Xbox 360
The year is 1999 and the first vestiges of first person shooter (FPS) rivalry are beginning to emerge, which is better Unreal Tournament or Quake 3 Team Arena? With the sequel score standing at 3-1 to Unreal Tournament, ID's secret weapon is to resurrect Quake 3 as a free to play browser game. For those newcomers, Quake Live is a futuristic shooter with an emphasis on quick play and powerups.
Setup is easy, create an account, download a small plug-in and choose your avatar, change settings and jump into a map. Everything is just as it was back in 1999 but with the added benefit of ten years of extra content which has been packed in to make this the best browser based FPS. Several new maps also spice up the carnage but finding a server running any of them seems to be a Herculean feat as players are stick in the muds when it comes to learning new skills.
The old adage that nothing is ever free rings true to some extent here as advertising helps to support the running costs. The flavour of the month seems to be promotion of Quantum of Solace which gives you a weird anachronistic feeling as you play a ten year old game which advertises a current DVD release. Still it's a minor distraction and certainly not unique to Quake as Battlefield 2142 dipped it's toes into the subliminal waters some time ago. Maybe user based marketing, in a vein similar to Facebook, will create more fitting sponsorships.
Community options are nicely integrated, achievements encourage good etiquette and you can browse results from matches up to a month ago. This allows you to analyse performance, hunt down sworn enemies or add new friends to compete against. It's a great interface and shows definite promise, there's no word yet on tournaments or other competitive options to be added but Quake Live will really open up the mostly unwelcoming FPS community to newcomers.
On that note the requirements to run it are very low, any machine with an NVIDIA, ATI or INTEL graphics card will be fine although many laptops won't be able to join in the fun. So if you're a veteran longing for past glories or you feel the need to compete but found modern games too graphically demanding then check out Quake Live.