Quakeworld was the revamped multiplayer aspect of id Software’s landmark 3D first person shooter game, Quake. I want to make the distinction between the multiplayer and the single player parts of the game beause, to be brutally honest, I absolutely loathed the single player portion of Quake. I appreciated the technical achievement and the historical importance of the game (in terms of PC gaming) but as a game, I just did not like it at all. I wasn’t particularly enamoured with the graphics, I hated the colour palette they used and I was bored by the fact there was limited story or involvement. Okay, the word loathe is a bit a harsh - it would be remiss of me not to mention the one thing that it had in it’s favour that I really liked: a soundtrack created by avid gamer and Mr Nine Inch Nails himself, Trent Reznor. But when it came to multiplayer Quake deathmatch, it was a totally different experience.

Quake deathmatch was Fun with a towering, forthright and staggeringly prominent capital F. It was my introduction to the universe of multiplayer gaming and I loved it. I also wasn’t particularly good at it - something which I reflected in my online nickname, Deadloss. It’s difficult to explain - actually, no it’s not. Deathmatch was exhilirating and could give an adrenaline rush that was almost an equivalent to one got during any competitive outdoor game. Almost - but not quite.

Over 10 years on and I still have fond memories of evenings spent deathmatching. Moments like running towards a corridor junction only to see someone run past followed shortly by a rocket and the resulting explosion and spray of gibs stick in mind. Some players were extremely skilled - I remember the first time I saw a very proficient rocket-jumper.¹ I had spotted him running up a corridor on one of my favourite maps (Titan 2 by Mike “Slayer” Oates) and planned to ambush him. He turned it to his advantage by rocket jumping through a window above me, turning in mid-air and fragging me with his rocket. It was very impressive.

I never got to be very good although I got better and I well remember the first time I spent a couple of rounds at the top of the scoreboard. When I moved down south in 1998, I found I never had a ‘net connection that could give me a low enough ping-rate to be able to play and so I never took part in deathmatches again. Aside from some battleground play in both World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online, it wasn’t until the release of Team Fortress 2 that I went back to it. (Team Fortress was originally released as a modification for the original Quake Deathmatch before the coders were employed by Valve software). TF2 retains the same “fun” feeling that Quakeworld had for me, albeit being a team-focussed game with objective based maps. The gameplay has been stripped down and made very simple, concentrating solely on being fun (as compared to what I gather is the quite hardcore, skill based system behind thr recently released Quake Wars: Enemy Territory). Should I ever revisit this list in the future, it’s likely that TF2 will replace QW as my multiplayer game de choix but for now, nostalgia reigns supreme.

¹ The explosisons from a rocket launcher coupled with a well timed jump would propel your character to normally unachievable heights. It was an unexpected side effect of the physics engine that, subsequently, has been retained as a feature and taken into account when designing a level.