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I just got word from the fine folks at LokiSoft announcing that they are partnering with BSDi to produce games for BSD. Very cool -- my hat is off to all involved. Here's the press release.

Loki and BSDI Partner for FreeBSD Games
Loki to Certify Games for Use with Linux Compatibility Features

San Jose, California -- August 15, 2000 -- Loki Software, Inc., the leading publisher of best-selling games for the Linux operating system, today announces a strategic alliance with Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDI), the foremost supporter of the FreeBSD Project.

Loki introduced fully-supported, shrink-wrapped commercial games to the Linux community in 1999. While Loki has released Alpha and PPC versions of their games whenever technically feasible, FreeBSD users had been left to their own devices to make the games function on their open-source operating system of choice.

Through this new partnership, Loki and BSDI will work together to ensure Loki's gaming titles are compatible with FreeBSD using the Linux-compatibility features. Certified games on this configuration will be fully-supported by Loki.

"Many people do not take games seriously, and this is a mistake," said Jordan Hubbard, Vice President, Open Source Solutions. "Availability of Loki's industry leading line up of Linux games is a huge win for us, as we realize full well that games drive a large part of the overall acceptance of any operating system, even a serious operating system like BSD."

"We are excited to be announcing our official support of FreeBSD's Linux compatibility libraries," said Scott Draeker, president of Loki Software. "FreeBSD users have been enjoying their Open Source operating system for years, and many of them have been playing our games."

Loki is now preparing several A-one titles for certification, including the highly-anticipated SimCity 3000 Unlimited and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri with the Alien Crossfire expansion pack. Other popular programs to be certified soon include Quake III Arena, Soldier of Fortune, and Descent3.

Specially-marked certified games will be available from The FreeBSD Mall in addition to Loki's Web site store.

Patrick McAllister was one of the folks who wrote to us about a report talking with John Carmack [?] regarding id's sales of Linux games. Apparently, it's been pretty absymal - enough to cover costs, but "they wouldn't make a bean-counter blink". I wonder what Loki's experience has been.

Straker Skunk writes, "Loki, in conjunction with Creative Labs, has announced OpenAL, an LGPL'ed audio library for 3D sound generation. It's aimed for use in games as a cross-platform, nonproprietary means of accessing the 3D sound features on many newer sound cards. What's especially cool about it is that the API is designed with the same style, philosophy, and polish as OpenGL. Given enough time, it might very well become just as popular. " I've always been a fan of Loki and it's great to see them supporting the community - someone also sent an interview with Michael Vance, one of the developers behind OpenAL, who talks about the development of OpenAL and how it compares to other sound offerings.

Everyone in the known universe has been submitting the news that Loki Software will be publishing and distributing Quake III Arena for Linux. The game will be published Dec. 27. The box will be a limited-edition collector's tin box and will include SuSE Linux 6.3. Asking price is 50$.

Kurt The Pope, most notable for his recent reviews of CodeWarrior and Code Fusion has taken time to play in a slightly different IDE ^[?] - Railroad Tycoon II Gold, by Loki. Click below for the skinny.

Rating 10/10
Buy from Lokisoft.

When I survey my life and contemplate which computer games have sucked my time away from being an otherwise productive citizen, Railroad Tycoon stands out high on the list. I spent many a summer afternoon with my friend Nate and his 286 building railroad empires while our peers were out living healthy and energetic lives. Now, Loki has released a new version of Railroad Tycoon, Railroad Tycoon Gold Edition 2, for Linux. RT2 is very similar to its predecessor, but has improved graphics, more scenarios, campaigns, multi-player support, a terrain editor and an improved and more complex financial model.

At the game's core, as the name implies, you build railroads. You ship passengers, mail, and a wide variety of other raw materials, goods and products from one location to another. If you send raw materials to a city with the appropriate industry, it will create a finished product for you to ship to another city. You have the option to select how difficult of an industrial model you wish to use. If you chose the basic, option, you can ship anything to any city and they will buy it. This obviously makes it much easier to find a buyer for your goods. Think it will be fun to ship every carload of coal in the United States to Alpena, MI? That's fine, because they'll happily pay for it. For those looking for a little more challenge or a more realistic game, you can choose an advanced model which only pays a fraction of the price for goods not demanded, or the expert level where you basically get nothing for undemanded goods.

But if you are only playing to build a railroad, you are missing the real fun of the game. If you play your cards right, it will be no time before you are making money faster than you can spend it. It is time to become a true robber baron and create monopolies that would make Microsoft drool. If you have a couple hundred thousand spare dollars, you can begin to buy up all of the industries around your railroad-though you have to be playing the most difficult industrial model to do this. While you do need to be careful to buy and hold only profitable industries, this is an easy way to earn a little money.

