Through a cloud of freshly spewed blood, I see that this guy has obviously moved past making mince meat of the chump who used to be in the process of trying to shake me and my boomstick. Add to that the fact that this punk who rained on my frag-parade sees me coming, and his plasmagun is still churning out pain in a quaint shade of blue. To make matters even worse, after splattering the dearly departed all over the walls of the corridor I'm presently trapped in, there's little in between the blazing muzzle of his gun and my newly exposed chest. I can bet the guy on the other end of this modem line is popping a pretty big grin right now.

Funny how there's nothing quite like the rocket that was supposed to hit the guy he just squished tagging him right in the face to wipe said smile right off. That had to hurt.

But no one said life in the fast lane of first person shooters was pain-free. Welcome to the Arena, where beat-downs are free and people like me thrive on your misery. Grab your gun, lock the door, and prepare for the mother of all FPS games, because the wait is finally over, and much like resetting a limb that has popped out of its socket, things will only get worse before they get better.

Sega's promise of Internet-playable Quake III Arena was realized last week as the game shipped to retailers nationwide, and we had our misgivings about how easily the Dreamcast would translate the whole of the PC experience -- but we decided to give the game as fair a shake as we could possibly offer by carrying out a full examination.

As you can probably see from the introduction, one thing Q3A has managed to maintain is one of the game's key elements, its intensity. Quake falls into a genre that is nothing if not visceral, and id has made a name off of its ability to capitalize on this characteristic like only a select group of developers can. The poison you'll pick in Quake is kill or be killed, and humming along at a fairly steady 30 FPS, things in the Arena move extremely fast for a console shooter, but more importantly, fast enough to keep up the frantic, kill or be killed atmosphere that the series has made famous over the past few years. Granted, there is occasional slowdown when the screen is full of characters or when certain weapons are filling up your screen, but on the whole, Quake III Arena is the most authentic FPS experience we've seen to date on a console when it comes to speed and playability.

We use the term playability loosely, however. Well, loosely isn't necessarily fair. Let's say "playability" with a nice little asterisk beside it. I won't make you scroll down to the bottom of the review for a clue as to what that little gizmo means, though. Instead, I'll spill it here: This game is not at its best with a standard Dreamcast controller. You need a mouse and keyboard. This is, much like when you were born into this world, a non-negotiable fact of existence in the Quake universe. I don't care how much it pains you to suck it up and get a clue about FPS gaming, but if you want to compete in this or any other title like it, you will want to go ahead and get your hands on the peripherals mentioned above. Raster did an adequate job with the standard console cop-out (read: Turok-style control), but after trying the game out with the DC K&M combo, then going to the controller, all I could do was shed a tear for the ignorant masses who have never embraced goodness contained in Sega's squeaky little friend. Aiming is far too difficult with a controller, and though you can play with one, don't expect to hold your own with any DC gamer who is using a mouse and keyboard. Or for that matter, PC users when Sega finally unleashes them on the masses. It just will not happen.

As much as I admired the super-gamers I played earlier today online, I spanked them like a kid who burned the house down. I am not that sharp a Quake player, though, and was not surprised to discover that all my opponents had controllers. After playing a little split-screen with one myself, I was completely amazed that they managed any kills at all. It is just too unwieldy. If you don't mind, and are willing to put in a truck-load of practice, you'll eventually get the hang of life with a controller, but personally, I'd advise against it.

Speaking of split screen, I'll get off my mouse-lovin' soapbox and resume with the good news. If you're looking for a smooth split-screen experience, Quake III Arena delivers. We tried out 2, 3 and 4 player splits, all with favorable framerates. The level of detail gets dropped a bit, but considering the size of the screen, you won't miss it much. What you will be missing, however, are the full selection of deathmatch maps. Don't ask us why, but for some reason, Raster cut out a whole slew of the game's maps for split screen play. We're guessing the DC couldn't handle full-on action on all levels with 4 eager gamers, but who knows? This kinda blows, but to be honest, once you get a look at the real juice behind Q3A, you won't be playing split screen, anyways.

