quake-live posts

id Software's free-to-play shooter Quake Live has been live to the public for the better part of a year now and this week the game gets all "good will toward men" with a holiday themed level and player skins. Beginning on Tuesday, you will be able to frag your friends online in a special Christmas-themed level titled (what else) Silent Night. The level is basically a remake of the Distance Screams map from Quake III: Team Arena but with lots of holiday decorations and lights.

And if you ever wanted to frag a friend looking like St. Nick, Quake Live has you covered as well. Tuesday also lets players pick a Santa Claus skin and use it in all of the game types. There's also a Vixen-themed female holiday skin for those of you of the opposite sex.

It's been a while since we had given an update on Quake Live but this week id Software issued a major new update for their free-to-play first person shooter. While the developer didn't add any new content to the game in this update they did put in a large amount of game and map changes.

One of the big update is for character hitboxes for weapon hit detection. id is now using a cylindrical collision box and they admit, "We fully expect there to be a required adjustment period for most players." However they feel the changes are worth it, saying, "the new hitbox provides a more consistent game play experience, it will be slightly easier to dodge and hitting other players can feel more rewarding." The game servers now run with an increased frame rate in the new update which should increase frame rates for all players. Finally the registration process has been improved for new players.

Welcome to a new regular feature here on Big Download! Each week we find more and more free games that do not quite fit into the freeware mold. Games that do not require a subscription fee to play, but encourage player usage of money through microtransactions or special subscription services. This is Playing For Free, a column that showcases these games.

Quake 3 is a classic of the FPS genre, and is still played today. Everyone deserves a slice of that classic gameplay pie. id knows this, and in their infinite wisdom, created the free browser port Quake Live. You might ask how good can a browser game be, and if you've played Quake Live you know the answer: incredible. There's a lot to Quake Live behind the scenes that sets it apart from the game that it is ported from. So let's take a look at this incredible port of an incredible game and just why it should absorb your time so much.

As promised last week at QuakeCon, id Software has now added Mac and Linux support for their browser based free-to-play first person shooter Quake Live. In their release notes, they mention that for now Mac support is confined to Apple's Safari browser but they hope to have Firefox Mac support up and running soon.

Also as promised, the latest update has finally put back in leaderboard support to the game (leaderboards were disabled soon after the game went live due to back end issues). The developers have also added the Instagib CTF mode to the game which apparently was a big success when it was shown off to the BYOC attendees during QuakeCon.

Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

It's only fair that, after giving its competitor some air time, that id's multiplayer masterpiece is covered on Boot Disk. I'm talking about Quake 3, a game that spawned a thousand debates (which is better, Quake or Unreal?!) and a thousand mods. Recently reworked for the browser through the magic of Quake Live, it's time to put a little perspective on the original. It may appear dated, but the low resolution of the textures hides a game that every first-person shooter fan should enjoy. While you may initially have trouble warming up to the weightlessness of Quake after all that time spent in Call of Duty, you'll soon lose yourself in this classic.

QuakeCon 2009 is now officially over and id Software's annual free LAN event-game convention reached new attendance records this year. Perhaps it was the promise of the first public demos of id's next game Rage or perhaps the last minute move to the larger Gaylord Texan hotel and convention center caused more people to show up. Regardless, id's Todd Hollenshead revealed to the crowd that QuakeCon 2009 had over 7,000 attendees this year.

The final event of the night was the QuakeCon tournament finals. The Evil Geniuses team won the $12,000 Quake Live CTF final match while "Flysher" won the first Quake Live Open Tournament (where anyone could enter) and picked up $1,500. The Quake Live Masters Championship was a truly epic event as "Rapha" came back from losing the first two matches to win the final three over "Spart1e". "Rapha" picked up $14,000 for his first place win.

We have some pictures taken during the final day of QuakeCon including shots of the QuakeCon tournament winners picking up their "big checks". Plans for QuakeCon 2010 are still to be determined as id has not yet secured a location for the event.

While Big Download is a PC gaming site first and foremost, two upcoming games from the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade might be of interest to PC gamers as well. The exhibit floor at QuakeCon 2009 had not one but two games based on previous id Software PC titles in playable form.

One is Quake Arena Arcade, the XBLA version of id's 1999 multiplayer shooter Quake III Arena. id actually announced plans for such a game at QuakeCon in 2007 but it's finally looking like it will be coming out fairly soon (although no release date has been announced). The game itself is being ported by Pi Studios and on the show floor it looks terrific. We were told that the game actually has some slightly higher polygon counts for the levels and characters than the original Quake III Arena so purists will have little issue with the game's looks.

So why get Quake Arena Arcade when you can play Quake Live (also based on Quake III Arena) for free on your web browser? Well, one reason is that this game is fully "M" rated; that means when players die on screen you see gibs and blood rather than the "disappearing in a flash of light" thing you see when you kill players in Quake Live. The other reason is that in addition to all of the levels in Quake III Arena, Pi Studios has created a whopping 12 all new levels unique to Quake Arena Arcade. Oh and did we mention that there are plans for even more downloadable content for the game after it's released?

Check out the other XLBA game based on an id Software classic after the jump:

Howdy folks. Akela is taking a little vacation (he'll be back) but we didn't want to let the readers of our weekly Mac gaming article think we had forgotten them. Today we are doing something a little different for this week's installment. Instead of reviewing some new Mac games we are taking our crystal ball and checking out the prospects for future Mac games.

As you will see in our latest gallery feature Mac gamers will have a mix of older games that will finally make their debut on the platform alongside major PC game releases that will have a simultaneous release for the Mac.

Click on the image above to continue reading 10 Upcoming Mac Games

This year's QuakeCon event will have the usual stuff from id Software's free gaming event. A big Quake Live LAN tournament, a massive BYOC area, exhibits, sneak peaks of id's upcoming projects . . . but there's also a chance for someone to walk away from QuakeCon with a new car.

Yep, that custom 2010 Ford Shelby Mustang GT500 Coupe pictured above could be yours if you attend the event from August 13-16 at the Gaylord Hotel in Grapevine, Texas. The car, valued at $52,000, is being given away by the gaming oriented communications program Ventrilo. 100 tickets will be given out during QuakeCon and folks can win a ticket in various ways during the show, including random drawnings. Of course just one of the tickets will be picked at the end of QuakeCon to win the Mustang.

For you gearheads, the version being given away at QuakeCon has a "six speed transmission mated to a supercharged 5.4 liter V-8 pumping out a brutal 540 horsepower and 510 lb-ft of pavement destroying torque." Anyway you size it, this is a true muscle car.

With QuakeCon 2009 now less than a month away, the organizers of the free game tournament and show have now announced their plans for the tournament section of the event. Main sponsor id Software will be using their recently launched free-to-play FPS Quake Live as the main game for the professional and open tournaments.

The Quake Live Masters Tournaments will have 64 of the best Quake Live pro players competing in 1-on-1 matches at QuakeCon 2009 for over $25,000 in prize money including $14,000 for the champion. In addition the Quake Live Open Tournament will allow 128 amateurs to compete for $2,500 in cash including $1,500 for the winner. Both tournaments will be sponsored by Intel. id Software is also sponsoring a Quake Live Capture The Flag tournament where 32 teams of four will battle for $22,000 in prize money including $12,000 for the winning team.

Details on how players can enter the tournaments can be found at the Quake Con web site. As we previously reported the event has been moved from its original location to the Gaylord Hotel in Grapevine, Texas where it will be held August 13-16.