Laser Arena

The Good
Excellent graphics, considering the type of 3d engine used (Quake 1)

Non-violent gameplay (I.e: my younger cousins and sillings can play and enjoy the gameplay of 1st person shooters without the gory that scares parents away.

Quality Music (Listen to the first track as a sample here http://www.trainwreckstudios.com/laser.htm)

Can be played over the internet through IPX, TCP/IP and Gamespy Arcade.

It's a fresh new idea applyed to first person shooters.

The Bad
The max numbers of bots (computer controlled players) is quite low (4 max) so when in a free for all, maps will feel bigger.

The game will automatically autoaim your shots if you fire close to a target (friend or foe). Although this may help and appeal to younger and inexperience fans, it just seems to detract the game play if I don't actually aim for myself. I'm not sure if this is disabled in high difficulty areas, but even if it were, it would be quite annoying, considering that the AI autoaims in all difficult modes and that will make things more than twice as hard.

No one actually plays this on Gamespy arcade, which is a shame.

If you like this kind of game but don't like the idea of shooting lasers and vaporizing your foes or getting guns and shooting your enemies into little gibblets then try Nerf Arena Blast, It's somewhat better than this.

The Bottom Line
One thing you have to keep reminding yourself is that this is a game that is targeted at those on a tight budget. You won't find Quake 3 here but you will find something similar and scaled down. The gameplay gets repetitive and people can get bored easily if you aren't new to First Person Shooters. If there was people actually playing this, then game might last longer until you shove it back into its box and throw it into a closet. There are some qerks in the game but overall it is a very good game and the effort spent on it is pretty much the reward. The technologies they put into this engine is a huge jump from Quake 1. There's Volumetric fog, coloured lightning and etc. This allows the creators to do such a fine job with the graphics. Try out the demo first before you buy (6 megs). Remember that this is targeted at a younger audience so don't through it into the garbage, maybe Cousin Gordon wouldn't mind playing it.