With id Software hard at work promoting its sci-fi shootercome- racer Rage, not to mention John Carmack’s new engine technology, you can think of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars as the last ‘hurrah’ for the Doom III engine. And what a way to bow out; with Doom III setting benchmarks of quality in all but gameplay – expanded upon in Resurrection Of Evil, Quake 4 and Prey – the engine’s biggest problem to date has been its inability to render anything beyond narrow and claustrophobic indoor corridors. But with Quake Wars, the vistas are indoors and out… and they’re massive.

Developed with multiplayer in mind, Quake Wars is Battlefield with vicious, bloody bite. A prequel to Quake II, it’s the Global Defense Force versus The Strogg. But more than that, it’s about balance. There’s always a counter to everything one side uses against the other, making Quake Wars more about opportunity than powerful weapons… although there’s plenty of room for those too, of course. There are also five classes between each side; for Global Defense Force you have Field Ops, Soldier, Medic, Covert Ops and the Engineer; and for The Strogg you have Oppressor, Aggressor, Medic, Infiltrator and Constructor.

The focus is on capturing enemy territory by completing objectives, or to defend those objectives – the game arbitrarily choosing who attacks and who defends. As you play, XP will build between both sides, which enables upgrades for the weapons, vehicles, classbased abilities and more. Random sub-missions appear as you play too, adding depth to a multiplayer-standard template; indeed, it’s something that Splash Damage is something of a master at, thanks largely to it having developed Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.

However, Quake Wars marks the developer’s first venture into full-blown and retail entertainment, and it’s a title that has to stand against not only Halo 3, but Team Fortress 2, Battlefield: Bad Company and Call Of Duty 4. Who knows who’ll win? But like our boys in the GDF, Quake Wars won’t go down without a fight.

Craig Gilmore