I should really stop finding new and exciting time wasters for myself. And yet, these things just keep finding their way into my browser somehow. My newest browser distraction is Quake Live.
Quake Live? Luke, have you been living under a rock? That’s been there forever!
Yes, I have been living under a rock. Shut up! It’s new to me, and there might be like two other under-the-rock dwelling individuals who read this blog so screw you, voice in my head. You always have to criticize everything that I do. I hate you!
Now, that I told off the annoying voice asshole that talks to me in my sleep and tells me to hurt people and set things on fire I can tell you about Quake Live. It’s a website that puts multiplayer Quake…. in your browser! Imagine that.
I mean, this is how I know I’m living in The Future™: I can frag people over the internet using nothing but Firefox. Well, that and some plugin, but you know what I mean. We truly live in marvelous times.
And it’s the genuine thing – not one of those single player flash things. You are actually playing online, with other people, and your scores are tabulated and ranked up (don’t look up mine, cause I suck though). It’s not a knock-off either – it was built and is maintained by id Software team.
This, btw is how I spent most of my Saturday. Just mindlessly playing free for all matches on Quake Live. The game play was seamless and I didn’t experience any lag. Not only that – they seem to have a fairly well designed skill matching system that actually hooked me up with other players that suck almost as badly as me. So I actually win a match or two. This was a nice break from getting my ass handed to me in TF2.
There is not much else to say here. It’s quake. If you are in the mood for some good, old fashioned multiplayer fun, head for that site and join in the fun. Oh, and it works on just about any platform you can imagine. And yes, that includes Linux. That’s usually the first platform I imagine when someone says that and I always ask about it. Then the person has to go “Err.. Um… Well, any platform you can imagine, other than Linux”. Then of course I go “Wow, even Solaris and BSD?”. And if they insist to keep going like this, I as about OS2, Amiga OS and etc.. I can do it all day really.
Also, Quake Live is surprisingly 100% more fun than Farcry 2. Sad but true.
I’ve been hooked on Quake Live since the Linux release came out. I’m not sure why, though, since I wasn’t too into Quake 3. Perhaps it’s the statistics. :D
Anyways, I’m more of a CA player but I do hit up the FFA servers every now and then.
It’s interesting the way they’ve integrated the game with the browser, though. The game data is stored locally and launched via the website. No flash, no java, no junk. Just Quake. ™
Anyhow, I’m ‘squarehimself’ in-game. See you in the Arena.
I’m still waiting for Duke Nukem… forever ^_^
Have to agree with you about farcry2, it is naff.
@ Square:
Same here. I was never huge Quake fan, but I’m finding the live version to be tremendous fun. Perhaps it’s nostalgia?
@ Debianero Rumbero:
Btw, does anyone have rights for that franchise now or is it in legal limbo? Not that I’d expect anyone to pick it up – it would be a bad investment. I mean think about it – no matter how good you could make it, it will never be good enough – not after so many years spent as vaporware.
I’ve never jumped in the Quake wagon. I remember massive LANs of Quake 3 when I was student, but I never took interest, probably because I always ended up with a negative score on these annoying pitfall maps. Online FPS play is not my thing as I like to take my time and study a situation before running in guns blazing, so I usually end up being easy sniper prey.
About Duke Nukem, I think the franchise is still pretty solid. Gamespot’s character battles had him go as far as the 8th greatest video games heroes of all time, so it’s not like everyone has forgotten about it. Releasing Duke Nukem Forever seems impossible now but I doubt there won’t be any new game based on the license.
Gaming now on debian :) It’s really cool! Also looking on quake live review