Sleep is for the weak! Or so say the Cobra Kai-inspired developer id Software and publisher Activision as the motto for their new and much anticipated ultimate deathmatch game, Quake III Arena. After hour upon hour of intense deathmatch and capture the flag play, we must disagree. Sleep is for those with strong enough willpower to drag themselves away from a game of Quake III Arena. Does it live up to the hype? Yeah, you betcha. Is it incredibly fast and furious first-person shooter action? Uh huh. Do we grin evilly and relive glorious victories in our heads every time we see turkey giblets at the supermarket? You'd better believe it. Are the graphics the best in a first-person shooter we've ever seen? Absolutely! Is it the purest, most hardcore deathmatch experience ever? No doubt. Quake III Arena rocks, and here's why.
Quake III Arena's graphics are just plain gorgeous. We're pretty sure most of you have downloaded at least one of the test demos that id released over the past several months. But if you haven't done so, and if you haven't gibbed a camper at 1024x768, and if you have not seen the entrails fly in that macabre ballet of bloody body bits that only Quake III Arena can produce, then you just do not know the meaning of the word "gib!" The explosions are great and weapon shots and gore are the best ever, but we're going to break it down even further. We see three major strengths in Quake III Arena's graphics: the use of curved surfaces, excellent and creative use of brilliant 16-bit and 32-bit textures and the wide variety of complex character models to choose from. Read on for our lascivious descriptions.
The first major strength of the Quake III Arena engine is its ability to draw curved surfaces. Did you ever wonder why you never see curved surfaces in 3D games? The reason is, it takes more polygons to make a curve than a corner, polygons that rob processing power from the never-ending quest for high frame rates. Well, id apparently thought there was enough power available on high-end systems to make curves happen and good thing too.