Getting Started with Quake Live

If you love First Person Shooter games and have an older PC you can still play one game that is actually gaining popularity. The game is called Quake Live. It is a convergence of the Quake 3 and Quake Arena games by ID Software into a free to play and free to download on line multi-player game. Most people that have played any first person shooter games have probably seen or played Quake and its variations from ID Software. The cool thing they did was to set this game to run in your browser for free which was a nice touch. I am always glad to see a company that gives a little back to the community that helped launch it.

To get started in the game you just go to www.quakelive.com and hit the button to sign up and get your login name. Check the requirements for game play as far as operating systems and browsers go. The game itself will run well on older systems so you don't need a lot of CPU horsepower. You just need a semi decent video card. The great thing about the game is that you can play on any windows, or soon to be released linux, computer with an Internet Explorer or Mozilla FireFox browser and an internet connection. Your settings and preferences are saved in the website so you will have them on wherever you go.

If you have played any of the Quake or Unreal Tournament games you will fill right at home here. Start out with mapping your keys then a short download of the primary core to the game. Then the menu will take you to a training level to show you some of the fun. While in the training level it will download the rest of the game behind the scenes. You only have to do the training once it will remember next time based on your login. The training level scores your play so that it can later make recommendations for servers to play on with players at your same skill level in first person shooters.

Once you get into the game you will see many ways to play with different types of games like duel (1v1) or team based capture the flag. There are also rooms to meet up with players or friends so that you can hit the same server to play with or against each other. This is the essence to a multi-player game, beating someone you actually know.

With the number of players and servers cramming the site I think ID has another big hit on their hands. I just wonder how they will make money.