Sadly, for those people used to
teamplay in
Quake from the early days, (Such as
Threewave CTF), it feels about one step up from the
Quake III Arena CTF play, which makes it
next to worthless instead of
completely worthless.
Vital abilities that have been around forever in user-created mods for this kind of gameplay are sadly still completely absent. No dropping of weapons or ammunition, for example.
The one map that came with it is much better than the CTF maps that came with Q3A, but once again, that's not much of an accomplishment. You would think that, being two generations later than the first Quake and Threewave CTF, that the maps would also have improved. But, at least IMHO, the worst of the original 8 Threewave maps is better than the Q3A CTF maps (and so are most of the single player Quake levels adapted to CTF for that matter).
The scoring system is reminiscent of an 80's arcade game, and while that's not bad in itself, it feels completely out of place. I keep waiting to find out I've won an extra life.
I guess for people that only play the game the way it came out of the box, this is an improvement. But if you've taken the time to play any of the mods for ANY of the three Quake games, it feels like little more than another way to gain money. (Compare it with the free download of Q2CTF by id software, and tell me which is truly better)
Maybe I'm just set in my ways, expecting certain things from something called CTF, like a grappling hook, runes, the good old hammer and lightning bolt logos, and a feeling of playing as a team. Or maybe it's just that Q3CTF felt like little more than deathmatch with a couple of flags tossed in.
The thing is... I didn't download the Team Arena demo with the intent of finding faults with it. I was really interested in seeing how good it turned out. I was sadly disappointed. I'll go play Classic CTF or Q2CTF instead...