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... open sourced games like Doom and all the cool things other programmers have done. He can play the games and look at the possibilities then if he wants he can go from there.

Freespace 2 SCP (where modders/coders/community updated the entire game and graphics over 10 years)

Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhAR8rWPluQ

Site

http://scp.indiegames.us/

Brutal Doom

http://www.moddb.com/mods/brutal-doom

http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Brutal_Doom

Or you could just go with the brilliant open-source version of FreeSpace 2 http://scp.indiegames.us/.
Actually this is several games include a fun Bablyon 5 game and at least two Battlestart Galatica games along with both FS1 and FS2 ($6 each at gog.com) which with modem graphics stand up very well. The is even a really good new Wing Commander game http://www.wcsaga.com/ (still needs Wine at the moment, but they are working on it)

"If you can get modded up to +5 insightful for this comment then I greatly fear for the sake of Slashdot. It's full of idiots now."

Because we all know that gaming never used to be better, not like it was in the 90's of those evil gamers modding games and having access to SDK's and map editors, getting source from the developers to add/update enhance games after their sales period because god knows the gaming business has not undergone toxic changes.

"Unlike the original game, Supreme Commander 2 is infamous for not allowing players to mod the maps easily. In fact, the modding community for this game is virtually non-existent."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_source_ports

http://scp.indiegames.us/

This kind of stuff is increasingly rare and/or gimped beyond belief although steam is taking 'token steps' in the right direction they're still douches about it though.

Please spare the audience your illiteracy of gaming history.

Open source is really about complexity and not patenting 'nuts and bolts' kinds of things that everyone uses, not to mention it's there for learning and as a kind of backup plan against orwellian IP laws. Coders grow old and die and having code from them for new coders to learn from without having to reinvent everything is a godsend.

For instance everyone benefits over long periods of time when source is open. Questions can be asked, tools can be modified/updated as needed. Analysis on source-code can be done and better tools developed and in depth analysis of how to build better less buggy software. One of the reasons windows has been so bug infested over the years no doubt comes from the lack of open-code. It took decades for Microsoft windows to become as stable as it was under 2000 and XP and even then there were hiccups here and there.

Also lots of projects that are currently impossible under closed source become possible under open source. I wish more game companies would open source their games. Since games really are about the end product, locking down your engine/source-code will naturally hinder analysis of what can be better done to make games on smaller budgets with better tools.

Doom source
http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom_source_code

Freespace 2
http://scp.indiegames.us/

"I think the crux of your problem is you don't like the methods companies have chosen to ensure that their games aren't stolen. That's the main reason for many of those things."

But you don't get it corporations have ALREADY STOLEN from the people the public domain, as well as the right to own,modify,preserve, things they pay good money for. Piracy is just the correct response for software developers having taken away peoples RIGHT TO OWN WHAT THEY BUY. Consecrations and business hacks have come up with all sorts of bullshit legal concepts and laws to brainwash people like yourself. You should go look at the history of intellectual property, it didn't just fall out of the sky. It was organized by the money powers to gain monopoly it is really a form or rent seeking in many instances when you get down to it. That just hurts tinkerers and innovators everywhere.

http://www.ipocracy.org/

Things like this and this should be possible - whenever you BUY a game you should GET the source-code.

D2X-XL (a descent 2 open source project)
http://www.descent2.de/

Freespace 2 open
http://scp.indiegames.us/

That means that a lot of awesome stuff like this can't happen because kids aren't allowed to learn and tinker because of the walled gardens.

Remade FS2 open trailer (all work done by community).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhAR8rWPluQ

So we have clueless people like you walking around the planet supporting this corporate suffocation of cultural innovation and inventiveness because you are clueless about history and are indifferent to games. You are EXACTLY the kind of person I'm talking about. This is why my post is lost on you.

Now look at what happens when companies release incomplete games or badly coded games the community cannot fix them. There are a plethora of games with problems that enthusiasts/tinkerers could fix but we can't because we live in an IP aristocracy, with a feudal model of ownership for the lords, none for the paying serfs.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/973/973368p1.html

Demigod BTW is one of my fav games and I dislike that I can't fix/modify/update it/make it better. Even though I paid money for the game and I have no recourse against companies like this in our little IP aristocracy.

"Not really a free market; since you don't have to pay for the product."

