out someone on a hot streak. Quake 3 keeps track of the number of awards you earn on a level, so it's not uncommon to see a huge row of seals on your screen if you get on a real hotstreak. Our favorite one is probably the "Humiliation!" effect that's awarded when someone gets pummeled to death with the Gauntlet. A red fist pops up on the screen for the attacker while both the victim and the assailant hear the announcer's voice. Also worth noting is the "Denied!" message you'll hear if you someone swipes a key item (like Quad) from under your nose.

Excellent!

That guy has hit two straight rails

Rough on the edges

Quake 3's interface leaves a lot to be desired. Aside from the fact that a lot of useful options (removing the gun from the screen, and other performance enhancing tweaks) are only accessible through the command line console, the menus that are available aren't exactly a joy to use. The manual does a decent job at explaining what all the options do, but a better overall layout would have been nice. For instance, loading up a map takes forever because the interface only presents you with four at a time;.hardcore players will find it faster to use the command line interface, which at least includes a tab-complete option for those times when you're not sure what a specific variable toggle is called. While useful to veteran players who have some idea of what they're looking for, this tweak doesn't adequately address the needs of your average player who probably doesn't know any cryptic command line codes at all. The lack of interface ease of use is somewhat understandable as id is a small, tight company devoted to developing the in-game experience rather than the menu interface, but in a world of increasing competition, every point counts.

The menu

The browser needs work

In-game browser or Gamespy?

The in game server browser seems nice at first - it allows you to sort games by game type, map name, ping, etc and leave out servers that are full/empty. However, you'll find that it takes forever to update the server list. Designating favorites is rather clunky; you have to actually join the server first, then access the ESC menu to designate your current server as a favorite. Another really irritating fact is that you can only see about 10 or 11 servers at a time on the list. Changing the sort method isn't possible unless you stop the server refresh and restart it too. Overall Q3's in game browser is a mess, and you're probably better off using Gamespy to find games.