A while back I put my email in for a chance to be a beta tester for Quake Live. Long since forgotten I got an email today asking me to try it...

Quake Live is a free (ad-supported) browser based first person shooter in development by id Software. It only supports Windows right now (IE and Firefox) but will eventually support Linux and Mac.
No word on the release date yet but it seems to be well on its way.

To get started I had to make an account and download a 3.78 MB plug-in. I was greeted by a friendly tutorial talking me through the game.. I promptly skipped it. Starting an online match was quick, all the matches and settings are selected through the web browser. The game is rendered in a little box which can be made full screen; I'm happy to say that it supports wide screen resolutions (that's better than Battlefield 2!).

Once I started playing I noticed that it was pretty much Quake 3 loaded off a server. The textures and models may be a little bit compressed but all of the guns, maps, and game types are very close to the same. The graphics are decent, nothing stunning but something that will play well on older computers. I can see this being very useful for getting my online FPS fix when I am away from home.