Level design? Magnificent also. We will not bore you with technical specs - when people use the term 'curve rendering' we reach involuntarily for a big stick with nails in it - but, suffice to say, it's stunning. Perhaps the biggest compliment a player can award a deathmatch map is that their style of play clearly adapted to suit its demands. And Quake III's maps are ace. They have something for everyone. Even if you're an ardent fan of the rocket launcher, it's refreshing to find yourself on a level with wide open spaces with the onus on Railgun usage. You're constantly compelled to refine your playing style, and Quake III is anything but repetitive as a result.

We could wax lyrical for thousands of words about the many nuances of Quake III's action, and its level design. Mind you, we'd barely begin to relate a fraction of our observations and experiences by the five thousand word mark - and with our fingers raw from playing, that's not about to happen. It is, in a word, dynamic. It is also - and here comes the defining line - the most accomplished deathmatch game Future Gamer has ever played. Yes, we do still love Unreal Tournament. But to describe just how Quake III is preferable and superior would, again, require more words than we could possibly offer within a review.

If you're waiting patiently for a specific description of how the single-player game plays, you'll be gladdened - we hope - by the following sentence: we've already told you about it. Quake III's bot code is the best we've ever seen. Only extremely hardened players will think they can tell the difference between a real player and a bot. We suspect, however, that they would be kidding themselves to do so. Actually, it might make a good experiment to pit a load of gamers against a solitary opponent, but not tell them if it's CPU or human controlled. Would they guess the difference? On higher skill settings, it's unlikely.