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We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. After introducing himself, co-founder and creative director Paul Wedgwood submits me to a brief tour of their modest and dimly lit office space. This includes a glass vault reminiscent of Magneto's prison in which to house their massive 'Megaserv' server -which not only hosts their frequent LAN games, but also renders the gigabyte-straddling mega-textures used to make Quake Wars look so detailed - and the delightful corridor of concept art, which tlisplayed some rejected character ideas such as the mutilated female Strogg.
The short walk back to the meeting room then takes us past a cabinet displaying award after well-deserved award for Splash Damage's previous title, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. In all, it's really not a bad place to work. Having sat me in front of a projector screen, Wedgwood wastes no time in getting to the interesting stuff.
He tells me how the visuals have improved since their astounding E3 movie, before taking the easier route of loading up the Valley map and letting me see for myself. He really isn't lying, and while the difference might not be monumental, it's certainly noticeable.
Tlic terrain texture is far more defined, right out to the horizon. The mega-texture ensures there are no repeating tiles either - compare that to a game like Oblivion, in which detail only exists up to a certain point before turning into a distant blurry green texture. The game's maps, in terms of size, are roughly on par with Battlefield's, but in terms of scale and design, Quake Wars contains the most elaborately constructed maps of any online shooter.
Thanks to the mega-texture technology, fogging is only ever used aesthetically too - and it all runs on a machine that can run Quake 4. This is a major technical achievement for PC gaining, and as if it needs stating, one that obliterates any notions I had of the Doom engine being a useless, clunky shadow simulator. With the basics thoroughly conveyed, and the game's limbo screen beginning to burn into my retinas, Wedgwood begins the demonstration proper.
In order to show me exactly how the mechanics of the shooter operate, Valley is emptied of allies and foes alike, and Wedgwood's character stands alone in the GDF base. Currently, the CDF objective is to construct a bridge well, repair a broken bridge about yards down the road in order to move their mobile command post forward. On the far side of this destroyed bridge is the tunnel you may remember from the E3 trailer, the one that hotshot-pilot flew through.
The Strogg objective is simply to defend. My team hasn't gathered any intelligence about the fact that it exists, so currently my task is still just to secure the bridge. But one of the things that I can do as a Covert-Ops character class responsible for gathering intelligence is to deploy radar.
And so if I deploy radar Wedgwood selects the deployable radar from his weapon list, and an RTS-stylc grid appears on the ground in front of him. The interface is instantly recognisable, glowing a healthy green when it's safe to deploy it in a given area and an angry red when you'd be blocking a path. Once placed, it can even be rotated, where it remains as a holographic blueprint until a massive skycrane airdrops the desired deployable into place.
Strogg deployables, on the other hand, plummet down from orbit with a satisfying 'whumph'. In this case it's a radar dish, and it instantly picks up the Strogg anti-vehicle turret on the other side of a bridge. You see, even if I didn't know what class I was, or what I'm supposed to be doing, it tells me I can go and do this mission if I want I'm picking up missions to go and do things which help my team. Splash Damage even go so far as to loosely compare Quake Wars to World Of Warcraft, in that even though you may not understand everything the game is doing and throwing at you, you'll always be able to boil it down to some simple objectives.
These mini-missions, once assigned to you, are given to nobody else. They're class-sensitive too, which means that if you're a medic you'll get minimissions to go heal team-mates, if you're an engineer you'll receive minimissions to repair vehicles. Or you could ignore the mini-missions and concentrate on the main objective.
Respawning amid the battle once more, I spy Wedgwood standing next to the Anansi gyrocopter. I comply, sprinting in terror towards the air vehicle. So much is going on around me that it really is quite overwhelming.
Strogg infiltrators zip over buildings with their jetpack-style Icarus machines, gun-turrets blast round after round at approaching targets, everywhere things are just exploding. Despite the fact that it doesn't support as many players as games like Battlefield, the objective-based maps create focus points, battlefronts on which everybody can be found. There's very little reason to be anywhere else on the map, meaning it's insanely action-packed.
At first, it seems to handle like a helicopter: the Anansi dips forward, diving towards the lake surface before levelling off and speeding across the water and under a bridge. The Anansi's onboard systems, which I assume are programmed to feel abject terror, beep endlessly, thoroughly unappreciative of Wedgwood's near-terrain piloting skills.