Given the whole theft of the public domain we can say piracy is a counterbalance to this overwhelming corporate theft of the public domain. So IMHO piracy is par for the course. Companies get to redefine the law and set cultural boundaries buy buying government influence to create laws in their favor so customers have no right to own (theft of rights). These industries are even more shifty then any pirate. For instance software is 'never owned' so one doesn't have the source so one can't modify one's own software which one paid for.

Things like http://www.descent2.de/ and http://scp.indiegames.us/ should be much more common then they are but the so called "rights holders" have stolen the rights of customers to own via legal shenanigans because most people aren't bright enough to revolt against these practices.

I haven't played any game since that felt as free and fun to play as WC and Descent. There was some close-to-fun stuff in one of the Startrek space combat games, but trying to use capships as space fighters isn't as fun (it's more strategy "target weapons, engines, etc.") Though I believe it could be done much better, the "StarTrek" name is detrimental since startrek doesn't use fighter craft in combat. (Star Wars on the other hand does, but Star Wars games are so pigeonholed to the "StarWars" universe that you don't get any 6DOF here either.)

Might I recommend Freespace and/or Freespace 2? Sounds like they might be exactly what you're looking for, and with the Freespace 2 Source Code Project the graphics have gotten a very nice upgrade (though both those games still looked good years after their initial release).

"You're not playing your legacy DOS stuff now, you won't tomorrow,"

That's a bunch of garbage, many of us pick up games YEARS after or play many old games semi-regularly (once or twice a year). The whole emulation scene is predicated on people picking up and playing old games. Many older games had a pickup and play aspect to them that you can jump into and get out of, especially now with emulators save-state function.

I also play freespace 2 from once a year to every other year and thanks to open source I can do so with updated graphics bug fixed, and the like. I've often had the itch to go back and play Mechwarrior 2 3dfx edition, problem is I can't be bothered to to spend the time to screw around to attempt to get such an ancient game working because of Mech 2's reliance on a very early direct x version. Many of us have a hankering to boot up old games from time to time, sure we may not marathon like when we first got them but that doesn't mean we still don't want to play them when we get the itch or find the time.

Say what you like but the real issue is that the licensing of games and locking away of source-code for PC games prevent fans from carrying the torch to the next generation and saving gaming history.

Freespace 2 scp
http://scp.indiegames.us/

As for space flight simulators, there is already a "remake" (more like an engine upgrade) of one of the best games of its kind, Freespace 2. And even better, it's open source.
Freespace source code project

Homeworld was a space-based RTS, not a flight sim. It was fun though. Freespace 2 has a lot of community work going into it to update the models and effects. There are also several total conversion projects including a Babylon 5 conversion and a Wing Commander conversion. (Oh, how I miss Wing Commander...

Steam is a pain compared to the way GOG works/worked/used to work (?).

I'll write in the present tense, as GOG's future doesn't seem to be set in stone yet.

You get one file (granted, Psychonaut has actually three). You can download the file from a fast server .I never could get a fast, and I'm being deliberately NICE here, so > 100KB/s) download from steam, no matter what ports I opened. You can make as many backups as you want of the setup file. Installation is straight forward, and you get some bonus material with many of the games (like soundtracks, concept arts, ...). If you install some third party mods, GOG won't start telling you your copy is not valid and start re-downloading the original files neither, which, for example,means that you can slap Freespace2 Openontop of your FS2 install without any difficulties.

Compared to Steam, which asks me to validate my games online if I don't play for a while and then force me to download 1GB of updates even if I just wanted to play, I'll take GOG games everyday.

Yes, the games are old'ish, but that is definitely not a problem if you are more into gameplay than eyecandy (although, as an example, a modded Freespace2 is a good looking Spacecombat simulator/game even by today's standards)

I really hope it's just a very stupid publicity stunt and GOG comes back.

There are a few games I would like to write.

What I would like to see is a space fighting game, but with real physics. Something like this, but from the inside.

I think Freespace 2 would be a good start, it's already Open Source.

Freespace 2 is really still with us:

http://scp.indiegames.us/

I have only just got around to playing it though for the first time. Plays well with a PS3 controller, however I am still really missing the three-axis joystick I build for Decent 1.

The originals - Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness. Wrap them in one long game. Tie them together a little more neatly. Remove the reliance on journals. (Although I will admit the translation wheel and journal were awesome in the day, now they only serve as a distraction -- dig through the box, find the manual, read the entry - and that's only if I've managed to forget what the entry was, which isn't likely.)

