Playing Quake Live
drives one thing home: games have slowed down. The
modern multiplayer shooter is a more careful, more
strategic affair, with solid tactics and an abundance of
teamwork. Quake Live, by comparison, is utter
carnage. Utter cathartic carnage.
One thing to get out of the way from the start: Quake
Live is Quake III Arena. Simple as. Not Quake
III in a browser, even: you still have to download a
sizeable application, and the whole thing plays out in
full-screen, as if IE or Firefox weren't involved at
all. The only time you'll use anything resembling a web
page is for the game's menu, so for all intents and purposes,
you're back playing iD Software's seminal multiplayer
shooter from 1999.
So it's a ten-year-old game, which is an interesting
thing to return to. You just don't get this sort of
online experience any more. It's all circle-strafing,
bunny-hopping, rocket-jumping mayhem. There's no careful
thinking; just light-speed reactions and lots and lots
of dying. And, having spent a few hours back in Quake
III's company, I'm not sure what to make of it all.
.
|
"it's
pure,
brains-off action" |
I'm very rusty. I was
once a rather fine Quake III player, way back
when, but now I'm struggling. Others, it would seem, are
not. After I proved in the training level that I knew
how to rocket-jump, the game decided to match me against
expert players. The resulting insanity was overwhelming,
and I perished within seconds of spawning, repeatedly.
It came as a shock to the system. While by no means a
hugely adept FPS champion, I'm alright with the genre. I
play all my single-player games comfortably on medium,
and I like nothing more than a Left 4 Dead
campaign on expert. In the company of others here, all
fiercely blasting away, trigger fingers always ready, I
pale in comparison.
I've still not quite got back to grips with the sheer
pacing of it all just yet. There's something about it
that feels a little clumsy. It's pure brains-off action,
but even more so than we're used to seeing these days.
What I hoped would make me all nostalgic, causing me to
yearn for the long-evaporated days of no-frills
deathmatch, has instead only made me somewhat
frustrated. I'm good at games. Why am I no good at this
one?
At times, the game is plainly to blame. There's a very
slight delay to the mouse movement at times, which can
be absolutely crippling in a game like this. It doesn't
seem to relate to the internet speed - I didn't
experience any noticeable lag in the usual sense - but
the controls seem to be very occasionally unresponsive.
In another game, it would be so miniscule you wouldn't
notice. In Quake Live, it can mean the difference
between a perfect Railgun hit, and a waste of
ammunition.
"pretty
much identical
to before" |
The Railgun has been
interestingly balanced. What was once a guaranteed
one-hit-kill now only takes 80% health off the
unfortunate victim. So, often, a direct hit often does
result in the opposition's untimely passing. But the
Railgun was all about that devilish satisfaction when
you finally managed to land a good strike. When it's so
difficult to hit a target in the first place, it's
somewhat disappointing to see the opponent able to
immediately shoot back. Elsewhere, you'll need to unload
a whole bucket-load of anything to gun someone down.
Would one gun that devastating really spoil the game
that much? It never did before.
Elsewhere, everything's pretty much identical to before,
only with the new Quake Live logo plastered on
every surface imaginable. What was once a beautiful,
revolutionary graphics engine now looks extraordinarily
flaky. What were once awe-inspiring sound effects now
sound decidedly lo-fi. And the action just feels
weird. The level design remains as perfect as
ever, but I need time to get back into this. I hope I
can. At the moment, I kind of wish I hadn't played Quake
Live. It's spoiling the memories. Oh, such wonderful
memories.
|
