Slashdot Mirror
25 Best Linux Games
bobz writes "The Linux Game Tome has announced the winners of the Happypenguin Awards. Games, toys and libraries in 25 different categories were nominated and voted upon by the Linux gaming community. Take a look at the best Linux gaming has to offer." Alas, no SimCity 4, and no Sims Online.
Linux has 25 games now? I guess they all win...
Schnapple
Wow. But are 10 of them "moria" variants? Or are we talking about 25+ *unique* games??
Free Games
Best Free Game - Frozen Bubble
Best Free 3D Action Game - Cube
Best Free Arcade Game - Frozen Bubble
Best Free Cards/Board/Gambling Game - PySol
Best Free Multiplayer Action Game - BZFlag
Best Free Multiplayer Strategy Game - Freeciv
Best Free Role-Playing Game - NetHack: Falcon's Eye
Best Free Simulation Game - Flight Gear
Best Free Single Player Strategy Game - Freeciv
Non-Free Games
Best Non-Free Game - Quake 3 Arena
Best Non-Free 3D Action Game - Return To Castle Wolfenstein
Best Non-Free Arcade Game - Space Tripper
Best Non-Free Cards/Board/Gambling Game - Eric's Ultimate Solitaire
Best Non-Free Multiplayer Action Game - Quake 3 Arena
Best Non-Free Multiplayer Strategy Game - Heroes of Might and Magic 3
Best Non-Free Role-Playing Game - Ultima I: A Legend Is Reborn
Best Non-Free Simulation Game - SimCity 3000 Unlimited
Best Non-Free Single Player Strategy Game - Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Miscellaneous Categories
Best Emulator - ScummVM
Best Game Support Library - SDL
Best Graphics - Unreal Tournament 2003
Best Sound/Music - Frozen Bubble
Best Toy - Celestia
Most Original/Unique Game - Liquid War
Most Promising Linux Game Project - Planeshift
...almost all these games are over a year old. If I want to play games, I'll use Windows. If I want to get work done, I'll run Linux. It just doesn't make since to use a screwdriver to pound in a nail.
Why should we expect Linux games to be any better than the millions of shareware games made for Windows? I mean, I've never found freely available Windows game that would be fun.
The owls are not what they seem
-Mark
You turn around the corner. Your foe (Server, 58 Hp 3D1) awaits. You engage battle. You /. the server.
You gained an experience level!
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
Forgive my ignorance, I don't use Linux for gaming. I game on consoles and my other PC with an OS that is less favorable to the /. masses. Anyway, are there actual stores where you can BUY games for Linux, or are they only primarily available from online sources?
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
And that atmosphere is.... brown.
IMO, Linux needs games in order to "make it" in the mass market. It already has the good O/S, it has the word processing software, it has GUIs if you want them - the only thing it doesn't have is a good games library.
Once you get developers either making games specifically for Linux or devs porting other O/S games to Linux, then Linux will be ready to take down the MS behemoth. After all, once it has games, you wouldn't need a different O/S for anything and you could then use your Windows discs as really cool frisbees :)
Support bacteria! It's the only culture most people seem to get.
I've always been amazed at the marvelous art of the Spectrum game designers. Cramped into a 8-bit environment with really sucking video, they managed to create very addictive games, with really non-trivial gaming ideas. (When you don't have too much resources to waste, every bit of your game better be brilliant). Now the newer generation computer games have all those fancy video effects, tons of multimedia played in your face, but the signal to noise ration is much lower IMHO than was on Spectrum. Kinda like the modern FX-laden films with no really good plot behind them compared to the old classics. Perhaps I'm getting old, but Spectrum emulation is one of the best gaming environments I've seen on Linux...
VKh
Linux could get more support, if only developers saw other developers do well on the system. And the only way that'll happen is if someone gives Linux support. Kind of a catch-22 there.
