thelinuxlink.net

Every once in a while I come across someone bitching about Linux and it's lack of good games.

I guess the question is what do you consider to be "good"?

I've actually found some very entertaining games.

Okay, granted, I'm not the "typical" gamer, who only enjoys games with humungoid weapons and CG women with even bigger breasts... but there's got to be more people out there, like me, than what advertisers are leading us to believe.

A game with a good story, creative game play, good graphics and environments, and entertaining sound and music.... that's what keeps me entertained. Blood, guts, and real-to-life destruction as you run down pedestrians only goes so far with me. But, then again, I was raised on Pong, Intellivision, and my Commodore 64 where game creators really had to be "creative" in the way they put a game together.

Anyway, off of the soap box.

The game I downloaded last night, and then purchased the full version for this morning, is Robin Hood: Legend of Sherwood.

It's a 3rd person strategy game, where you get to command Robin and his band of merry men.

I found the whole environment to be captivating. Great detail, excellent sound, and characters that really seemed to come alive. I like a game that has smart adversaries and where you need more than fire power to be victorious. This game's got it. It's going to take me some time to master, but isn't that the whole point?

Yeah I hear ya. Gotta love that old C64


Cedega actually works really well with Nvidia VGA cards though. I play:

UT
UT2004
Call of Duty
BattleField 1942
MOHAA
SimCity
America's Army
Enemy Territory
Tribes2
Doom 3


To name a few, and without a hitch at all.

You forgot to mention that you also support game developers who distribute native Linux games by purchasing their titles (not only MS-Windows via Cedega) as well..... right?

Exactly!

Okay, I'm on a gaming kick right now. Sue me!

Forget Chromium.... you guys have got to try out these two games:

http://happypenguin.org/show?Torus%20Troopers
and
http://happypenguin.org/show?Parsec47

You want to re-live the kind of fun you had back in the 80's when video games were fresh? Download these two simple shooters. Lots of fun!

Judland wrote:You forgot to mention that you also support game developers who distribute native Linux games by purchasing their titles (not only MS-Windows via Cedega) as well..... right?

Just to elaborate.

If a game natively supports Linux, I am out there buying it. Even if I dont play it

That's awesome!

I was just teasing you a bit, by the way. Wasn't trying to imply anything.

One of the nice things about running a distro with a large application repository (i.e.; debian) is that you can find a number of pretty decent games. Some of my recent exploits include fish fillets and Horowitz's Castle. Both are pretty simple yet challenging puzzlers that are fun.

I hope to do some more game reviews on upcoming shows.

I agree that the only way we're going to convince publishers to deliever more Linux games is to show that there is a market. While I think Cedega is a great resource, I often hear cautionary remarks that such a service might not encourage game developers to port natively to Linux.

All we would have to do is show that there is a bigger market on Linux than there is on Mac and hopefully developers will change their minds.

On a similar vein, I'm thinking that a big problem with porting games would be Direct X. Unless the developer wants to code OpenGL, there is less of an incentive to port not only to Linux but to OS X also.

Off Topic a bit, perhaps we should get some online gaming going?[/list]

Sounds good Dann


Not many Linux based gaming sites.

I have had a quick look at LugRadio's ET site (clan.lugradio.org) but seems you need to be a memeber or something, I dunno, I have taken the time to work it out.

dann wrote:One of the nice things about running a distro with a large application repository (i.e.; debian) is that you can find a number of pretty decent games.

Even better, I think, are games like the ones I've listed here that run right from a binary file. No installation required, other than unzipping the download file.

Oh, well, on the other hand, I do recall Robin Hood doing some sort of installation. But, still, it did so just by running the binary file.

I guess I'm also lucky that Kanotix included all of the libraries that were required to get these game going. I didn't have to apt-get a single file.

Easier than MS-Windows!

Judland wrote:Even better, I think, are games like the ones I've listed here that run right from a binary file. No installation required, other than unzipping the download file.

Binary files are nice. Bzflag has an installer: http://www.bzflag.org/

Judland wrote:Oh, well, on the other hand, I do recall Robin Hood doing some sort of installation. But, still, it did so just by running the binary file.

I'm going to give the demo a try out tonight; looks like fun.

I wish there were more games that were supported under Linux. I don't like that I keep on booting into Windows in order to play Counter Strike: Source. Most of the games that I have played on Linux are games that most people would already be familiar with.

Unreal Tournament 2003
Unreal Tournament 2004
Quake 3 Arena
Doom 3
Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

Right now, besides playing Counter Strike: Source, I have been playing Stepmania on Linux.

Stepmania
http://www.stepmania.com/

I have been playing Stepmania, off and on, for some time but I have just started playing it again. Also, there is a fork of Stepmania that incorporates online gameplay, called Stepmania Online. I still play the official Stepmania when I play alone because Stepmania Online has problems playing back videos that are in some simfiles.

Stepmania Online
http://www.stepmaniaonline.com/

I tried Cedega for a few months after I gave a little demonstration of Cedega at the LUGOP booth during the last day of the Peoria Superfest last year; I had only subscribed and used Cedega for three days before giving the demonstration. It does work fine for games that are officially supported by Transgaming, but it doesn't work too well with a lot of other games that I have tried; even with games that hardly take up any resources, like bishoujo games. The one game that really ran well while I was using Cedega was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which was officially supported by Transgaming at the time.

Wow, now that was fast shipping. I orderd the full version of Robin Hood from TuxGames last weekend and the package arrived today.

Gee, I'm still waiting for a laserdisc from the States that I got off of eBay. Seller said it was in the mail on Monday and the package from the UK beat it.

TuxGames gets a gold star for speedy shipping.

You what one of the great things to see with this game? No freakin' license agreement you must agree to before going ahead and using it!

I mean, how many times to you get to actually purchase a piece of software AND get to keep all of your personal rights as an individual?

There was no button telling me that I could not install this game on more than one PC that I own, or not to make a back-up copy for myself... in case something were to happen to the original disc.

I guess the game, and it's makers, really are keeping to the legend of Robin Hood with this title. Long live open source and freedom!!

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