Team Arena is an expansion pack for
Quake III Arena. It adds several new playing modes to the game, including
One Flag CTF,
Overload and
Harvester. The user interface has been substantially overhauled, adding a liberal dose of
FMV eye candy and organising the plethora of options in a logical fashion. The key word though is "
Team" : all the playing modes revolve around
teamwork, and you can give your bot team members orders quickly and easily via a menu or hotkeys. The overall impression is reminiscent of a classic
EA Sports title - and of course the idea bears some resemblence to
Unreal Tournament.
It would be easy for a cynic to pass this off as an attempt to play "catch-up" with UT, or to say that this is the game Quake III Arena should have been. Although it's obviously no great breakthrough, Team Arena is a solid, meticulously designed and above all fun game. Most of the additions seem pretty minor considered individually, but as a whole this is a worthwhile investment for fans of CTF-style play. And I haven't even mentioned new levels and player models, which are up to the usual ridiculously high Id standards. Oh, and now there's a nailgun and (oh yes) a chaingun. Nice.
Saige : You seem to have a bit of a downer on this game... While I can also attest to the excellence of Threewave CTF, you must concede that it is a different type of game. Sure, I sometimes want to play huge maps with no bots in the Quake 1 engine, but a lot of gamers have moved on. Many of your points sound a bit nit-picky, and could also be levelled at UT and any other form of game trying to emulate CTF. Still, everyone is entitled to their own opinion...
It should be noted that David "Zoid" Kirsch, the originator of 3WCTF, worked at Id during the development of Q2 and Q3 CTF, but has since moved on to Retro Studios. Perhaps the new version of Metroid will be closer to the 3WCTF ideal...
Update : Something that isn't covered in the demo (and has compelled me to buy the full thing) is the inclusion of terrain maps (outdoor locations). Apparently, due to some tweaking of the engine, it is now possible to make truly enormous maps, that would dwarf anything seen in an FPS to date (although it is advisable to put some obstructions in the view - either valleys, buildings or fog - to prevent the face count becoming unworkable). By "big", I mean about the size of Wales. Alright, a slight exaggeration, but still really, really big.