It was then that I, under the knowing tutelage of id designer Jerry Keehan who was standing over my right shoulder, 'chuted into my spawn point after death by turret as a crafty field ops specialist. I opened up my construction tool and selected an artillery turret.
An RTS-style 3D blueprint appeared in front of me red where it couldn't be placed, green where it could , and I set it down where I thought it would look the prettiest. Now, in a perfect world a fellow specialist would have climbed to higher ground, raised his binoculars and called in a strike on the troublesome turret from my proud artillery confabulation. But what actually happened was that I spent so long fiddle-arsing around with my turret that a rival GDF turret must have been constructed elsewhere, meaning that the enemy encampment was long-destroyed, the mobile command point had already stretched out Metroplex Transformer-like and the battle was far progressed.
Resolutely undaunted however, I purloined a nearby Anansi Copter a wonderful creation that sits upon the divide between being a rotor-driven hovering machine at low speeds and a jet-powered dogfighter in higher gears , and helped the battle effort by neatly crashing into the walls of the Strogg enclave. It's not even like the flying vehicles are of a 8F2-level of skill-driven difficulty -I was just having a crap day.
You see, the idea of having the mobile command point set up beyond what was formerly the Strogg Tunnel o' Death was so that missiles could be fired upon the Strogg stronghold's shield - thus leaving the heart of the alien operation open for soldier classes to rush and leave explosives in. The final battle was most definitely on, and Enemy Territory's cunning map design and spawn placement meant that I was never far from the action.
Occasions in which you're stranded Battlefield-style on the wrong side of the wrong valley happen rarely, and even when they do you can call in either an airlift of a GDF vehicle from a friendly three-bladed mega-chopper, or a blast from outer-space containing a Strogg one.
Eventually, my continual dying, with my body once or twice being ransacked by Strogg medics for vital nutrients, ended in one crap mega-death - when I accidentally stood next to the ticking explosives tied to the Strogg base. My performance had been dismal, my tutor from id remained impassive and I had contributed nothing to the war effort -bar luring an ounce of gunfire away from my more talented team-mates and instead into my soft flesh.
It feels as good as it looks, and when it's running it looks bloody amazing - just don't expect to be treated with deep understanding and Strogg-sized kid-gloves once in. Unless you're playing against me, that is. It's a Predictable way to introduce the article, I know.
We've mentioned it every time we've brushed up against Enemy Terriotory: Quake Wars - but Splash Damage's studios are in Bromley, Kent, a place that wouldn't be missed if it spontaneously sank into the ground tomorrow.
It literally goes: kebab shop, corner shop, tanning salon, birthplace of one of the hottest-looking shooters of , then a supermarket. In fact, so hidden is the office in which Splash Damage have been hammering away at their latest multiplayer masterpiece, that I couldn't find it.
Turns out it's tucked right behind the supermarket, meaning it's probably one of the most unassuming and uninspiring places I've ever been. That what they're working on is both inspiring and assuming. 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? Enemy Territory: Quuke Wars. A shiny future for online PC gaming? Having been subjected loan incessant barrage of PR eulogising about how Quake Wars was going to revolutionise flic teambased shooter, boss-man Sefton dispatches me on a daring, fearsomely dangerous reconnaissance!
OK, it's not actually all that daring. Or dangerous. And we are kind of invited to the offices. But my mission is to find out if this is the real deal or the usual barrage of hype that accompanies such major announcements. Turns out it's the real deal. To say that I'm blown away would be an understatement akin to saying that an atom bomb goes off with a bit of a fizz.
This standalone successor to the Return to Castle Wolfenstein spin-off Fneiny Territory is looking so luscious, it makes the current crop of multiplayer shooters look like they've been cock'd on a BBC Micro Model B. What's more, given its predominantly outdoor locations, it's somewhat, ironic to note that, when development started, Quake Wars utilised the same core technology as Doom 3 , the very same core technology tlbit so many lambasted as being an indoor-only, shadow simulator that handled outdoor environments with the aplomb of an agoraphobic.
Arriving in a flustered, sweating state", Paul Wedgwood managing director of Splash Damage sits me down, pours me a drink and fires up a level. While we wait, Quake Wars'executive producer Kevin Cloud from id reveals the secret of the game's stunning visuals. And that of course means that well all be able to enjoy its ace-ness without shelling out for a quad-processor supercomputer. But how is this possible? The unfolding events take place in the universe of the sci-fi world of Quake.
ET: QW offers both single-player and multiplayer modes. The main goal of the game is to destroy or defend strategic objects for a limited time. Campaigns consist of three maps: all progress made during these battles is saved only within these limits. With the start of a new game, all experience points, soldier promotions, selected improvements and other bonuses will be canceled.
The player is given two factions to choose from: the Earth Defense Forces the human army defending the planet and the Strogg barbarians extraterrestrial civilization of space invaders.
Each team has 5 unit specifications with significant differences. People are divided into soldiers, medics, engineers, artillerymen and reconnaissance men, Stroggs into aggressors, designers, destructors and infiltrators. During the fighting, teams use more than 40 futuristic vehicles, fortifications and defense systems from tanks to exoskeletons and anti-gravity ships that burn the battlefields. Game mechanics also include the creation of bases, the construction of fortifications to gain a tactical and technical advantage over the enemy.
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