''Enemy Territory: Quake Wars'' is a

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developed by

Splash Damage Splash Damage Ltd. is a British video game developer specialising in multiplayer first-person shooter video games. The studio is best known as the creators of '' Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory'' and '' Enemy Territory: Quake Wars''. History ...

and published by

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...

for Microsoft Windows,

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on November 11, 2006, in Japan, November ...

and

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

. The game was first released in the

PAL region The PAL region is a television publication territory that covers most of Europe and Africa, alongside parts of Asia, South America and Oceania. It is named PAL because of the PAL (Phase Alternating Line) television standard traditionally used i ...

on September 28, 2007, and later in North America on October 2. It is a spinoff of the ''Quake'' series and the successor to 2003's '' Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory''. ''Quake Wars'' is a prequel set in the same universe as ''

Quake II ''Quake II'' is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the ''Quake'' series, but not a direct sequel to '' Quake''. The game's storyline is continued in its ...

'' and ''

Quake 4 ''Quake 4'' is a 2005 military science fiction first-person shooter video game developed by Raven Software and published by Activision. It is the fourth title in the ''Quake'' series, after the multiplayer ''Quake III Arena'', and a sequel to ' ...

''. New features include the addition of controllable vehicles and aircraft as well as multiple AI deployables, asymmetric teams, much bigger maps and the option of computer-controlled bot opponents. Unlike ''Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory'', ''Quake Wars'' is a commercial release rather than a free download. ''Enemy Territory: Quake Wars'' received mostly positive reviews upon release, with a more mixed reception for the console versions. Since 2011, the rights to the game have reverted to

ZeniMax Media ZeniMax Media Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Rockville, Maryland, and founded in 1999. The company owns publisher Bethesda Softworks with its development unit Bethesda Game Studios (developer of ''The Elder Scrolls,'' ...

Gameplay

''Quake Wars'' is a class-based, objective focused, team-oriented game. Teams are based on human (GDF) and alien (Strogg) technology. While the teams are asymmetrical, both sides have the same basic weapons and tools to complete objectives. Unlike other team-based online games (such as the ''Battlefield'' series), the gameplay is much more focused on one or two main objectives at once, rather than spread all over the combat area. This allows for much more focused and intense combat situations, similar to the original ''

Unreal Tournament ''Unreal Tournament'' is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The second installment in the '' Unreal'' series, it was first published by GT Interactive in 1999 for Microsoft Windows, and late ...

'' assault mode. Each player class normally has new objectives show up during game play, many times based around the specific capabilities of that class. The game also has the capability to group players into fireteams for greater coordinated strategy. These fireteams can be user created or game generated depending on the mission selected by the player. The game has an experience points (XP) rewards system in place, which rewards every player some points depending on the mission completed. This accumulated XP later leads to unlocks which may vary from availability of new equipment/weapons to abilities like faster movement or more accurate weapons. These rewards are reset to zero after the completion of every campaign, which consists of three unique maps, all with a common locale/region.

Development

''Enemy Territory: Quake Wars'' was first announced through a press release on May 16, 2005. The public beta opened to FilePlanet paid subscribers on June 20, 2007, and to nonpaying members on three days later. There were also beta keys given out for a limited time exclusively at QuakeCon 2007. The public beta ended on September 25. A second build of the beta was released on August 3. It features a new map entitled Valley to replace Sewer and several changes to the game code to improve performance and implement new features. This map was featured in tutorial videos released prior to the beta, and was the map made available to play at QuakeCon 2006. The Valley map is based on a real Earth location:

Yosemite Valley Yosemite Valley ( ; ''Yosemite'', Miwok for "killer") is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of Central California. The valley is about long and deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Hal ...

. A PC demo for Windows was released on September 10, 2007, and for Linux on October 16, also featuring the map Valley. The full Linux version was released on October 19. A Mac OS X client has also been released. The final retail version was first released on September 28, 2007, for Windows. The initial Linux release, created by

id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...

employee

Timothee Besset Timothée Besset is a French software programmer, (also known as TTimo), best known for supporting Linux, as well as some Macintosh, ports of id Software's products. He has been involved with the game ports of various id properties over the past ...

, was made available three weeks later on October 19. As of 2019, ''Quake Wars'' is the most recent id Software game to have received a Linux release.

MegaTexture

''Quake Wars'' utilized a modified version of the

id Tech 4 id Tech 4, popularly known as the ''Doom 3'' engine, is a game engine developed by id Software and first used in the video game ''Doom 3''. The engine was designed by John Carmack, who also created previous game engines, such as those for '' Do ...

engine with the addition of a technology called MegaTexture, a new

texture mapping Texture mapping is a method for mapping a texture on a computer-generated graphic. Texture here can be high frequency detail, surface texture, or color. History The original technique was pioneered by Edwin Catmull in 1974. Texture mappi ...

technique developed by John D. Carmack of

. The technology allows maps to be totally unique, without any repeated terrain tiles. 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. Each megatexture is derived from a 32768×32768 pixel image, which takes up around 3 gigabytes in its raw form (with 3 bytes per pixel, one byte for each color channel).

Marketing

A collector's edition of the game was released exclusively for Microsoft Windows on October 2, 2007, 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.

Reception

On the review aggregator GameRankings, the PC version of the game had an average score of 84% based on 61 reviews. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the game had a score of 84 out of 100 based on 55 reviews. Kevin VanOrd of ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'' gave the game a rating of 8.5/10. Other reviews are generally very positive, scoring ''Quake Wars'' in the 8–9 (out of 10) range. For the week ending September 29, 2007, ''Quake Wars'' was the best selling PC title in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

according to the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association. On October 17, 2007, after its top of the charts sale in the United Kingdom, ''Quake Wars'' debuted at a familiar #1 spot yet again in the United States. According to NPD group's top 10 best selling PC game charts, it managed to take the #1 spot.

and

reviews for the game were generally much less positive, with ''

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

'' giving the 360 version 6.1 and the PlayStation 3 version 5.3, citing game issues and inferior graphics to the PC version as causes for the lower score.

References

Notes

External links

* {{Quake series 2007 video games Activision games First-person shooters First-person strategy video games Linux games MacOS games PlayStation 3 games Quake (series) Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games scored by Bill Brown Windows games Xbox 360 games Video game prequels Video game spin-offs Id Software games Multiplayer and single-player video games Splash Damage games Aspyr games Id Tech games Alien invasions in video games Science fiction video games Video games developed in the United States