As soon as I got home last night I switched on my 360 and downloaded Doom Live. What a fun game. Sure the graphics suck, the controls are so basic they're laughable and the weapon choice is at best, narrow, but I just loved it.

It is, as one of the people I played against in my countless four-player deathmatches said last night, the essence of deathmatch. There are no grenades, no ducking, no jumping, no looking up, no headshots, heck, there's very little aiming. It's just running around and trying to shoot the other guy with a bigger weapon.

I know that sounds boring, but it isn't. It is, however, amusing.

I did notice a couple of things in the game that I found strange or just plain annoying.

The sprint feature, accomplished by holding down your left trigger, is endless and gets you running so fast that you can, I believe, if the circumstances are right, run into the flying shoebox you just shot out of your blunt-ended rocket launcher.

This zipping around falls more into the realm of amusing than annoying to me, but it takes some getting used to.

Ping. That's right a game that ran lightening fast on the computer I owned when I was still in high school (that would be the 80s) manages to get all syrupy and pingalicious when introduced to the Intertubes of Xbox Live.

I certinaly hope this was just a day one issue and will either sort itself out or get fixed in a patch. I can handle the 80s gameplay and graphics, but I can't handle dial-up online play.

Oooh, best part of the game? When I logged off last night I was ranked 40 in the world for online deathmatch. Yeah, that ain't gonna last. Brian Crecente