Kamikaze

Kamikaze is a pickup in Quake III: Team Arena. The icon looks like a metallic skull, spinning on its spawn point with its jaw opening and closing, transparent parietal bones allows you to see the inside that is full of some of yellow liquid. If the 'Simplify Items' option is enabled, it will appear as a yellow skull with its cranium cut off across like a bandage wrapped around it.

A low bell sound will occur if a Kamikaze has been spawned. The player that picks it up will have floating skulls with yellows trails orbiting his/her body. It allows the player whose carrying it explode in 3 seconds after their death. Alternatively, the carrier doesn't have to die to unleash the Kamikaze. Pressing the 'Use Item' button will make the player explode alive, killing him/her but unleashing a powerful blast enough for taking out a small group of players. The game summary/feedback will read '-Player- goes out with a bang.'

Kamikaze, when detonated, creates a huge explosion that looks like a giant black smoke ball covered in lightning with a ring around it. It gets bigger over time. But, it only lasts 2 seconds. After its life has ended, it will receed smaller and implode, leaving the lightning ring to be seen.

The Kamikaze power-up, when detonated, shakes the whole arena so even players at the other end of the map can feel the ground shake. The player's screen will shake and the player will also move randomly whilst the explosion is happening.

There is a way to dodge a Kamikaze explosion; After killing an enemy, if the player is gibbed to bits, the Kamikaze disables. If the player's body is just lying there, and not gibbed, it will explode in a few seconds. To prevent the explosion, players should gib the dead body so the carrier's bits will fly and disables the explosion.

The Kamikaze is mostly one-shot kill, but if the player is further away enough, he/she might only get damaged or within the blast it would cause an environmental death by pushing the unfortunate players to the abyss or crushing their skulls up the wall.

Another smart way to get out of the way of Kamikaze blast is using another power-up like Personal Teleporter, Invulnerability Shield or bearing the Battle Suit. Since the Kamikaze is so powerful, many players battle around its spawn point to wait until it appears. Quake Live added this power-up to different maps in the new remakes of old Quake III Arena maps, like Flight powerup.