Now, if you didn't know any better, you could easily assume we were just referring to the single-player tournament mode. This part of the game will take you through the game's deathmatch maps in a ladder style tourney against a series of rather crafty bots (computer-controlled opponents), and despite the lowered player count, it is pretty faithful to the feel of the PC version. But as any SegaNet subscriber who has managed to hop on and check it out will tell you, we're clearly referring to Internet play. We attempted both SegaNet and standard ISP play, and we're happy to report that the game was, much like NFL2K1 before it, amazingly fast and fluid over the 56k modem

Most FPS gamers would scoff at the notion of utilizing such a tiny pipe to get their frag on, and Quake III Arena does support the broadband adapter, but due to the fact that this device is still a few months away, this is as good as it gets for the time being via the Dreamcast. We played for a good 5 hours today online, and having experienced both DSL and high-speed LANs connected with T1s and better on a PC, we still can't believe this is a modem. The lag is almost unnoticeable a good 90% of the time, and even if this isn't your first Q3A experience, you'll have a blast playing online.

Obviously, this was a big concern when looking at the Dreamcast version, but an equally big question mark came up when we looked at the game's biggest change from the PC version on which it is based, the maps. Several maps got swapped out with smaller arenas that favor the DC's hardware capabilities and the lower player count, and after some extended play, I am actually a bit more partial to the Dreamcast map selection than I am the levels that shipped with the original version. The levels are all well sized, full of multiple entry points to all major areas, and crafted with a visual flair consistent with the rest of the available arenas. Yeah, a few maps we love are missing, but for the most part, it is all good. So just in case you felt like Dreamcast Q3A was going to get the short end of the stick, quit yer belly-aching.

The same could be said of the game's visuals. As I mentioned in my preview a while back, the game ended up looking extremely comparable to the PS2 version of Unreal Tournament from a visual standpoint, making up for its comparable lack of visual effects with superior modeling and architecture. If you've never seen this game running on a high-end PC, you will be blown away, and if you have, you'll likely be equally impressed that a machine with a sub-300 MHz Processor is pulling it off this well.

That statement is true of almost every aspect of the port, though. Every aspect, that is, except the player counts. If I have one knock on this game, it's that they didn't sacrifice a little detail in the levels or the player models and float some extra opponents down the channel. I mean, it's nice that they included CTF, but honestly, who the hell plays CTF with 4 people? The game is simplified to the point of ridiculousness due to this limitation, whereas 6 people would have made it ideal for the included maps. The same could be said of the standard deathmatch game. It's not that 4 players is bad. It's just that games can get much more hectic and intense with a couple extra people. I know it seems silly, but if you've ever played a game with a whole mess of competitors, you'd understand our beef. It's hard to put into words how limited the Dreamcast player-limit makes the Q3A experience, but it does, and we're a little less impressed than we would have been had it come out with the ability to push six players.

The thing is, the game is still awesome, it is just a different experience. I must have spent an hour feeling down about the new player count, and wondering what could have been, but as soon as I started playing, I was swept away in a sea of action, and realized that Quake III Arena is such a solid game, that it is a whole heckuva lot of fun, I don't care if we're talking 20 players, or just 2.

When you think about it, having our one major knock outside the need for a keyboard and mouse (subliminal message: go buy them now) be a wish for more of the same, Q3A competes quite nicely. With its faced-paced, violent brand of action, Quake III Arena is the game Senator Lieberman warned your parents about, even if he is too out of touch to know it. If you've been following our coverage of this game at all, you'd know that we were billing this title as the first-person shooter that would change the way console gamers look at the genre. While it will also need to change the way you play the genre, the Dreamcast's first attempt at Quake should easily manage to do just that, and certainly gives the DC version of Unreal Tournament something to live up to. Go grab a copy, and be sure to look out for stray rockets when you see me online!

-- Brandon Justice, IGNDC