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Cranky Opinions: Quake Wars

Welcome to the Cranky Opinions section. I'll post some user opinions on various games/news from around the net.

The first game to feature in Cranky Opinions is Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

Cue the opinions!

They made a point of including many features lifted straight from BF games. Obviously they wanted people to be familiar with these features, and obviously there was a reason they were expecting people to be familiar with vehicles, defibrillators, supply crates, and the like. The UI arrangement, the weapon load outs, all of them bear a VERY strong resemblance to BF2/142.

Their publicity worked. They attracted the interest of the BF crowd. Go look at some of the screenshots littering the site. A large amount of them show a small team working together, taking cover, and the like. They aren't strafing back and forth wildly or jumping through the air or running around full-sprint at 40mph while blowing people away with an LMG.

Suddenly, the beta comes. All these people see that the game isn't anything like what they were told it would be like. And it wasn't word-of-mouth. Splash Damage created and allowed those ideas to form and ferment. They never said the game was going to be an arcade-style completely non-tactical run-and-gun fast-paced bunnyhopper shooter. If they had, people wouldn't have these complaints.
I will buy it if i see some changes though. the thing is i already have quake 3 and quake 4 on my machine for this type of game play, which does it much, much better.
I didn't expect it to be slow like BF.. good god no. But I also didn't expect it to be a twitchy, bunnyhopping, strafehopping game.. not when it has all the elements to be a better faster and still tactical/strategic game. The speed is out of place in this. It's not a BF killer because BF for all of it's woes, it does what it's trying to do right (whether or not we agree.. it does).

This game won't pull much of the BF crowd...which is sad because it has all of the elements to do it.

It's not all bad though:

You'll find that most of the community are made up of ET and RTCW fans, hence some of the disappointment - something you'll always get when a game with such a loyal fan base goes through some changes. It's not 'everyone' either, a lot of people are enjoying Quake Wars a great deal.
Sure there is sound / texture quality issues and jerky animation at present but overall i liked my experience.
After going through the walk through on sewers and getting a gist as to what is going on it clicks. There is good structure to combat and it feels like a real struggle when you lose a control point or re-defend it back. It doesn't seem like the regular free-for-all like most massive fps's, I know some might miss that but this is a lot better, trust me.

Overall it seems like it's a solid enough game, but not one that's likely to steal the hearts of Battlefield 2 fans. The thing that interests me about the whole thing is how the game was advertised. I didn't follow every preview of the game, but I did assume that it would be somewhat similar to the Battlefield series. Was I wrong to assume that? If you read the first quote again, you'll see the point made about the screenshots on the official site. The screenshots do allude more to a BF2 type of game without bunnyhopping. The videos were loading slowly so I didn't take the time to look at them, but I'd imagine they'd be much of the same.

4 comments

Anonymous , 24 June, 2007

It's way too fast and frantic. No way i'll be buying it.

Anonymous , 25 June, 2007

I thought it would be like BF but it aint. Like that guy above said its way too fast and all over the place.

Anonymous , 27 June, 2007

Its ok but i wont buy it.

Anonymous , 10 July, 2007

i like it. you shouldnt have expected something it was never supposed to be.

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