Remaking the games and giving PoR and CotAB the Fix command in camp would be nice. Updating the graphics would be nice. But the game play - what I refer to as fantasy based squad level combat, not role playing - could be hugely improved. You could add role playing elements by expanding the options in the games for solving the puzzles. Make the players think more in quite a few of the situations they found themselves in.

Though, SotSB could probably be left out to die. I don't have many fond memories of it. And this probably doesn't qualify as a reboot so much as a remake. And WotC, or whoever holds the AD&D license now, would insist on using 4e rules which would change the flavor of the game entirely...

Dungeon Keeper would be a fantastic game to see re-imagined. Eye of the Beholder. I'd enjoy seeing what some of the darker personalities of the world could do with the Warcraft lore, given the chance. Space simulations need to come back -- picked up FreeSpace and FreeSpace 2 at Good Old Games (http://www.gog.com) and loved 'em; they're made even better with the FreeSpace Source Code Project created by the source code release by Volition. (Hm, have they already been rebooted, or just remade? There are several new campaigns...)

Wing Commander would be awesome to see revived. Ultima would be a fantastic series to see reimagined, especially the first three (which I never liked all that much due to the space portions). RIP Origin. :|

Dear misinformed,

Due to the advent of technological advancement and the internet, formerly scarce works have become common and easily downloaded due to the non scarce nature of information, this has got westerners and excessively pro corporate, pro business peoples panties in a twist from which they have never recovered. Capitalist philosophy only makes sense when an item a person wants to consume is scarce, otherwise the "evil" socialist economics can work (and piracy is a lesson in that it works FYI). Therefore copyright has become a highly charged issue because nature of information and political economic ideology of western capitalism are at odds.

According to neoclassical economics because of the non scarce nature of digital works, their worth should be driven down towards zero and many businesses should be going bankrupt, note that this has not happened and the Movie industry has recently broken box office records. Please refer to Dark Knight released in 2008 in the following list below of top grossing box office movies of all time.

http://www.movieweb.com/movies/boxoffice/alltime.php

The nature of copyright and software licensing has always been questionable from the outset, because the public was not informed enough to mount resistance to the idea of software licensing and EULA's. So many industries got their way by way of public ignorance. Industries later gathered together lobbying more as the internet rose to power and their response to non scarcity of information was in the form of the DMCA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act

Which added to the already dubious practice of licensing software (individuals never own their software) which most nerds have always thought dubious at best (See: Linux)

The advent of the DMCA and licensing prevents legitimate owners of software from outright owning and modifying what they bought due to crazy EULA's and liscensing that weaseled it's way into "normalcy" due to public technological ignorance, which attempted to limit software owners rights to ownership and rights to develop their own software to work with the software they already own. This has pissed off the informed who understand these issues. See: Bnetd

http://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd

Corporations and the bad kinds of capitalists alike have been trying to wrest individual ownership from the people by infringing on their individual rights to own the products they buy. Software companies have always been one of the worst industries due to the idea of licensing software to individuals, rather then individuals being able to own software outright and do whatever they wish with it.

Enterprising individuals like John carmack who released open source doom, etc, and Volition Inc of Freespace 2 fame (see: http://scp.indiegames.us/ ) have been breaths of fresh air for the informed among us as they understand the deeper issues of software patents, copyright and software ownership by and large.

John carmack does not believe in software patents, and is tired of the stupid shit that such patents and overzealous and excessive copyright abuses, to see his frustrations and problems with such see here:

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2004/07/4048.ars

The slashdot community has been getting pissed at the lack of reasoning power in hypercapitalist america, it seems in general that america has an excessive amount of brain dead people and anti-intellectualism, and the rise of super corporate indoctrinated nerd drones, this anti intellectualism and lack of intellectual depth increasingly found in certain americans or others so indoctrinated against intellectual understanding is epitomized in the following link

Well with some games that's how it is, though I didn't see the link at the very top of the page, above the page title.

http://scp.indiegames.us/bnr_installer.php

So, your eye has to look above and below the title to see everything, which is a pretty poor site layout IMO. Not to mention my eye didn't find even the link to download the auto installer at first, since it has a dark grey background like the other non-important parts of the page. Seriously, their website maintainer needs to change a few things. =P

I cry everytime people don't remember the hardworking folks over at the Freespace SCP when it comes to Linux gaming....
http://scp.indiegames.us/
and
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php
for more info.

