The Quake franchise is almost 15 years old now. It has had unrelated sequels and countless unofficial ports. Next to Doom, Quake is an incredibly well known series. Sometimes, just saying the word “Quake” brings upon a nostalgia that can only be described as unforgettable. Countless weapons, characters, and maps create a gaming experience that is second to none. Frag after frag, Quake’s death count rises. And this title is another successful notch in Quake’s belt of games.
Upon starting up the game, you are welcomed with a menu screen that gives you the basic options. To my surprise, I found a single player mode. I laughed. Who would play a Quake Arena game by themselves. I dismissed it, and clicked on Multiplayer. Then, I waited… and waited. After countless retries, and restarts, I gave up trying to enter into a game. I thought it has to be a glitch, or at least a server issue. But, I researched online and noticed there were roughly 1,500 registered downloads of Quake Arena. So, that explains the lack of multiplayer gaming. Sort of depressing.
I was forced to quit the multiplayer attempts, for now. I backed out of the menu and, against my initial hesitance, clicked on the single player mode. Ugh. Quake Arena… single player.
The single player game is setup into what looks like a progression tournament. You start at the beginning arena and defeat your opponent. After you win, the next arena unlocks and you repeat the cycle until you arrive at your final boss fight. Which I guess isn’t a tournament at all. Each arena along the way allows you to personally change the difficulty. When selecting an arena you can use the LB and RB to change the difficulty from a 1-5 scale. From what I’ve noticed, the AI reacts the same way on all difficulties. The only change is their firing accuracy. On level 1, they have a very nice spray. They seem to have a 15% accuracy rating. While on level 5, it seems to be a 85% accuracy rating. This becomes problematic considering the speed of the game gave me no other option, but Spray and Pray.
Speaking of gameplay, the game is very simple. Frag the enemy, win the arena, progress. This is much easier said than done. Quake games are known for being much faster FPS by comparison. It is by no means as fast as Unreal Tournament. But, if you are fresh from playing Halo, or Doom, then be prepared to lose focus of many, many things.
The enemy AI is something else of an annoyance. I haven’t played a FPS that wasn’t multiplayer for quite some time. So, I was treating the single player, too much, like an online match making game. I expected the AI to confront me when we spotted each other. I expected much more human characteristics from it. I was wrong on all assumptions. The AI seems to progress on a path. All around the arena. I had to be in a pretty close proximity for him to want to shoot me. I found that odd. Also, the AI opponent never, EVER took his focus off me. He stuck to his path, continually look directly at me. That was a little too creepy. He would watch me as he took perfect corner turns, traveling in and out of doorways, circled to grab armor and ammunition. Just not real.
After I got annoyed enough with the single player, I eventually made my way back to attempting a multiplayer game again. To my surprise, I found a match very quickly. After it started, the gameplay was smooth, I could anticipate my opponent actions a little better, because they were real people, not AI. There wasn’t any lag, no complaints at all. So, if you are going to play Quake Arena, play online. Exactly how it was intended.
Quake Arena Arcade is 1200 Mega Space Pennies. That is a very steep price for what you get. The single player is very repetitive, and the online mode isn’t large enough to guarantee a game. This game will be great if you have two of three other friends to convince and buy it. But, that comes with the territory of every online multiplayer game.
Score: 6 / 10
Quake Arena Arcade was developed by Pi Studios Id Software and published by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 on December 15th, 2010. A copy of the game was provided to us by Bethesda for reviewing purposes.