Personally Quake II is the one that I think was probably the best in terms of style (after Doom II of course!), I never really liked Quake that much. Currently I play quite a lot of UrbanTerror which is a free Q3 total conversion which is like Counterstrike. UrbanTerror works fine in Linux and they have a Linux section of the support forums.
The other Linux games I have a Wolfenstine and Tribes 2 but after playing them for a bit I found that I always end up going back to Quake 3.
I don't actually miss the fact that there are not many Linux games -- there are enough for the time I have to play them.
Check out MKDoc a mod_perl CMS
- Best Free Game - Frozen Bubble
- Best Free 3D Action Game - Cube
- Best Free Arcade Game - Frozen Bubble
- Best Free Cards/Board/Gambling Game - PySol
- Best Free Multiplayer Action Game - BZFlag
- Best Free Multiplayer Strategy Game - Freeciv
- Best Free Role-Playing Game - NetHack: Falcon's Eye
- Best Free Simulation Game - Flight Gear
- Best Free Single Player Strategy Game - Freeciv
Non-Free Games- Best Non-Free
Game - Quake 3 Arena
- Best Non-Free 3D Action Game - Return To Castle Wolfenstein
- Best Non-Free Arcade Game - Space Tripper
- Best Non-Free Cards/Board/Gambling Game - Eric's Ultimate Solitaire
- Best Non-Free Multiplayer Action Game - Quake 3 Arena
- Best Non-Free Multiplayer Strategy Game - Heroes of Might and Magic 3
- Best Non-Free Role-Playing Game - Ultima I: A Legend Is Reborn
- Best Non-Free Simulation Game - SimCity 3000 Unlimited
- Best Non-Free Single Player Strategy Game - Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Miscellaneous CategoriesSlashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Games available on Linux, right? So that would include every arcade game up till the late 90's, right? Unless there's a hidden rule saying the game can't be emulated or illegal...?
Samurai Shodown
Tempest
Strike Force
I, Robot
New Zealand Story
Drift Out
Metal Slug
Waku waku 7
Alien vs Predator
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Doom was the original and even Castle Wolfenstein 3D before that should get the real credit but it didn't quite have the environment that Doom had (the secret levels paying homage to Wolf3D and Keen were great).
Playing Doom with my Gravis Ultrasound MAX sound card so I could hear guitars in the music was just awesome. Simply hearing the music for level 1 was amazing. And the stereo separation was so good that I could kill enemies with the (single barrel only) shotgun with my eyes closed. Played great on Linux in an X11 window too.
I wish another game would come along with the impact that Doom had. It was just SOOOO amazing and nothing has come close since. Every 3D shooter since is just the same old with better graphics and sound, aside from interesting forms of multiplayer action like Team Fortress and Infiltration. Pretty sad, actually, but at least 3D shooters haven't had to go down the cheesy movie route like adventure games.
Multiplayer really came along with Quake. In Doom it worked better as a cooperative feature. Deathmatch was really born in Quake, along with Capture the Flag, Team Fortress, etc.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
Let's not forget the old classic:
cat /var/spool/mail/hotgirl | grep sex
Although I think that's probably closly followed by 2 others:
$IPTABLES -A FORWARD -i $EXTIF -o $INTIF -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
tail - 200 access.log | grep "GET /scripts/root.exe?/c+dir HTTP/1.0"
I got a new game recently: The Oracle 9i install! I've been playing this for MONTHS now, and I'm still not sure how it's gonna turn out! I love the way you have to keep trying different things until you finally solve it! Please no spoilers!
I'm also a big fan of the "adding a non-standard serial device" game, but I'm not very good at it yet.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Breakout, Super Breakout, ...photoshop...
You play a software programmer who has one mission: Get Linux Ready for the Desktop!
You must navigate new users, configuration scripts, unsupported printers, and obscure terminal messages!
Your enemy, BILL GATES will do anything to stop you! Beware the dreaded Intellectual Property attack, and the TOC missle! Dodge laywer after laywer who will try anything to stop you! Pick up pizzas, Mountain Dew, and Penguin Mints for extra power!
