Pretty pretty bang bang is a Salon Technology article that quotes Dennis "Thresh" Fong, several message board postings, as well as id Software's Graeme Devine discussing the "arcade" aspect of Q3Test, and the upcoming Quake III Arena, and their impact on the game's appeal for both hardcore players and newbies. Thanks Elrond Hubbard. Here's a bit to give the gist of what's discussed:

What's got those hardcore gamers so worked up? For one thing, Quake 3 is, well, beautiful. "A lot of the other hardcore players don't like Quake 3 because it's so mass-market and so 'arcadey,'" explains Dennis "Thresh" Fong, arguably the greatest first-person shooter player ever. "The icons are simpler. They have cartoony boxes for ammo, and it's all color-coded in bright red and bright purples, colors you'd never see in the other Quake games." On the aesthetics charge, Id's Devine pleads no contest. "We purposefully gave Quake 3 an over-the-top, cartoony, comic-book look," he says. "Our big influences included games like Street Fighter and Robotron."