Quake Live BETA

Quake Live is yet another browser game, that is to say that you can play it straight from FireFox or Internet Explorer or any other web browser that is currently supported.

I initially tried the game the day it came out. I waited a good 2 and a half hours to reach the front of the queue.

The good news is that lately I haven’t encountered any queues, I think they are beyond the point of narrowing the amount of users anymore. The bad news for me was that after the long wait, you have to actually download the game. So much for a browser game…

It took about 10 minutes or so to get to a demo level. It is quite a neat idea. You download a portion of the game, play that portion to keep you entertained, while downloading the rest.

Basically you play against a character named Crash. She first gives you a tour of the powerups, the weapons, etc. Then she challenges you to a game. Crash adjusts to your level, as you start beating her down, her AI starts to get tougher, and you’ll find yourself dying quite a bit (or I least I did). Using your score, Quake Live will highlight matches for you in their lobby with players at playing at your level. You can always play this tutorial again to get a higher ranking, but I thought they got it nailed down pretty well in the 10 minute session.

Unlike other browser FPS games, Quake Live does have a host of settings you can change. I was especially pleased to see that there are even settings such as the crosshairs and sensitivity.

You can also choose how your character looks like, although I have to say, I think most of them are pretty ugly. I wonder how the hitboxes work if your character size is different from the average.

Joining a game is pretty painless, it takes less than 20 seconds or so for me to get into a game. Especially now without the long queues. You just double click and let it connect. You can also see the matches highlighted for my skill level.

The environments and the sounds of the game is fairly dated, but pretty acceptable. I found the voices and the grunts to be really annoying, while the sound of the guns whirling and shooting to be average. The environments however look great for a browser game. I’m rather impressed. There are stages that look brilliant, while others, not so much.

The gameplay is just like your average FPS. You have the usual buttons to move, your series of primary and secondary weapons, and the mouse is used to aim. The fact that you can change sensitivity is a major bonus, something missing in InstantAction.com’s browser FPS. You spawn a few seconds after you die, there is enough health to keep you in the game for a long time, while not making it overly difficult to kill others. There are weapons for sniper or short distance combat, and powerups such as Quad-Damage are nicely implemented.

What I don’t like about the game is that some of the levels seem a bit complex. They are small levels, but portals and stairs that lead to random places make it fairly hard to play. You think you are alone, but how is that possible in a game of maybe 16 players? Then you get shot from behind because you didn’t realize there was a portal there. I guess that is just nitpicking, but I thought that the portals were a major source of weakness in the game.

I think that Quake Live is a nice step forward for browser games, but some of the things that made me really angry with the game is the fact that you have to spend time downloading it (a long time) and the fact that the game is a bit off. There are balancing issues and the stage designs aren’t great, and I’m hoping that it is because Quake Live is still at the BETA stage. But you are not likely going to see me online anytime soon.

One very encouraging thing to note is that there are patches, every time you log on it seems there a small file being downloaded to patch the game. Maybe the changes that I want to see will soon be implemented.