Quake 3 male models show a Clint Eastwood inspiration, which is nice...
...but unless you opt for the fat models, they all SMOKE, which is bad and a damn strange thing to code!
Quake 3 development invested loads of time on natural curved surfaces, via what remains a polygonal 3D engine. The game itself is full of objects who try to show the higher detail. Shame about the playability.
Unreal Tournament KICKS Quake 3
The original Quake was a gigantic leap in PC gaming. Not quite because of its 3D graphics, but really because of its multiplayer support, still superb and preferred by many to its equivalent on Quake 2. It should be stressed that 3D worlds with absolute freedom are present since Interplay's Descent, and that immersive first person action has seen deeper quests since the original System Shock, meaning that Quake - despite being credited for too much stuff - only represented a practical true revolution in networking.
Quake 2 still is somewhat controvert. Many, many players find the original Quake more addictive. At least, I do find it much more atmospheric. Quake 2 is claustrophobic, without adding fear and without the spice that drives you all night long, like Doom did... or does. Yet, the biggest argument against Quake 2, is that the increased scene complexity, brings a much higher ping latency when networking machines under different traffic and bandwidth contexts... so gamers don't enjoy multiplayer wars, as they used to... It can be said that Quake 2 is more of a single player game.
In order to deliver something different, ID software, first decided to make Quake 3 a multiplayer only experience... but it soon changed its mind, adding bots to the equation, in order to allow not-interneted folks to enjoy the blood fiesta.
ID lost the 3D engine war to Unreal's engine, which, despite being almost one year old, still delivers greater visuals than the yet to be released Quake 3... Of course Quake 3 features the curved surfaces novelty, but the truth is that such technical feature does NOT translate in richer scenarios. More: Unreal's solution manages to interpolate smooth curves very well... thus rendering the gorgeous world that Unreal still is, relative to nowadays' alternatives! Just wait for the Unreal 2 engine...
But let's stop this graphics talk! After all, games are supposed to be played! GTA2 is the greatest proof how relatively elementar graphics can build the most addictive game!
Blunt and direct: Unreal Tournament [UT] demo plays MUCH, much better than Quake 3 [Q3] test demo... In fact, I simply can't believe the kind of ridiculous play mode that ID is building and nearly releasing! Go ahead and download the massive Q3 test demo [win32 50 MB], then compare it to UT's demo, available on many magazines' CDROMs...
Q3 just plays like a kangaroo! If you try to play against bots harder than the first two difficulty levels, you will have to face an adversary that jumps & jumps & jumps... and runs like a locomotive, across a scenario of very unreal proportions: for example, you have many arcs [curved surfaces showing...] that were supposed to represented immense buildings, but the fact is that you AND your opponent CAN NOT both fit the arch passage! How stupid! It is like a level designer building the Notre Dame Cathedral, and then include on that same 3D world a person that is as high as a T-Rex! What a basic mistake! Bring back Doom!
It is so frustrating trying to fight "with a brain" in Q3... the bots just come from everywhere, shooting all around, and always screaming, at a speed that just does NOT give you time to appreciate the curved things, or even to notice any design difference, relative to the other Quakes... There are corridors... there are stairs... there are NOT open spaces... and the sky moves as fast as the bots, with clouds running @ some 200 mph! Odd!
Q3 doesn't feel right. It is way too hard, way too unrealistic, way to cartoonish, nearly unplayable, when fighting the best bots, and featuring a tech novelty that adds zero to the fun. Q3 is not fun. That is very bad.
They forgot a learning curve, and the fact that the test demo says "for mature audiences only", is just a way of having an excuse against these obvious flaws, ie, only very hardcore Quakers are enjoying the current Q3 development. I just hope the game's playability gets a complete revolution, very soon.
On the other hand, UT is brilliant! It is just brilliant! I will get back to this game very soon now, but the games you play against bots are lovely, and can be fought in a kamikaze or more cerebral way. Plus, you can shoot from a distance, the scenario's proportions feel right, the audio is superb [Q3 test demo crashes on most PCs, when using high quality audio...], and the bots feel very human... I would say they are the best approach I've seen to a Touring-test-approved-bot :)
Team playing is so perfectly achieved, that you experience it with a joy that nears your very first capture the flag excursions!
It really is just like I wrote in the beginning: UT completely kicks Q3! Q3 is very, very much behind of UT.
Unreal Tournament male models are more refined that Quake's. More important: they are more imaginative, better looking and move in a more realistic fashion.
UT's greater refinement is very obvious when trying to hit your adversaries from long distances. In Quake 3, you can only fight almost skin to skin... even the good old rocket blasting lost its magic! ID - what have you done?!
Unreal's weapons were accused of NOT delivering enough power... That is all fixed @ UT. The softer weapon kicks like a horse and is as noisy as HELL! It does feel devastating! In short, UT development was 100% directed towards great playing!