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Check out Battle for Wesnoth: http://www.wesnoth.org/home/

It's a turn-based strategy game, it's the #1 game on the linux game tome(available for windows too) and it requires no use of a keyboard.

UT2004 (and the older UTs also)

The Battle for Wesnoth very good freebie.

These are the ones I'm focusing on right now. I've played lots of others. Quake III, Frozen Bubble, I saw someone complain about lack of tacticle shooters, I did have Soldier of fortune. Now that Loki is gone ports don't happen quite as often, but they do still happen. Right now Blizzard is probably the biggest gaping hole in the Linux game library.

Bah... unless they get a level of unit detail like in Wesnoth, I don't think it could peak my interest. :)

Hmm... it looks like there's now an X-com style game for Linux ( ), and it's gotten some really impressive ratings. I never even knew - I was wishing someone would make a game like that just the other day ;)

The problem with most games is that they aren't actually games in the true sense. They are more a form of entertainment. Most people play them for the bright graphics and sound, and the immersion of the game world. Which many people, including myself, love. However, as a Wesnoth developer said "Great graphics make a movie. Great sound makes an album. Great gameplay makes a game."

As much as I love the Final Fantasy series, for example, I don't consider them "games" in the truest sense. They are wonderfully immersive stories, but that doesn't make them a game. The problem is, people are starting to really expect that out of their games. And even though Free Software developers could program a game with a much better engine, meaning it has a more challenging basic set of rules, then a Final Fantasy game; I don't think we can realistically expect free software developers to program the video and sound that people have come to expect. If you take the single opening movie from Final Fantasy VII, (a game that, at 8 years old, is ancient), I don't know how it could be put together without a lot of money.

So I think the basic place for Free Games right now is games for people who love gaming. My favorite game right now, of any type, is Wesnoth , a turn based strategy game released under the GPL. The graphics and the sound are fair, but the game play is truly engaging.

I never heard of any of these games before and that might even be the worst thing to say about them. A lot of games that come from one of the big players aren`t any good, but whenever they realease something decent it definately will find a quite big audience. But when it comes to those independent game developers there seems to be a high chance that even if they produce a really decent game nobody will ever hear about it. That said, if you enjoy turn-based strategy games, you should give Battle of Wesnoth a try - it`s free and open source: http://wesnoth.org/

I was very excited when I first discovered Planeshift, and seriously considering contribution to the project, until I learned of their restrictive (and contradictory!) license terms. To me, Planeshift's schizophrenic licensing policy suggests an ulterior motive. Contrast to the genuinely Open Source game, The Battle for Wesnoth (http://wesnoth.org/, a turn based strategy game), which hasn't had problems getting fine art content, or with "forking". I suspect one could find other similar examples.

Mandatory plug for another great open-source game:

Battle for Wesnoth!
http://wesnoth.org/

Give it a try... it's a turn-based strategy game, but not like Civ. More like a turn-based Warcraft. Except better. :)

But for the whole open source movement? Please. The only thing the top downloads shows is that people would rather pirate good windows games than bother downloading free mediocre games.

While it may be true that open source games lag proprietary ones, Battle for Wesnoth and Freeciv have taken on lives of their own. They beet out BZFlag on the happy penguin top ranked games.

As an aside, my favourite linux game by far at the moment is "Battle for Wesnoth" (go to www.wesnoth.org)

Though sometimes the anime graphics irritate me, it's one of the most intriguing strategy games I've come across.

Does anyone else know of any good hopefully free linux games?

It's ironic to see Freecraft mentioned in a bnetd story, given that Blizzard sued it out of existance a year ago. Wesnoth is a pretty cool game, though, and since it doesn't compete head-to-head with anyone's precious commercial offering, it's unlikely to be hit with a nuke^H^H^H^Hlawsuit anytime soon.

While you wait to see how major publishers will jerk you around next, games for linux keep getting better and better!

I would have cited Wesnoth, GLTron and .

What's interesting about that list is not only that they're all great open source games, but also that they're cross-platform!