Over a million posts in their forum debugging an amazing game.

If you haven't, I'd recommend that you look up the Freespace series of games. I love TIE Fighter to death (and have played all 4 of the games, though I didn't spend much time in the original X-Wing), but Freespace managed to improve upon the genre in ways that Totally Games and LucasArts refused to acknowledge when they released XWA. Then the Freespace engine went open source (Thank you, daveb), and the Freespace Source Code Project lives on strong. Ported to Linux & Mac, compatible with gamepads, keyboards, mice, and joysticks, and a billion little tiny things that make you cringe the next time you try to play X-Wing or TIE Fighter. Also, if you DO have to play TIE Fighter, the best way to do it is to grab the old DOS version (besides, we all know the MIDI score is better than the Redbook'd Windows version's music) and play it in DOSBox on the platform of your choice.

http://scp.indiegames.us/

I believe it also supports Windows, OS X and Linux

Check out the "Freespace 2 Source Code Project" and some of the available mods such as "The Babylon Project" (based on my favorite scifi show, "Babylon 5"):

http://scp.indiegames.us/

http://babylon.hard-light.net/

http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/

I actually just rediscovered Freespace (and spent the last hour trying to configure my joystick in Ubuntu) because it has been released, complete with all media and mission files, as open source. As such, checking out sites like http://scp.indiegames.us/ or Googling for the open installer will take you to pages with instructions for automatic downloads of Freespace 1 and 2, along with a host of mods (including a total conversion BSG mod!) all for free and DRM free. I'm rather excited to play through Freespace 1 and 2 before trying out some of the conversion mods.

Pretty sweet!
-Trillian

I'd be some sort of criminal if I didn't mention FreeSpace SCP, which is an open-sourced space sim with no DRM whatsoever.

And a very very good game. And multi-platform. Now go download it.

I disagree entirely, open code is better then no code, it doesn't always have to be 're-usable' to everybody. In fact just because it susbtitutes money with cost in time does not mean others don't value it. We can see this with Freespace 2 SCP and Descent 2 X (and XL) based on open source code. Just because you can't make heads or tails of the code doesn't mean people smarter then you can't.

http://scp.indiegames.us/news.php

http://www.descent2.de/

Right now closed source software means that many consumer goods go obsolete unnecessarily. We see this especially in the gaming industry, how many PC games could have had old parts scrubbed and rewritten and updated by fans of the game and still work today if the code was forced to be opened after it's sales run? A lot.

Software goods have more in common with real tangible items, but the fact is the economic system in fact bastardizes and destroys these goods/wealth by making sure it goes obsolete (breaks/doesn't work) by close sourcing the software.

There's no excuse for software to have to break when you have the source, the fact that customers (really investors) get screwed in their investment in this one way parasitic capitalism because of the lack of nuance and intellectual understanding is quite disturbing with anyone with any kind of serious intelligence.

"If 7 dollars is too much for an unenhanced SNES game, what do you think a fair price is, 6 dollars? "

And this is what I hate about software, I own many said games games already. Technically I still own the liscense to play the game, so why exactly should I have to pay for it if I can provide proof of purchase? Saying Nintendo loses money or some other crap is just a bunch of BS. They have oodles of cash since the Wii is successful, emulation proves people will work and give away their work for free. After all emulators are not easy to make and yet people make them because they are fans and most importantly so that they can have access to the games they purchased if in sometime in the future the hardware company goes belly up or stops selling/supporting replacements.

Right now consumer rights for digital stuff is in the dark ages, you would never sell someone a car they couldn't fix or modify, yet we do that with software and I hate it. When you see great stuff like Freespace 2 SCP http://scp.indiegames.us/news.php

It just makes me angry that old games can't be updated to work when they break because of new hardware and newer OS's, etc, because of closed source bs. Hence the emulation seen, there's DOSBOX which has been around for a while, but doing other 'newer' games is more complicated.

You may be in luck... have you heard of the Freespace 2 Source Code Project? Basically, FS2 is now open source; not only can you play FS2 in full for free, you can also modify it. Gamers are having a field day with it. I'm pretty sure there's work being done on an X-Wing game, though my sights are fixed more closely on a total conversion based on the new Battlestar Galactica series.

