While the Irish Quake team is off to Paris for an international at the end of February, others might fancy something less serious. It could just be a "kickabout" with friends on the Net or a test of fragging skills against good Irish players around. Before getting started, the international hopeful should download at least a couple of essential programs. Gamespy 3D (www.gamespy.com) is a shareware program which shows how many people are playing and allows searches for other players and a whole lot more.
Those who favour frantic Quake rather than the slightly more pedantic Quake II, will have to download Quakeworld (www.quakeworld.net). This goes some way towards solving the problem with lag and tries to keep everyone running at the same speed, amongst other things. An IRC client such as Mirc is also very useful for chatting away to fellow Quakers. Using Mirc (www.mirc.com) connect to irc.iol.ie and join the irishquake channel. Although a certain amount of computer literacy is expected, beginners are welcome. This is the place to talk to the experts.
To play at a competitive level, players will need to join a clan or create a clan of their own (five players or more) and there are leagues set up to see who is king of the clans. The Celtic Warriors are just one of many clans in Ireland and their homepage is www.indigo.ie/lorenzo/cw while Dark Forces (a Quake 2 clan) has a page at (clans.quake.ie/df/). For variety, there are also "mods" which change the fundamental nature of Quake and Quake II. Team Fortress, Rocket Arena and Capture the Flag (CTF) are among the most popular modifications. In CTF the object of the game is to steal the opposing team's flag, while preventing them doing likewise.
A couple of sites worth browsing are www.quake.ie and http:// start.at/quakezone.
Devil Dice, Sony PlayStation
This puzzle game with - wait for it - dice at the centre of the action, is a product of Sony Computer Entertainment's Net Yaroze project. The Net Yaroze is an amateur PlayStation development system which allows anyone to write game programs to run on the black Net Yaroze PlayStation.
Shuchi Yano was a keen Net Yaroze developer who impressed Sony Computer Entertainment and was persuaded to put a team together. Devil Dice is the result. First impressions of the game are not great, however. The graphics have a slightly amateur look compared to some PlayStation titles, but puzzles don't require too much eye-candy to impress. Not many puzzle games can be reviewed without mentioning Tetris, but while there are some similarities, Devil Dice is certainly no clone. The object of the game is to make dice on the board disappear. This is done by controlling a "little devil" that balances on the top of the die. You arrange rows or columns of dice showing the same number of dots and for them to disappear you must line up fours in rows of four, threes rows of three, etc.
Initially, Devil Dice can be very frustrating, as the player needs to be able to know what number is on the other side of each die in an instant. But once that (and the slightly quirky control system) have been mastered it is immensely addictive and with trial, battle puzzle and the multiplayer war modes, it will keep even the most avid puzzle fan hooked.