Life is good for open source gaming.

Frozen Bubble? nah...

My Exceptions would be BZFlag, Battle for Wesnoth, and FreeCiv.

Another great open source strategy game can be found right here:

Battle for Wesnoth

They pretty much hit the mark on this one in terms of gameplay. It is definatly worth the download.

...i nearly always install on new systems:
CoreWar: simulation game where a number of warriors try to crash each other while they are running in a virtual computer.
Battle for Wesnoth: fantasy turn-based strategy game.
BZFlag: multiplayer 3D tank battle game.
Crimson Fields: tactical war game in the tradition of Battle Isle.
Crossfire: cooperative multiplayer graphical RPG and adventure game.
Enigma: inspired by Oxyd on the Atari ST and Rock'n'Roll on the Amiga.
FlightGear: Flight simulator.
FreeDroid: clone of the classic game "Paradroid" on Commodore 64.
Frozen Bubble: puzzle-bobble clone.
Globulation 2: Real-Time Strategy.
LinCity: city/country simulation game.
LBreakout 2: breakout-style arcade game in the manner of Arkanoid.
NetHack - Falcon's Eye: mouse-driven interface for NetHack that enhances the visuals, audio and accessibility of the game, yet retains all the original gameplay and game features.
netPanzer: online multiplayer tactical warfare game designed for FAST ACTION combat.
Pathological: enriched clone of the game "Logical" by Rainbow Arts.
Project StarFighter: xy-axis star fighting game.
SuperTux: classic 2D jump'n run sidescroller game.
XKobo: astpaced multiway scrolling shoot-em-up.
XRick: clone of Rick Dangerous.
XScorch: Scorched Earth clone.

Have fun!

Turn based strategy, kinda like Panzer General/Fantasy General.

Lately, I have been seeing more and more high-quality Free Software games, many of which would benifit from powerful graphics cards:

Neverball and Neverputt
Battle for Wesnoth
Blob Wars: Metal Blob Solid
Project: Starfighter
Pydance
Freedroid and FreedroidRPG
GLTron
Armagetron

Many of these are as high-quality as any proprietary game.

(As far as I can tell, you are using "commercial" as a synonym for "proprietary".)

It's a turn-based strategy game. They have binaries for Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS and GNU/Linux. There are several server binaries available as well. On debian, apt-get install wesnoth wesnoth-server. The debian package is usually available on my mirror 2 days after an upstream release.

I haven't played a networked game yet, but the single-player campaigns are fun.

The Battle For Wesnoth, although not yet complete, is quite addictive. It's a turn-based 2d strategy game with some crpg elements. And it's Free Software!

One can't forget Wesnoth under the strategy section!

Medieval (humans, elves, orcs), turn-based, hexagonal strategy with some really nice graphics. (Some Freeciv people have commented in forums that freeciv should strive to look as nice as Wesnoth.)

I've been playing this game for a few weeks now, and it has a very nice feel to it, a long single-player campaign (multiple campaigns coming soon, apparently) and is lots of fun multiplayer.

Try a turn based strategy/fantasy game Wesnoth. It comes with multiplayer server and gives you the oppertunity to grap a cup of coffee sometimes.

The Battle for Wesnoth is an excellent, free (as in freedom) game with both campaign and multiplayer mode. The requirements are very low, and they have just released the 0.6.1 version today. Download it! ;)

The Battle for Wesnoth is an excellent, free (as in freedom) game with both campaign and multiplayer mode. The requirements are very low, and they have just released the 0.6.1 version today. Download it! ;)

Wesnoth It's a turn-based strategy game that is simplistic but very, very addictive.

The scenarios are hard (in 0.5.1, I heard they're easier in 0.6), and the game is being developed quite quickly.

If you like turn based fantasy strategy multiplayer free games Battle for Wesnoth is your game.
Battle for control of villages, using variety of units which have advantages and disadvantages in different types of terrains and against different types of attacks. Units gain experience and advance levels, and are carried over from one scenario to the next campaign.