All this without a consistent user interface, and sound!
If you think your good enough to beat the 'Steve Balmer Monkey Dance' and churn out a thousand lines of code a day, you just might be ready for "Get Linux Ready for the Desktop"!
Act now, and well include a DCCS encoded bonus level: 'Shave Richard Stalman!'
You gotta be quick, you gotta be good, you gotta "Get Linux Ready for the Desktop"!
It has to be xbill.
word.
T2 is a newer game than Quake 3, has unbounded maps and much deeper gameplay.. yet does not even warrant a mention? Come on!
Don't forget Star Control 2!
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Check it out Here
I'm afraid of the flames I'm gonna get for this... but the problem with people adopting linux isn't linux, it's people.
:)
See, you say linux has a good OS, many good GUIs (I really love GNOME), and office tools for people to work on. I wouldn't disagree with you there... but that's not the problem. People just don't wanna use linux. And by "People" I mean "the masses."
Here's an example. Dreamweaver is the most incredibly wonderful GUI-based web design program there is. It has everything anyone needs, and it outputs tight, compatible code. But do "people" use it? No.... I work in a place where we have enough licenses to go around, and what does everyone want? Frontpage. F'ing Frontpage. Not Claris Homepage, not Netscape Composer. F'ing Frontpage. And they ask me stupid things like "I want to use Frontpage, can you install it on the server for me?" ARGH!
See, Frontpage isn't requested because it's... well.. good... or useable... or functional for that matter. Everyone wants it because it's MS Word for web pages. It may be a disgusting train wreck of a program the likes of which should warrant its creators' executions on a public street in broad daylight as a warning to other MS programmers, but the "people" are too lazy and dumb to contest their friend who says "Frontpage is the best" because he heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy who heard it from a sales-bot at CompUSA. Why do sales clerks reccommend Frontpage? Because it's wizard-based, and any monkey can do that... less chance of returned product.
So the moral? "People" will continue to use Windows and slink away from linux as long as we keep thinking that they're too stupid to learn anything else. It's about time to shirk the attitude of "I use linux, but that's because I'm a genius. You lower life forms can use Windows." It'll go a long way.
Oh, and never use your Windows discs as frisbees. Instead, keep them around to make copies for all of your friends.
-=-=-=-=-=
I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
Peroxide, the company from Denmark that started the Ultima I port to the new generation, decided to create a completely new game instead and calls it now "Era".
It's totally unrelated to Ultima I.
See it at:
http://www.peroxide.dk/era/
I can't believe this article about Linux's top 25 games story beat my submission of the top 10 best versions of Mozilla. :(
Incredibly addictive stuff. I've been playing it for a year now and only just beat it on the hardest level. You won't regret checking out the demo at pompom.org.uk (you will, actually, if you value your time).
Gameplay is pure arcade goodness, with 3D graphics to match.
They've also recently released a robotron clone, Mutant Storm.
I was a huge Tribes fan, and waiting for a long time for Tribes2 to come out since it meant that I could finally dump Windows and use Linux for everything. After about a year I realized that wanting to use Linux for everyday gaming use was a pipe dream. I still play Wolfenstein, SimCity, Tribes2 and old ROMs and stuff, but to play PC games these days you either need WineX or a Win32 partition.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Take a look at it -- best non-free game, Quake 3 arena? That came out, what, 3 years ago?
The state of gaming on Linux is terrible, and, unfortunately, I don't see it getting better any time soon.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I wish another game would come along with the impact that Doom had. It was just SOOOO amazing and nothing has come close since.
Deus Ex
I'm afraid that you will be waiting a long time. It's not even the gaming industry's fault on this one. Games like DOOM (or whatever your first quality game of any genre is) are like your first love: you never quite recapture the feeling of that very first (insert first sexual encounter here).