Oh man, I played the heck out of Silpheed on the Apple IIgs back in the late '80s.

Since this new version of the game is a 3d space fighter, I feel obligated to point out that Freespace was released as open source some years ago, and people have been working on it ever since. The homepage for the source code project is here:

http://scp.indiegames.us/news.php

Here's a youtube video that shows some gameplay on the OSS version

LUA was also implemented in the Freespace 2 engine that was released some years ago to the public. http://scp.indiegames.us/news.php

I can't believe noone has mentioned Freespace! Absolutely fantastic game series that just seemed to die after two games and right in the middle of the story. Oh well. At least it still lives on in the OSS community: http://scp.indiegames.us/news.php

All I want is a cockpit-view starfighter type thing where I can attack huge capital ships in an online multiplayer setting. It doesn't even have to be a Massive one, just me and a few friends with headsets doing strafing runs. That would be great fun.

You want Freespace 2. It has capital ships, network play, and a mission editor. The source code is open and there is an effort to improve the game. You can get freespace 2 from HOTU.

Hehe, wow, glad to see people are getting on board with Freespace 2. It actually can cost a good amount of money for a used box copy depending on where you get it. I've seen some cheap on Ebay but generally it can be a little pricy since it's out-of-print.

I don't want to put any undue attention on specific links for both Slashdotting reasons and because hosting it for anonymous users on the web isn't kosher yet, but given the legal situation, it's not too far off from it. It's only 100% legitimate if you're friends with the person that lets you download the game, so if you want to follow the letter of the law, introduce yourself at a forum and ask if anyone has a download for ya. Ethically and by the spirit of the EULA and open-sourcing, I think at this point it's pretty much open season no matter if you make friends with the server host or not. If you briefly search around the major player-made forums and abandonware sites, you'll come up with download links and torrents very quick. Some include the open source project with it, for others you'll need to download it separately. Some also include the cutscenes, which I'd recommend just for completeness. I've also caught wind of Linux and Mac versions, but I have absolutely no idea how far along they are.

Freespace 1, by the way, is still pretty good. It's not OS and doesn't have a graphics update project like FS2, but I enjoyed it just for the sake of having another campaign to play through.

Man, I'm going to have to go back and replay it now :P

Yeah, the FSOpen project is amazing. You can find out more about it here:

FSOpen forum
SCP Home Page
Obligatory screenies thread

Actually you can legally obtain FS2 for free - the original EULA actually contained a clause allowing you to give free copies to your friends - took three or four years for people to notice

I'm a developer on the source code project and i write some of the major modding tools.

Some Important URLs:
http://scp.indiegames.us/
http://hard-light.net/

And the license is made for unofficial back-and-forth! The EULA specifically states that anyone is allowed to redistribute the CDs and material on a purely non-commercial basis to friends.

Once you've managed to find a friend willing to let you have it, do check out some of the additional resources available for the game since 'abandonment'.

Check out FS2_Open at this site. As the parent points out, the source was opened some time ago, and there are Windows {binary and source for VS.net, I believe}, Linux and Mac OS X {source tarballs} versions available. The new source code makes a real difference in terms of playability, graphics performance and all-'round fun.

Once you start getting into the game, you'll find a large number of extensive mods for the game available as well.

I thought Freespace1/2 were phenomenally done. Freespace 2 was one of the few game sequels I thought thoroughly improved the previous game in every aspect. Graphics, gameplay, interaction were all great.

Yes! The Freespace series was the spiritual successor to Wing Commander, and I loved it. Sadly, we'll probably never see a Freespace 3 (Volition, the developer and I believe the owner of the Freespace IP, is still around but they're doing crap like the Red Faction series and The Punisher). Luckily, the source for Freespace 2 is available, and there's an active community around it. Maybe we'll never see an official Freespace 3, but I wouldn't be surprised if you see some decent fan-made attempts. (decent? descent? Get it? Because Interplay forced Volition to add the "Descent:" tag on the first Freespace for fear of it not selling without an already well-known name attached, even though Freespace had asbolutely nothing to do with Descent.)

Hell yes!

IWar2/Freespace2 kicked ass.

Check this place out: http://scp.indiegames.us/news.php

Sometimes a little buggy, but you will be happy with it. Some of the features of the media VPs and such require top of the line hardware to run decent.