Quake Live Beta. Quake in your boots!

Perhaps you remember a post I did on Battlefield Heroes some time back, and perhaps you don’t. Well for those who don’t, then the basic premise is that EA created an on-line game that you can play for free. EA plan to make their money through micro-payments. That is to say you can buy a fancy hat, a dapper suit, and a proper posh pair of daisy roots. None of this will effect your gameplay, but you will stand out as a bit more individual.

Well, ID software, the people behind Doom, and Wolfenstein, to name two, are not to be outdone. You can now sign your life away to the Quake Live website, and play one of the best FPS games to have made it to the shelves. ID are using a different business model to EA in that they will be serving up adverts in the game to pay for the Shoot-em-up fest. At the moment though, as the beta is still in action, you can play relatively advert free.

The sign up to the website is quick and easy. All you need is a name no one has thought of before, err, like Blade or Slayer, or any original name like that, and an email address. Once you have all that, you can download the client to enable you to play the game. The client works with Firefox and IE on Windows platforms. Apparently there is a clinet for Mac, and Linux coming in the future.

You need to go through a training game first with a bot. This then asses your “M@D 5k1llz”, and the site then tries to match your abilities to players on a similar level. The idea being that you don’t instantly get fragged out of the place by a screaming, foul mouthed twelve year old, who has been sitting in his room, playing the game continuously for the past two months. And, in my humble opinion, it works as it should. Certainly I have been able to stay alive to frag the odd player.

There are plenty of different characters to choose from, and the action is fast paced, and exciting. The usual suspects are there in terms of games, free for all, capture the flag, dual, and team deathmatch. All in all, this is shaping up to be a good community, with lots of competitions and awards to be won. I certainly like this move towards free, open to everyone, model that these companies are trying. To me it’s win win. Maybe you will see me there, but not if I see you first!