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Quake III for the PC marked iD's branch out into a more multiplayer/online orientated game. When Quake III Revolution (Q3R) was ported over to the PlayStation2 you can see how it is not aimed at the single-player experience. Nevertheless, the port managed to captivate the player quite well - and the multiplayer aspects of the game will keep longevity relatively decent.

The AI also proves to be ideal for all levels: from the beginner to the clinically insane.

Graphics

While the graphics are nothing short of impressive technically, they do not pull off the sort of realism that could be achieved. It seems like they are trying too hard with the little visual effects: everything shimmers or glitters or moves or does something impressive if you sit and look at it, but when you're flying about at 60fps it makes the atmosphere seem forced.

Also, some effects look painfully two-dimensional. The explosions, weapons effects and blood can look very out of place, but again you do have to be paying attention to these sort of details...and when you're actually playing the game, they whizz by at such a rate it isn't an issue.

Gameplay

Once you've worked your way through the 5-tiers (of 5 levels each) you still have all the multiplayer features of Q3R to use. Q3 supports up to 4 players through split screen support. I cannot see anyone playing with 4-players on anything but the largest of TV screens, though. It is ashame that a game so focussed on multiplayer support doesn't support the iLink interface. This would have allowed people to connect up their PS2s and play Quake together on separate TVs - much more fun.

Another quip I'd have about the game would have to be the controls. While they are generally quite good, I find I cannot look about very easily, which is very important when using a weapon like the railgun. The game relies on the analog sticks for movement and looking (digital pad can be used for movement too). This though is not optimal, since you cannot fire and look at the same time - a fatal problem. While the game provides several controller configurations, none of these provide decent looking capabilities. I would have liked to have assigned the L2 and R2 buttons to looking up and down, L1 and R1 strafing and discarded the crouching and zooming capabilities. I could fire, look up and down, while side-stepping and turning in any direction!

In all honesty, there isn't that much to say about the gameplay in Quake III - it is the same as all the others! Unlike a game like Tomb Raider, this is a good thing since it rests on a simple shoot-your-friends sort of principle! I did find though that after playing the game for a few weeks, the appeal of the game diminished. The controls present enough of a problem to put me off the game, since the gameplay is nothing really to write home about.

Artificial Intelligence

The bots had excellent "knowledge" of the rules of the various games that can be performed, and seem to act relatively decently in cooperative mode too. I've seen no group behaviour exhibited, but they do try not kill each other! In cooperative, I sometime found that they tried to stay closer to each other making it a little "close for comfort" at times. You'd have perhaps 3-4 members of your team crowding you: which is good in one way, since you're less likely to be at the other end of a rocket, but it also hindered your passage.

I've also seen a bot use the gauntlet (think of a small chainsaw attached to your hand) at medium-range, it looked like it thought it was strafing back and forth, but it had no ammo, therefore just aimlessly fired it's gauntlet - my railgun fixed that.

On the upside though, the bots do all sorts of cool things: from running backwards while shooting, jumping from side to side in railgun battles, competently collecting health and ammo, jumping ledges, even swimming. The bots are definitely some of the more impressive AI agents I've seen in an FPS. If they had the group behaviour that the soldiers exhibited in HalfLife: Opposing Forces I would have been very impressed.

Conclusion

	8.0
	Platform: PlayStation 2 Liked: Decent graphics, good bot AI, a lot of levels, somewhat varied gameplay. Disliked: Lacked longevity, no iLink support, simple. .: Buy at Amazon.com :. .: Buy at Amazon.co.uk :.