Astonishing graphics? Not so much
I think the tiered objectives that differ per map are a nice step forward. Battlefield 2142 uses a similar system in Titan games, but for each map they are always the same. ET:QW differs from the Battlefield games in that it does not employ a ticket system where the first side to reach zero tickets loses. The objectives that require a specific class encourage players to try out new classes and demand that the team have a mix of all of them. The class missions are nice in that they can ease players into the greater conflict if they find themselves spawning far away from the current objective. Rather than spend several minutes trying to get yourself to the main fight, you can do some quick missions and get a little experience reward (as well as helping out your team). They can help keep you on task if you join a game in the middle or one taking place on a map that is unfamiliar. I also found the tool-tips for the weapons extremely helpful. They made the acclimation to a new side or a new class that much easier.
Rob found ET:QW to be quite the looker at E3, but again, my experience with the beta has proven less impressive. I don't know this for sure, but it's probable that the beta does not include all the hi-res textures in order to keep the download size manageable, and this may be responsible for what I'm seeing. I'm running the game with all the graphics options turned up as high as they go at 1600 x 1200 on a GeForce 8800 GTX with Vista.
My first impression of the UI is that it is way too cluttered and that at 1600 x 1200 the fonts are far too big (check the slide-show to see for yourself). After playing for a few hours you start to get used to all that data on the screen, but I still feel that it gets in the way. Not all of us have irreparably damaged our eyesight by sitting inches from a radiation-emitting screen so scaling the fonts down should be an option. I'm also seeing a lot of edges in the terrain.
Much of the foliage looks really great, but when it's placed next to a really bad square-edged hill, the effect is lost. A modern graphics engine in this day and age should be able to make those shape transitions look more natural.
There are some unsightly edges in the beta code.
The last complaint I have is about the man-to-man shooting game play. The run-and-gun portion of the game is still too frantic to rely much on tactics or skill. It seems like everyone is moving too fast when they are running, and shooting anyone is mostly spray-and-pray with a dash of luck. Some of the player warping can be attributed to lag, which has been an obstacle in every game I've played. This has been a frequent topic of discussion among the other players on multiple servers. Again this could be chalked up to un-optimized code in the beta or it could just be a bad game design. We'll have to get our hands on a retail copy to find out which.
None of this is helped by the fact that everyone is hopping around all the time. Nothing makes me want to quit playing a shooter faster than trying to draw a bead on some guy bouncing off the walls. Speaking of things players do that annoy me, does the warm-up period really have to be non-stop team killing? Are you guys really that impatient to kill something?
Playing betas is a hit-and-miss proposition. Sure, it's a free taste of an unreleased game, but it's unreleased because a lot of it doesn't work yet. Rob's E3 experience with Enemy Territory: Quake Wars differs from mine with the beta, but he got to see a different map in a controlled setting while I'm out here in the wild (or more appropriately the Sewer) with the animals.
I hope that the full-version fixes a few of the problems I've had with the beta and that I'm not seeing all that the graphics engine has to offer. Ravenous gamers looking to enlist in the battle with Strogg can get their hands on Enemy Territory: Quake Wars in early September.
View the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Beta Slideshow (14 images)
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