The real monopoly building fun, and frankly the most fun part of the game, is playing a ruthless corporate raider. RT2 has added features such as buying or selling on the margin give you that extra edge when playing the market. Thanks to the designer's decision to separate corporate funds from company funds, you can now first personally buy up a bunch of a competitors stock and thereby guarantee some votes when your company attempts to merge (or more accurately, take over) the company.

While the game concept and design are excellent, there are a couple of minor issues with the game. First, the scrolling is very slow which makes is a little bit difficult to get around the map. Second, if you choose to start a new game on a large map, it can take a little while for the computer to create the game. Both of these items, while they can be corrected with a getting a faster machine, the performance was somewhat slow for a fairly well loaded Pentium II.

Overall, this is wonderfully addictive game. There are a wide variety of difficulty levels, depending on how complex of an economy you want to play. If you are they type who would rather control the world's economy than run around through caverns shooting thiings, this game is a must buy.

Note: Railroad Tycoon II Gold, which this game is, is different from Railroad Tycoon II. As Gold implies, it comes equipped with more scenarios, and more playability.

Several people wrote to us to let us know that Creative Labs has decided to make the drivers for their Soundblaster Live open source. They made the announcement and also said they will be setting up a CVS/Bugzilla system to aid in development. Jon Taylor, of S3 and nVidia fame, along with several other coders have been asked to oversee the development. Additionally, they confirmed that they are working with Lokisoft to work Environmental Audio and "3D Audio" on the Linux platform. Lokisoft makes most of the uber-cool games for Linux.

whoop writes "Loki has up on their page that they are now working on Heretic II by Raven Software. That's number 5, three to go for this year... " That reminds me - I still need to buy Civ:CTP. I'm glad to see Loki doing so well. With any luck, a press release will be up soon.

Faizout writes "Lokisoft is once again selecting beta-testers, this time for `Myth II: Soulblighter'. There are a few spots that are already taken; some of the people are those who failed to make it onto the beta-test list for Civ:CTP. "

As promised, we've taken a look under the hood and banged the tires on Lokisoft's port of Civilization:CTP to Linux. I've given my thoughts below, and included a review from James Brief-click below for the details. If you know you want it now, buy it at Handeye.com. Hemos spouts off about Civilization: Call To Power

I should be upfront about my past history with Civilization(s). My name is Hemos (well, Jeff, but...) and I have a problem. I play(ed) Civilization constantly. For Civilization, CivNet, and Civ2 pets wouldn't get fed, girlfriends were ignored, phone calls not returned, and loved ones, well, unloved. Heck, I even liked playing Colonization. I think that the Civ family is some of the best game programming every done, and I was extremely happy to get the beta copies of Civ:CTP.

Lokisoft has done a good job of porting to Linux. They haven't done just a straight port, but have taken into account the difference in UI from Windows -> Linux. I actually got to use all my mouse buttons, and felt like something that had been designed for my X desktop, not something that someone had kludged together hoping to make a few bucks. That's a very good thing, and I hope that the other game companes take a note from that playbook, and do similar work.

So, What the Heck is New?

Civ:CTP has a distinguished pedigree, and that cuts both ways. Because they've got the Civilization name, they are judged different then other games. They also had a problem in that this is the first Civilization game that Sid Meir wasn't involved in-he's formed his own compan. But more on that later. So, they've got this great name, but that also means that people have certain expectations, and that limits their ability to improvise. To wit, the major changes seem to come in how terrain enhancements are handled, and military. No longer will the Swiss Army knife of units, the Settlers, have to found new cities and plant crops-now you have Public Works amounts, and you can enhancement your landscape using that. I think it's a great addition, and addresses one of my major complaints. The military is the area that is most directly affected-it's much, much, better. Remember the big step from Civ to CivII? This is bigger. Combined Arms that actually make sense, and the ability to more realistically work with the military is great. The methods of scientific learning has been tweaked as well.

But How Different is it? And what about Alpha Centauri?

While those changes are great, and well appreciated, this isn't a whole new game. This is something that still stays true to the Civilization roots, rightly so. This contrasts with the latest effort of Sid & Brian Reynolds (Chief Designer of CivII). They've formed Firaxis, and have produced the hit game Alpha Centauri. Evidently they are even working on porting it to Linux. Alpha Centauri is truly revolutionary, but Civ:CTP is incredible. Alpha Centauri is the Shakespeare to Civ:CTP's Ben Jonson. My bottom line: Get it. It's worth. I give it a 29 on a scale of 13-32.

James Brief on CTP

Civilization: Call to Power

I remember a sense of nervousness overcoming my sense of excitement. I had in my hand the box of a sequel to my favorite game I ever played and the successor to one of the best selling strategy games of all time. Similar to my small fears surrounding The Phantom Menace, I wondered "is it worth it to tamper with a classic?" Civilization: Call to Power for Linux is not simply the newest chapter in the vastly popular Civilization series. It does not have the Sid Meier seal of quality that has been telling gamers for years that this game will keep you up for hours at a time and shock you when you notice that it is 5:18 AM and you have to get up in 42 minutes. Thankfully, due to the perseverance of the port specialists, artists and composers at Activision and Linux porter Loki Entertainment, Civ:CTP is one of the most beautiful games to come out since, wellCivII!