He explains that by holding the control key, you can unlock your gun reticule and fire your guns and rockets in any direction - of course, this means effectively taking your hands off the Anansi's wheel, and as such it's the reserve of the more confident pilot.
The aircraft's boost feature turns it into a jet, something Wedgwood demonstrates by rocketing at full speed towards the tunnel opening at stupid-miles-per-hour, narrowly avoiding the burnt out cars and barricades inside, surprising at least two Strogg Oppressors and emerging triumphant and unscathed at the other end. He's done it at least times I'm sure, but he obviously gets a kick out of bringing a co-pilot along for the show.
An errant tester who was out of the room when Wedgwood requested immunity blows us out of the sky, and the round ends. I've just experienced Quake Wars - so that's wliat all the fuss is about. Once ejected back into the bleak Bromley evening, I grab a sandwich and head for the station. Having arrived with the pieconception that I'd be playing a game not entirely unlike BF, I've been well and truly proven wrong.
Every map tells a story, featuring progression, changing objectives and moving frontlines. It adds several more layers of depth to an increasingly rich universe, and it's the by-product of a holy union between Splash Damage, those connoisseurs of multiplayer gaming, and the legendary id. What's more, it's stunningly beautiful to boot. Not only is Quake a huge technical achievement, but it looks set to be one of the most refined, polished and successful online shooters the PC has ever seen.
Be excited. Arnout van Meer, Splash Damage's co-founder and technical director, explains: ''Technical changes to the game will remain fairly easy as the game code is very accessible.
There's a lot of potential for smaller gameplay mods, though a bigger project would take a lot of effort" Richard Jolly, co-founder and art director continues.
To go from concept to high-poly, then low-poly model to in-game, with animations on top - as well as multiple characters and vehicles and about two weeks work per asset - it's a lot of work. It's like Wikipedia, but with descriptions of absolutely everything you can do technically with the game engine and the tools that we've developed. Making a mega-texture for example, even a novice with no knowledge of the art side of things could read the documentation and be told which widgets to use in Photoshop, and how to use Terragen and those sorts of things.
Splash damage's strategic online shooter recently dipped a toe into the frosty pool of public testing, generating not only massive amounts of enjoyment for gamers who were quick enough to grab one of 60, Beta keys, but also a fair amount of publicity for the futuristic shooter.
Boo hoo. A single map, Sewer, in which the Global Defence Force us, thb good guys are attempting to infiltrate some Strogg-controlled aqueducts in order to flood them. This is achieved through the GDF sequentially deploying, destroying and hacking objectives as the invading Strogg aliens, bad guys attempt to fend them off with alien technology until the round ends. Of course, that's all a thin nothingness draped over the real matter at hand - what did the collective internet make of Splash Damage's online shooter?
Of course, they were naturally cynical. Some might even say they were caustic and unforgiving, relentlessly emptying their hate sacks on any message board that would have them. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is an excellent online shooter, and it takes only a modicum of exposure to the thing to realise this, but all criticisms, however exaggerated, are presumably built around some genuine problem with the game.
With that in mind, let us consider some of the outrageous opinions of the internet Its The Most unlikely partnership in videogame history. A small-time hunch of Kent-based mod-makers have joined forces with one of the most renowned and successful developers in the world.
What's more, with their power combined, they're creating what could just be the most visually impressive, intuitive, ground-breaking and imaginative teambased shooter the world has ever seen. The developers? Splash Damage and id Software. The game? In January , a new updated version 2. The updated demo includes changes introduced in the 1.
The original 1. The final retail version was first released on September 28, for Windows. The initial Linux release, created by id Software employee Timothee Besset, was made available three weeks later on October 19, As of , Quake Wars is the most recent id Software game to have received a Linux release.
Quake Wars utilized a modified version of the id Tech 4 engine with the addition of a technology called MegaTexture, a new texture mapping technique developed by John D. Carmack of id Software. Battlefields can be rendered to the horizon without any fogging, with over a square mile of terrain at inch-level detail, while also providing terrain-type detail that defines such factors as bullet hit effects, vehicle traction, sound effects, and so on.
A collector's edition of the game was released exclusively for Microsoft Windows on October 2, in North America and September 9, in Australia and Europe in Europe the collector's edition was released as Premium Edition. The collector's edition features the game itself, 10 collectible cards there are 12 cards, but the first two are only available via preorder and a bonus disc, which contains concept art, HD videos, interviews, artwork, downloadable icons, ringtones and music tracks.
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars free.
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