Quake Wars 1.4 patch due out before Christmas

From the horse's mouth.

Adds a sorely needed Training Mode, adds QWTV (a la HLTV) and a ton of little goodies. Can't wait!

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Beginner Tips

I've been playing a whole lot of lunchtime Quake Wars at the office as well as a little practice time against the computer at home. The more I play, the more I like the game. It's definitely got a learning curve though and a lot of things aren't obvious unless you read the manual in detail. Here's some of the things I've picked up so far, in no particular order:

• Pressing “1” (by default) on any vehicle (including Icarus and Husky) launches a decoy flare
  
• Alt-fire (right mouse button) with an Engineer’s mine makes it a laser tripwire mine instead of a proximity mine
  
• You have to activate mines via looking at them and hitting f before they actually work
  
• Grenades detonate enemy mines but shooting them with infantry weapons doesn’t seem to
  
• If you’re playing a class with deployables (e.g. Engineer, Field Ops, Infiltrator, Covert Ops, etc.) you should have one placed all the time - they’re very powerful. Don’t forget that the medic class has a supply deployable!
  
• If you’re the sniper class, your first priority is making sure that your radar is up all the time. Don’t forget the GDF side has the 3rd Eye radar, which is particularly useful indoors.
  
• Multiple weapons are sometimes bound to the same slot (e.g. the deployable tool and the repair tool for the Engineer are both bound to slot 5). Pressing the same weapon key toggles between them.
  
• Use your context menu (“v” default) A LOT to spot enemy vehicles and deployables. Also use it to request a gunner in appropriate vehicles, health from medics, etc.
  
• When playing Strogg, learn how to use Spawn Hosts and Stroyup/Stroydown! Note that you can claim spawn hosts from the limbo menu as well as in play.
  
• If you’re playing a Soldier/Aggressor in the outdoor sections, you probably want to pick a Rocketlauncher/Obliterator or MG/Hyperblaster instead of an Assault Rifle/Hyperblaster.
  
• The Soldier’s HE charge (Aggressor’s Plasma charge) can be used to do a lot of damage to deployables. Place it, arm it and it will detonate after 40 seconds.
  
• The GDF smoke grenade that the Covert Ops has is useful to cover up planted HE charges and infantry advances.
  
• Covert Ops and Infiltrators can pretend to be members of the other team via looking at a body and using their Hacking Tool.
  
• Alt-fire on Strogg grenades makes the grenade sticky.
  
• Alt-fire on GDF grenades rolls the grenade.
  
• F/mousewheel on scoped weapons zooms the weapon.
  
• If you change class, any deployable you have built will self-destruct.
  
• Deployables have a 170 degree field of view, so the direction you pick for turrets and artillery guns is important. Note that they will turn out of their field of view if attacked.
  
• The Strogg Cyclops has a “stomp” attack to squish infantry close to it. Hit Jump (space) to activate.
  
• The Strogg Cyclops and Devastator can enter “siege mode” to fire faster (although they can’t move then). Hit crouch (C by default) to activate and jump (Space) to deactivate siege mode.
  
• Lots of vehicles have more than one seat. Press Use (F) to toggle between seats. It’s often pretty effective to have more than one person in a vehicle, so listen for people asking for gunners or ask for a gunner via the context menu if you’re driving a vehicle with extra seats.
  
• The sniper weapons are good against aircraft.
  
• If you get the Vehicle Drops XP upgrade, you can call for a Husky/Icarus to be airdropped to you via the context menu (V).


• You can bring up a command map with "n" by default

Quake (Office) Wars: Initial Impressions

I noticed a pile of new graphics card boxes sitting in a cube at work adorned with a sticker saying they included a free copy of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. I asked the IT guys if that meant they had a few copies hanging around that noone wanted and sure enough, they did.

Turns out to be a pretty good game. It's a lot like Battlefield and certainly draws a lot of "inspiration" from the Battlefield line. I've only been playing it at lunchtimes at work since my free time is nil at the moment, but it's well suited for that.

Here's the "lunchtime game" assessment.

Pros:
1) You only need 1 install disk for a LAN game (although we have several).
2) The bot support is decent and certainly playable.
3) The games are capped at 20 minutes for a map, so you can get in a game without manager-types getting all upset (however, campaign mode is more like an hour).
4) Due to (2), you can play a game with only a few people - with, say, Team Fortress 2, you'd need a bunch of people for a reasonable game.

Cons:
1) Learning curve is a little rough. There's no in-game tutorial at all, so it just drops you in and slaps you on the back. I could give you a (lengthy) list of all the stuff you need to know, or you could just go watch GreasedScotsman's excellent tutorial video series. However, the videos are pretty long, so if you'd rather read something on the subject this is the pretty much definitive source.
2) You will need bots to play unless you are playing on a pub Internet server or have a lot of friends (at least 5-8+ per side).

As for the actual game itself, well, it's good. I like it more than BF2142, which is the most recent Battlefield game I've played. The games progress in a series of objectives rather than just capture points, with different classes having useful inputs at each stage, which helps to concentrate both sides on single areas at a time. Deployable buildings add tactical depth and varies the gameplay from round to round. Dropping an artillery gun and then sighting it in with the Field Ops laser sight was particularly satisfying.

I suspect that playing it online won't be as fun for me just because I don't have time to get actually good at it and historically the Battlefield games have been rough going for me. I tend to die from sniper shots across the landscape and not even really know what killed me, which isn't terribly exciting. But playing with people in the same skill ballpark was enjoyable.

As for criticisms, I think my main issue would be that the sides could be more asymmetric. While there are definitely differences between the Strogg and GDF, predominantly the classes have the same abilities with different flavours. It seems technically well executed.

One final note: if you have multiple monitors and a NVidia card, your framerate may well be terrible. If you have this issue, you'll want to tweak the driver.