Civ:CTP is one of the most engrossing games in years. The "let's make a Quake clone" syndrome which seemed to plague the industry in 1997-98 is over. Civ:CTP is as original as late 1998 titles like Halflife and Oddworld, yet it still harkens back to its rich Civilization ancestry while introducing entirely new features.

First off, the graphics are vastly superior to Civilization II. The Civilization series finally reaches 16-bit graphics. Each soldier can be seen from any perspective; you are truly immersed in a 3-D world. Not even the hot-shot Windows based Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri boasts graphics that compare to these. The topography can be seen with superb detail, and get this in Civ:CTP, the mountains actually look like mountains and the fields look like fields (instead of just brown and yellow tiles, respectively)! And the sound is even better than CivII, which was so amazing that I used to actually listen to the CD in my discman! Civ:CTP's soundtrack encompasses everything from beautiful Asian instrumentals to futuristic war chants. I have always felt that music and sound are the foundation of any great game. Who cannot conjure up the theme to Super Mario Bros.? My point exactly. The sounds and music in Civ:CTP mesmerize you into the glorious world that you create.

Gameplay is vastly improved from Civilization predecessors. One of my biggest problems with CivII was the micromanagement. At the beginning of every turn, you had to attend to problems in nearly a dozen cities in a moderately sized world. Civ:CTP eliminated this annoyance. Now, at the beginning of the turn, a window comes up with a brief summary of the progress (or problems) of all of your cities; you can select which cities you want to tinker with and everything else will progress automatically. Another great feature is the battle improvements. Now, you can have up to 9 units simultaneously battle a city. Cool new land, sea, and air units make a military approach to the game the obvious choice in my opinion! Incredibly creative units such as the lawyer (who can halt all production in your city), ecoterrorist (who plants a virus in your city and can destroy wonders, production and lower population) and the slaver (a portly unit who enslaves other civilizations' settler units and raises your population!) prove that a lot of creativity and imagination was put into every single new unit.

While Civ:CTP should be added to the library of any computer game enthusiast, it is not fault-proof. Sometimes, the AI is a bit too easy in forgetting past grievances with your civilization (is this a blessing or a bug?). Also, the expansion of the military aspect of the game into space was an absolute thrill to me, but may be a bit too much to handle and some necessary micromanagement might be too much for some, but not for those used to the micromanagement of CivII. Overall though, the pros heavily outweigh the minimal cons. Civ:CTP is a wonderful game which you will be playing over and over (hey, I've been playing CivII until only a month ago!) and has kept me up to all hours of the night (6:12AM is my record so far). I couldn't be a happier insomniac!

Buy Now at Handeye.com!

Graphics: A+
Gameplay: A
Sound: A
Music: A+
AI:A-
Replay Value: A+
Overall: A+
-James Brief

Jeffrey Starr writes "Loki Entertainment Software is posting on their web site that Civilization: Call to Power for Linux will be released April 26. " Hemos got on the beta testers list so I played it a bit last night. Its a strange feeling- I haven't played a "real" (you know what I mean *grin*) game under Linux besides Quake and Doom. It gave me warm fuzzies. I hope everyone follows the trail the Loki is blazing over there. They did a good job.

Vadim Grinshpun writes "Loki Entertainment has posted screenshots of the Linux version of Civilization:Call To Power. Looks like beta testers have also been selected--half-randomly, half based on experience and hardware. " The website doesn't seem to be responding atm, but Hemos is on the list. He is happy.

Vadim Grinshpun writes "Loki Entertainment has posted screenshots of the Linux version of Civilization:Call To Power. Looks like beta testers have also been selected--half-randomly, half based on experience and hardware. " The website doesn't seem to be responding atm, but Hemos is on the list. He is happy.

The Smack writes "Lokisoft is taking applications for beta testers for Civ: CTP. Show them the support they deserve and flood their mailbox with legitimate applications. Can't wait! " Head over to Lokisoft to sign-up. Looks cool-and their booth is interesting too. Update: 03/03 02:21 by CT :This just in:scjody writes "You may want to update your CIV story. I copied the beta. Here's the form

DP writes "Well, it is known known which game they will be porting. Civilization: Call to Power (CIV III, basically), will be fully ported to linux by Loki Software, all utilities and extras included. " How many hours did I lose to the original Civ? Man, this is great news.

axg writes "Loki Software is planning to port top selling games to Linux. Read about it here " Loki games is brought to you by the same guys that made the SDK toolkit. (AFAIR) Slashdot wishes them well... What games are you thinking of porting first?