Unreal Tournament, £29.99 Quake III Arena, £29.99
ID software changed the face of gaming when it released its 3D shoot'em up Wolfenstein 3D back in the days when a 286-based PC with 1MB of RAM was decent hardware. Doom and Doom II followed and in more recent times Quake and Quake II ruled the roost in the genre, despite the best efforts of others.
Unreal was released during Quake II's reign but, while excellent, it didn't manage to usurp Quake II. Things may be about to change, however. With Quake III Arena Id has again released a superb first-person shooter, but Unreal Tournament may be better.
Until now, first-person shooters were fundamentally about the player entering a level, shooting down a number of enemies inside it and collecting keys to progress to more areas. They also included a multiplayer mode, playable via a local area network or the Internet against other human players. This was the most enjoyable aspect of both games and these games reflect that.
The only enemies in the latest offerings are simulated human players or "bots" in single-player mode or the real thing in multiplayer mode. In singleplayer mode, Unreal Tournament is superior to Quake III because it has more options. As well as "deathmatch" and "capture the flag" games, there are "last man standing", "domination" and "assault" modes of play.
In the latter, for instance, you and your team of bots (they take your orders) have to attack a base, completing certain objectives en route. Another team of bots defends the base. After you have captured the base or time runs out, you switch around and endeavour to defend the base. The winning team is the one that manages to have captured the other base in the shortest time.
Quake III doesn't include such options nor does it let players use the "mutators" found in Unreal Tournament. One of these mutators ("fatboy") can be used to handicap better players. The more frags the player scores the wider a target he/she becomes. On the other hand, a player who is getting fragged constantly becomes thinner and a smaller target.
Another mutator, instagib, leaves only one ultra-deadly weapon available. It frags instantly with one accurate shot. No time is therefore wasted with players running around looking for health packs to regenerate them.
Id, though, has never been enamoured by such bells and whistles, instead opting for a very solid game engine. In time there will be lots of Quake modifications available on the Web. Quake III, like its predecessors, is simple and to the point and for pure quality and rawness it is still the master.
Comparing two fine games like these is hard. The dual-action feature of all weapons in Unreal Tournament, however, means that GT Interactive did enough for the underdog to frag Quake III in a tiebreak.
[Rec: P266/64MB/3D card/Win9x]
Cheats
Quake III
Activate the console by using the tilde () key and enter /iamacheater to unlock all arenas in skill level 1 and enter /iamamonkey to unlock all arenas in skill level 100.
Unreal Tournament
Activate the console by using the @ key and enter the following codes:
IAMTHEONE - Open cheat mode
GOD - God mode
LOADED - All weapons
ALLAMMO - All ammunition
BEHUNDVIEW1 - View player from behind