Quake Live Review

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1337nees:


As far as first-person shooters go, Quake holds the all-time title of 1337est of the 1337. The original Quake was the first game that really sucked me in and had me up at all hours of the night, blowing away digital opponents in the most realistic, engrossing 3D world that had yet been created. I also enjoyed the subsequent titles immensely, including the pure death match game Quake 3. Also sporting the finest graphics of its time, Quake 3 provides intense multiplayer gameplay at blistering speeds, and has yet to be bested by any FPS released since. If you want to play Quake 3 and not get your ass handed to you, you had better be pretty damn good. And now, with the launch of Quake Live, you no longer have an excuse not to try your luck against some of the most hard core FPS players on the planet.

The idea of Quake Live is pure genius: Web-based deathmatch that you can access from basically any computer with an internet connection. You go to the website, set up an account, download a few files, and after about 10-15 minutes with a broadband connection, you're playing Quake 3 - for free. Yes, free. As in, you pay $0.00. Air isn't even that cheap.


The graphics, weapons, characters, maps, and pretty much everything else is almost identical to Quake 3.

The game itself is just about identical to Quake 3. The graphics, which aren't exactly top notch nowadays (but were at the time), the sound, the physics, and gameplay are nearly indistinguishable. In addition to the game content, Quake Live also provides you with a preliminary match against an AI controlled character to estimate your skill at the game, which is then used to give you a list of servers in which players of the same skill congregate. This feature is a definite plus for those who've never played Quake 3, and would like to try it without getting completely annihilated by superior players.


Best Pick servers are matched to your skill. I'd recommend starting there.

Classic deathmatch gameplay, easy accessibility and a built-in, on-line community are the obvious pros to Quake Live, but there do exist some cons. First of all, the initial setup on QL can be a bit on the long-ish side. It took me the better part of 15 minutes to register and get everything set into place, and that's being generous. Once I had everything setup and I played through the qualifying round, though, it was a breeze to connect to a server and start fraggin'. After around 3 or 4 hours of blasting n00bs with rockets, I took a break and came back to this:



I was used to the queue screen that I normally got when I tried to log in to QL (which normally only takes you a minute or two), but this screen persisted for a few hours, and I'm still getting it now even as I write this review. Alas, it would appear that one aspect of Quake Live that makes it so damn 1337 is also its downfall. The fact that all game activity is routed through one website (instead of being able to directly connect to a number of independently hosted servers, like in the original Quake 3), means that if that website is down or experiencing heavy traffic, everyone's screwed. I suppose that's the price you pay for not paying a price to play... I oughta trademark that frickin' sentence.

Annoying cons aside, there really is no reason for you not to give Quake Live a try, especially if you are a deathmatch enthusiast like myself. It's free, it's easy, and it's a hell of a lot of fun (that's what she said).

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