"For Straight Up Deathmatch, This Game Owns You!"

If your pretty sure you want this game and really don't want to read through the rest of this review to get the big picture, I'll get straight to the point, this is the very best console first person shooter I have ever played. And don't think I haven't played my fair share of FPS games either (console or PC). My resume of fps games is actually quite lengthy, including the likes of Golden Eye, Quake 2, Doom 1, Doom 2, Duke Nukem, Half-Life, Medal of Honor, and Starsiege: Tribes. For those of you still uncertain if you want to throw your hard earned greens at this game (hey, I can't blame you, the Dreamcast release list is overloaded with tripple-A titles coming out all over the place), then scroll on down for a point to point explanation on all of the Q3:A goodness you can handle.

Graphics- Oh mama, these graphics are really really nice, some of the best I've seen yet on Sega's little machine. Although I don't think the frame rate is quite at the 60 mark, it's definitely higher than 30, possibly in the upper 40 to 50fps area, which for the graphics your getting is a Godsend. Everything is in high resolution except the explosions from the rocket launcher, but it looks normal for this kind of game so don't worry about it. 9/10

Sound- The sound is great also. If you like rap music you might not like the background music in this game, because if you've played any of the previous Quake games, you know that this game lends itself a lot more to hard rock and metal. Since this kind of music is fine with me the BGM sounds fine, very fitting for the game. The sound effects are also outstanding. Even though none of these weapons are real, if you could imagine what they would sound like, the game will sound head on with your expectations. 8/10

Gameplay- Now for an FPS game, this is a very important area. Take for example, Golden Eye. While it doesn't have the best graphics, and certainly not great sound, the gameplay is really what makes it a classic. In Q3:A, I'll just say that the gameplay is BETTER than Golden Eye. That in itself is a major accomplishment for any development house. The weapons are so balanced that you can basically just run around and whenever you pick up a weapon and it automatically switches to it, you'll still be able to go toe to toe with someone with any other weapon (with the exception of the gauntlet and the BFG10K). That's freakin' good if you ask me. 9/10

Replay Value- I have two words: online play. Period. Online play gives the game unlimited replay value right out of the box. This may also be a deciding factor for many people. The only other FPS game I've ever seen with this much replay value are the Team Fortess Classic and Counter-Strike mods for Half-Life. If you don't have a connection to the internet, this game will not be as good as I'm making it out to be. Not half as good. The one player mode is only good because you can unlock cheats with it to use in multi-player (offline), other than that, there's no story or anything to keep you playing the one player game. So, if you don't have an internet connection and you don't have any friends (well, some of us don't), then this game will be a horrible purchase for you. But if you do have an internet connection (you don't even need friends if you have a connection) then the lag free online mode will send you straight to heaven. BUY THIS GAME! 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/09/01, Updated 01/13/01