GIGA on Quakewars

At Games Convention in Leipzig, visitors were able to play a new version of Enemy Territory Quake Wars, including a brand new map. GIGA took the opportunity to play the game and conduct an interview with Paul "Locki" Wedgwood, founder and owner of Splash Damage.

The new map is called Island and is located on Reversion Island in the South Pacific. The map was developed by RTCW veterans Nerve and, compared to Valley, is smaller and has less focus on vehicles. The following objectives have to be completed on the map:

1) Build the generator
2) Detonate the safe room door
3) Get the data disk and escort it to the extraction point

Before we started to play, we did an interview with Paul Wedgwood about QuakeWars;

Interview with Paul Wedgwood
After a couple of matches on the map, here's what it is all about

1) The generator

The GDF starts in the lower left corner of the overview map. The first task is to build a generator similar to what needed to be done on Sewer. The shorter route leads across a bridge, the longer one through the water to the beach. To ease transport, two APCs are available. Right behind the bridge the GDF can capture a forward spawn with additional quads. The vehicles cannot be used to reach the generator though, which is located in a small room in an underground bunker.

2) The safe room

When the generator is built, the next task is to detonate the safe room door. There's a lot of indoor fights in that phase and the room in front of the safe is smaller than on Sewer. The hallways are an excellent place to use mines.

3) The data disk

When the door is open, there's a suitcase with the data disk behind it. The suitcase has to be picked up and needs to be taken to a satellite transmitter. There are several routes to the transmitter, one of them with a speed boat all around the island. When the transmitter is reached, transmitting the data takes another couple of seconds.

The ET map most similar to Island is probably et_beach. The matches we played at Games Convention, albeit not against skilled players, proved to be very exciting and action packed. Most ET players will probably enjoy the lack of vehicles in most parts of the map.

With the release of Quake Wars set to September 28th, little more than a month remains until all the maps can be tested. The GC version looked quite final and we're looking forward to the release of a game that might bring fresh air into the genre of team based shooters.