Every Friday, you’ll find at least one or two lobbies open, so it’s worth it to get a few good games in. Overall, Quake 3 is a great pickup for any Dreamcast owner who wants to play something online. At first I thought it was an issue with my DreamPi, but it’s actually just because of the high ping rate seen on the dial-up connection. Unfortunately, due to the limitations of dial-up connections, players are often seen jittering all over the place, sometimes warping in front of you, causing you to instantly die. While 30 FPS is acceptable for this game, you’ll often see the framerate on certain levels dip well below 15, especially when things get heated. My two biggest issues with this port of Quake 3 are the framerate and the netcode. Quake 3 is the easiest game to get up and running (no boot discs, no patches, just plug in your DreamPi and off you go), so I recommend using Quake 3 as the starting point if you’re just now getting your Dreamcast online. Compatible with the modem, up to three other players can duke it out on one of the many open lobbies online. The online is quite a feat for the Dreamcast.
With no aim-assist, you’re playing at a significant disadvantage when up against human players with it (or even higher level bots). WIthout it, aiming without a second analog stick is a bit tricky.
The best feature by far about Quake 3 on Dreamcast is that it fully supports the mouse and keyboard. So when I heard about the Dreamcast port, I had to scoop it up for myself and see how well it holds up. Quake 3 is one of my favorite FPS games of all time.