Fancy leaping around firing rocket launchers into burly soldiers? Of course you do. Free-to-play shooter Quake Live is now available on Steam.
Bethesda’s throwback to the glory years of the arena shooter was previously available as a browser game, and the Steam release coincides with a raft of gameplay tweaks aimed at making the game more friendly to beginners.
Playing Quake again is like revisiting some long-forgotten age. We often think of things like Call of Duty as fast-paced, but the frenetic, ridiculous, explosive madness of Quake makes Activision’s franchise look like an arthritic old dog by comparison. I’m appreciably worse at the game than I was back when I used to spend hours on Quake 3 (which Quake Live is based on), but it’s still a whole heap of fun. Even if the free-to-play elements are a sobering reminder of the direction gaming has taken.
If you’ve missed rocket-jumping your way onto a distant ledge to grab a power-up before turning around to instagib an enemy with an absurdly lucky long-range shot, you might want to give in to your nostalgia and give it a go.
