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Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

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Quake 4 demo

Then: dance for news item.

Quake 4, probably a sequel to something or other, is now available in demo form, allowing those of you who enjoy pretending that your mouse is a gun, and that the things you're clicking on are actually fearsome beasts and not simply low-level grunts whose basic training apparently only consisted of "when you see the hoo-man, duck and shuffle right"... to try it out.

It's on Eurofiles, you know. 310MB. And unlike last time, publisher Activision, developer Ravensoft and exec-prods id Software do suggest you download this.

But what's in it? Well, there are two single-player levels, which sound like they come right at the start of the game when you land on Stroggland or whatever it's called and have to run back and forth a bit through alien trenches shooting the sidesteppers and bringing things to people who need them.

There are also two multiplayer maps: The Fragging Yard, and the presumably not entirely different The Fragging Yard 1v1. Both can be played online, to give you an idea of how the game stacks up against some of its genre rivals, like the one it purports to have been inspired by. Which was called... Dammit!

Anyway, as well as being out on PC right now, and indeed reviewed, Quake 4 is also due out on Xbox 360, and should be available along with the new console across Europe from Friday, December 2nd.

Oh, and there's a Linux demo, by the way. If you're one of them.