Quake 3: Revolution
System: Playstation 2
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Bullfrog
Released: 2001
Genre: 1st Person Shooter
Capabilities: Multi-Tap Compatible, Dual Shock 2 Analog & Feedback Compatible, Memory Card Compatible

Review Written: May 22, 2001

The Game

Quake 3: Arena, was a 1st Person Shooter released by Id (the same people responsible for the Doom games) for the PC to much applause, it was mostly an online, and on online version also made its way to the Dreamcast. Now a Playstation 2 version was also in the works, but it wasn’t online, so they decided to name it Quake 3: Revolution, instead. Even though this game will not be online, will it still deliver the same action found in the other Quake games? Let’s get onto the review and find out.

Graphics

Oh my God! These graphics are just breathtaking at first impressions. Everything looks so real in this game, and the graphics look nearly identical to the PC version of the game. There’s a nice variety of weapons, and all look great and have certain distinguishing features that separate them apart. The shotgun is really powerful, but has certain pauses between shots. And the rocket launcher can kill in single shots, but has poor accuracy. All the characters in the game have loads of detail and are easy to tell apart. The game runs at a smooth frame rate throughout the entire game, and it’s great there’s no choppiness like in the PS2 version of Unreal. The menus are conveniently laid out, and picking levels and characters has never been so easy. And I love these menus a billion times more with there black backgrounds than Unreal’s sky background and Tekken-ish character select screen.

Sound

You got some good background music going here, it actually doesn’t get annoying. There aren’t any voices yelling rants and threats at you like in Unreal Tournament, but that’s ok, and isn’t that big of a loss. All the sound effects are pulled off efficiently, and everything sounds proper like the gunshots, jumps, explosions, etc.

Game play

Controls, just like in Unreal, are not customizable, but you got various control schemes to pick from, and trust me, they are a lot more convenient than Unreal’s schemes. You actually got one’s that you can get use to right off the bat. You can do the many actions in here just like you can in Unreal where you can Jump, move, strafe, fire, and change weapons, all the controls are dead-on and no confusion happens at all when moving around.

For game modes we got the standard single player campaign; death match and team death match, plus capture the flag and team capture the flag, among others. Now Quake has it’s certain features that distinguishes itself from Unreal. In Quake, you have various teleports that transfer you to a different part of the arena just like that. You also can get up to 200% armor, but once it goes over 100% it gradually decreases until it’s back at 100%. Quake also has various power-ups like Quad Damage, for example. This version of Quake comes around 20 or so levels right off the bad and a dozen or so characters to choose from. Now game’s run along fine and you can customize all your options to either have a kill or time limit, but my main gripe with the game is the loading times, I mean they’re the worst I’ve ever seen. I never timed it, but I’m guessing it takes around a good whole minute to load a round, give or take 10 to 15 seconds. I mean, I remember going to the load screen, starting to watch some tv for a while, and when I go back to my game, it’s still loading.

Replay Value

Unlike Unreal, this game has user stats and ranks, so you can always see who is outfragging who by checking those out. When one player plays you can have up to 5 computer opponents playing for a total of 6 players, but with two or more, you can only add up enough computer foes to total 4 players, another little disadvantage to Unreal, where it’s 6 players total with 2 or more humans. But this game has more stuff to keep you here with a far better campaign, and more multi player modes.

In Brief

+: Nearly identical to the PC version, better modes, great weapons, no slowdown

-: Only up to 4 players total with 2 or more humans, the worst loading times I’ve ever seen

The Final Ratings Rundown

Graphics: 9.5
Sound: 8.9
Game play: 8.2
Replay Value: 8.0

Overall: 8.6

Rounded to fit GameFAQs Score: 9

Comments

Great job here, folks. Id did a standup job with the translation. Everything here, with the exception of those damn loading times, is solid. This game is slightly better than Unreal Tournament and I recommend getting this game more than Unreal on PS2. But it’s the other way around on the Dreamcast versions, however for some odd reason.

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