The game's 12 maps each support up to 32 players at a time and include a variety of terrain types. The maps can be played individually, grouped into three-map campaigns, or played twice with players switching sides between games. The maps are all large and well-designed, but as a result of the objective-based play the fighting is almost always localized to the objective areas. Whether or not this is a good thing will depend a bit on your preferred style of play. One downside with the maps is that spawn camping can be an issue and a well-placed sniper or two can have you spending more time at the spawn screen than in action.

Quake Wars provides both ranked and unranked gameplay. If you participate in the ranked matches you'll earn medals and advance in rank as you earn experience. This is standard for most modern online shooters, but what the standard that is missing here is integrated voice chat. Granted Quake Wars' objective-based play naturally keeps teams more focused than in more open games, but it's odd to see chat entirely missing form the game.

There are online shooters where you can jump right in and experience success from the beginning. The crazy random chaos of some shooters is the thing that makes them enjoyable. Quake Wars is more complicated and it will take a little bit of time before you feel like you're having a real impact on your team's success. It's more work than you may be used to for an online shooter, but the reward is a deeper and potentially more satisfying game experience.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 88%. Quake Wars takes team-based multiplayer shooters to the next level.

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