| Anyone who knows me knows that I am a die-hard UT fan…or at least was. At the risk of backlash from other UT aphrodisiacs, I must dutifully admit that I have of late become a Quake III Arena fan. My conversion was a slow process, and is probably due in no small way to the frequent LAN parties that I have attended since returning to university (click here for a synopsis on the LAN party phenomenon). Still, while Quake III: Arena is lots of fun for death-match play, one can’t deny that games like UT, Tribes, and Team Fortress offered much more depth when it came to team games. While Q3A only offered a handful of Capture-the-Flag maps and options, for example, UT provided a myriad of offerings for CTF games. For those wanting solid team play, Q3A was certainly lacking. The developers of Q3A, id, obviously took this to heart. Their answer….Quake III: Team Arena.
Gameplay Q3TA is essentially an add-on to Q3A that focuses almost exclusively on team games (I say almost exclusively as some 1v1 Tournament games are included). Q3TA requires Q3A to be installed on your machine, so those of you wanting to try out some Quake team games will need to purchase the original Q3A game as well. However once installed Q3TA appears to run as a separate game, and from the get-go Q3 veterans will notice the much needed face-lift that Q3TA provides, from the interface, to the player model, to the maps. Nonetheless, the Q3 game style we have come to know and love is still there, with all the fun that it entails (by the way, Q3TA actually updates your Q3A version to include a few new features). Q3TA expands upon the usual types of team games found in such multi-player first-person-shooters. Beyond the ubiquitous Capture-the-Flag (CTF), possible game types also include One-Flag CTF, Overload, and Harvester. In One-Flag CTF, both teams battle over a single flag located at the center of each map. To score, the neutral flag must be delivered to the enemy team’s flag within their base. I found this game to be quite good and quite challenging. The strategy is quite a bit different from the standard CTF in that both teams need only concentrate on one task at a time. Unlike standard CTF, where probably half of the team runs offense and the rest defend, in One-Flag CTF, the team carrying the flag are completely on offense, and the other team is completely on defense. This of course switches back and forth rapidly as the neutral flag changes hands. It also means that teams need to stick together. Should you be carrying the flag into the enemy base, be sure to bring your team with you, because you will most certainly be met by the entire enemy team waiting for you to bring the flag to them (this is especially true if you are playing against enemy bots). Overload, my personal favorite game-type, is essentially a destroy-the-objective type of game. In place of the flags, each team has a floating skull orb which the opposing team must destroy. This is not as easy as it sounds, since the skull can withstand about 2500 points of damage before it explodes. Add to this the fact that the skull regenerates 15 damage points per second, and the fact that the enemy team will probably be more than a little ticked off if you start attacking it, and you will begin to see why Overload presents plenty of challenge. Since the default game requires the skull to be destroyed five times, believe me when I tell you that Overload games can last for a long time. This game type requires well-coordinated attacks by both teams, as well as solid defense that can provide time for the base to regenerate after incurring damage. Overload is difficult, but can be a real riot if both teams are even. |