Quake 3 Arena's engine is what sucked. It was almost too fast. What I don't like about Q3Arena is the same as what I don't like about the later Unreal games. I thought Quake 2 deathmatch was VASTLY superior to Arena. It was just more dynamic. Plus you had those awesome "super bombs" that vaporized entire areas of the game. I loved that. I liked the original Unreal, and the first UT.
You know, I also don't care for Team Fortress, especially the new one. I think its quite lame. I don't like the corny cartoonish grafics AT ALL. And again, the game seems almost too fast to even pay attention to what's happening. But then again, I never liked TF to begin with.
CS:S is where its at.
Bart