Review: Q3Fortress, Beta 1c
Mod for Quake III Arena
May 26, 2000 -- Review by J
Good morning Vietnam!!! Oh, wait . . . er . . .
Hey there loyal readers (all two of you)! Welcome to my second review for The Haus. This time, I'll be reviewing The Quake 3 Fortress (Q3F) mod for Quake 3: Arena (Q3A).
The Q3F mod is being developed by, oddly enough, the Q3F Development Team, which consists of a little over two dozen members. As the name implies, the mod emulates the popular Team Fortress mods currently in existence, particularly, the Half-Life Team Fortress Classic (TFC) mod created by Valve. As this is the version of Team Fortress I am most familiar with, this is what has been used for comparison.
Basics
The Q3F is not a finished product and is still in beta form. This review will cover the current release, Beta1c. To get the most current version of TFC, you'll have to download each release and install them in order, which comes to about 11MB. As would be expected, each release improves/fixes the release before. There is no singleplayer option in the game (which would just be silly anyway).
The Q3F mod has the same character classes as TFC, though some have different names. Here's a quick rundown:
| TFC | Q3F |
|---|---|
| Scout | Recon |
| Sniper | Sniper |
| Soldier | Soldier |
| Grenadier | Demoman |
| Paramedic | Medic |
| Minigunner | HWGuy |
| Flame Trooper | Pyro |
| Agent | Spy |
| Engineer | Engineer |
That wasn't so hard, was it?
For the most part, the special skills of each class are the same, but there are a few noticeable differences.
- The Q3F Recon class has the ability to activate a scanner that shows the positions of friends and foes around them.
- The Grenadier has more options when setting his high explosives pack. It can be set to detonate in intervals of 5, 10, 20, 30, 60, 120, and 180 seconds. Why one would need this many options is beyond me, but they're there.
- The Q3F Agent does not have the ability to feign death, like TFC's Spy. Instead, the Agent has the ability to turn invisible, and can also disguise himself while invisible. This invisibility is comparable to the Invisibility powerup in the regular Q3A game, which means you are not totally invisible. You can still be seen (and fragged) by an observant player. There is also a Remove Disguise option in the menu, which I think is a nice little touch.
Like TFC, you are asked to choose your team and class when first connecting to a Q3F game. This is pretty much exactly like TFC, except the Class menu diplays the number of players playing as a particular class (TFC 1.5 is supposed to introduce this feature). However, once in the game, you'll notice the HUD is completely different.
In the upper right-hand corner of the HUD is where you'll find your Net condition graph, FPS counter, and timer. The lower-left hand corner of the HUD displays your health and ammo status, sentry gun health for engineers, and team scores. The lower right-hand corner shows your current weapon ammo status, as well as an inventory of ammunition for your other weapons. If you are playing as a Recon and activate your scanner, that will pop of right of center on the bottom of the HUD.
Maps for Q3F pretty much follow your typical CTF format, with two bases and an expanse in between. There aren't many of them, but here are a few of note:
2Mach - Special Edition: This map is a remake of the QuakeWorld 2Mach map. Like all of the available maps, it is a CTF map.
Forts: This is essentially a remake of the standard TFC map, 2Forts. However, the Q3A engine gives it an impressive cosmetic facelift.
2Night3 - The Morning After: This is a sprawling 8 -10 player CTF map. It includes, of all things, a mallard that gives you Quad Damage when found. Don't ask me, I didn't make the map.
Q3F also has a communications system similar to the one found in Q3A, where a keystroke will bring up a menu of various commands. Very nice addition, but since I know how to touchtype, I've found it a bit slow to navigate for my tastes. Still, it is a nifty tool for those who haven't been tortured by an 8th Grade typing class.
Gameplay
The Q3A engine and netcode should make this game a dream to play. Unfortunately, I haven't found that to be the case. The mod has suffered from control issues that made gameplay somewhat cumbersome, especially to someone who has never played a Team Fortress style of game before. I must note, however, that the control issues are improving by leaps and bounds with each beta release. Also, it is important to realize that the mod is still a beta.
An example of this problem was with the grenades. In TFC and Q3F, all player classes have two types of grenades in their arsenals, depending on their class. With TFC, priming and throwing a grenade is a simple matter of pressing the key assigned to a particular grenade. The first beta release of Q3F required a player to first press a key to prime a grenade, and then press another key to throw it. This was a royal pain in the patoot. Luckily, they've since fixed that problem with the later releases and all grenade lobbing-well.
The only nagging control issue that I've yet to see solved is with one of the most popular classes, the Sniper. In both games, the Sniper is armed with a lethal sniper rifle that can kill with one shot. TFC has a very effective way of controlling the rifle: a player activates the zoom, holds the fire button down to activate the laser sight, then releases the fire button when a juicy target presents itself. Poof. Instant frag. There seems to be a snag with the Q3F Sniper. As with TFC, the Sniper activates the zoom mode of the sniper rifle. But, when you hit the fire button to activate the laser sight, you get kicked out of zoom mode. This is very annoying and defeats the purpose of having a zoom mode. I have yet to see a fix for this. A small compensation is that your laser dot is in your team colors, so you can tell if the sniper dot on the wall next to you is from a sniper on your own team or the enemy's team.
The Q3A engine does wonders for the look of the game. As you'd expect, the maps look very nice. Also, the player and weapons models created by the Q3F development team look pretty spiffy and move very well. As this is still a beta, some player and weapon models aren't quite complete, but the ones that have been finished look pretty darn good. Oddly enough, the Paramedic model looks like Storm Shadow from the old G.I. Joe comic book. Go figure.
The Q3A netcode makes the game run very smoothly. I am fortunate enough to be an LPB, and have no trouble getting sub-100 pings. With Q3F, netplay is pretty much stutter-free, apparently free of some of the network issues that still plague some TFC players. I have noticed something fishy with the Q3F Minigunner. Sometimes while firing the minigun, the gun will stop spinning and seems to actually stop firing, even though I'm holding the fire button down. I don't know if this is a problem with the game itself or just a goofy installation on my machine. The problem has cropped up with all three beta releases.
Conclusions
Would I recommend the download? Well, it is free, and that's always good. If you have played Team Fortress before and are familiar with the gameplay, I say go ahead! The Q3A netcode and engine make gameplay much smoother and prettier. I think familiarity with the TF style of gameplay would make it easier for you to get over any bugs in the current release of Q3F, though sometimes it will still be a bit annoying. Hey, it's been getting better with each release, so why not try it? You can download this mod at the Q3F homepage.
If you've NEVER played any incarnation of TF, I don't recommend Q3F as an introduction to the game. It is a beta, and therefore incomplete. Any nagging control issues and bugs with the game will only serve to turn you away from the game. Instead, I'd recommend that you wet your feet by getting Half-Life, which not only has an amazing singleplayer game, but comes with TFC for free! Being essentially a complete game, it would be easier for you to become with the TF type of gameplay. If you try and like TFC, then by all means, get Q3F. Hell, by the time you get your TFC chops developed, it may be finished!
As Q3F is not a finished product, I will be fair and not give it a rating at this time. If it does get finished sometime soon, I'll update this review with a rating.
The opinions of this review probably don't reflect the opinions of The Haus admins . . . but they never listen to me anyway. Boo hoo.