DOOM did a good enough job at faking 3D that when we got real 3D it wasn't that big of a deal. And now that we have 3D, what's left? Better graphics. And one day, maybe, passable AI.
The closest I've gotten to recapturing the feelings I had when playing DOOM have been with Half-Life and Halo. But neither of these games made me stare into my monitor at an odd angle trying to see around the corner, and they only made me jump out of my chair about three times each.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Let me bring something to light. Cutting-edge games are rarely made from big commercial software houses. It may have been true in the past but it's fading.
The problem: lack of innovation. How many first person shooters and mmorpg's do we need? The reason is that the cost of development has risen so sharply, that to recoup the cost of working on games, game houses have to make a sure fire hit. It's not an option to make a flop like Daikatana that 1. brings nothing new to the genre, 2. comes out late, and 3. sucks ass beyond compare. You have to make sure your game will sell.
In this scenario, companies will NOT venture into some new area or create a new paradigm of gaming. You'll get another FPS. You'll get another Quake, another Soldier of Fortune, another Civilization. Why? Because these are sure things. Not to go off on a tangent, but this type of thing has been ruling the music world in America and other countries for the last decade or so. You'll get nothing but more Britney Spears and other disposable stars because the cost of entry is so high, the industry bets on the easy winner. What sold yesterday? Package it up with a new paint job and sell it tomorrow.
No, friend, unfortunately the big game houses won't bring you the hidden nuggets of gaming goodness, unless another Quake or running-through-dungeons-swinging-swords is what you're after. Not to say these are bad things, but games like Uplink (fun and revolutionary) would have never rolled out the doors or made it through a proposal at Valve or Sierra or Activision or (fill in the blank). There are lots of games out there you've never imagined before, and you're missing out because your only source of amusement comes from the shelf at Best Buy.
(playing french horn)*(people crying)
We stand here today to honor our delightful and late fellow soldier. 'Served diligently as a game hosting and conversation area, worked well with others, was a sanctuary for trolls by employing the honest efforts of NilFilter and Bobz, and held no malice or vice toward its fellow brethren. Our hearts went with linuxgametome as it sank, yet our hearts aren't as heavy and we must rise above and fill the emptyness (...echoing...) linuxgametome had left. Netcraft confirms, linuxgametome has been bumped off the spectrum and we will soarly miss...
(HALEIJLUIA! HALEIJLUIA!)
It's alive! Don't cut the cable yet! linuxgametome's nodes are perculating through! Praise the lord! It's alive! DON'T CUT THE CORD! NOOOO!!
(french horn again)*(people crying louder)
We stand here today, with even heavier hearts: the linuxgametome awakened by the grace of God, and we were not able to save it in time from our own ignorance of it being in a suspended mode of operationg. The flags we fly have been lowered below half-staff; our efforts proved futile and we hold ourselves responsible for linuxgametome's drowning death. We weren't patient with linuxgametome, we hurried to its preparation for burial without checking for a pulse; it's out of our hands now and may god forgive us for our sin.
(BANG*21 salute)*(birds falling)
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
I'll vote for that. I'm sure most of the readers haven't heard of Liquid War. It's a 2D realtime strategy game that is so incredibly simple in concept (probably took a long week to code up and get working) but very, very fun.
Unfortunately, the game's strategy is closer to Go than Chess, so the computer is a pretty lame player.
But fear not! Liquid War has network play! So you can try your hand against other human players, if you can find anyone who's heard of it and is therefore willing to play against you.
Anyone in the Sacramento greater metro area, goto my homepage, find my email, and email me. We'll do a Liquidwar LAN party.
fifth sigma, inc.
In order for a company to port their games, there has to be an audience.
In order for there to be an audience, people have to game under Linux.
By not gaming under Linux now, you are casting your vote to never have games under Linux.
Developers aren't just going to up and port their titles because they like Tux or something (well, besides Id).. They will port when they feel that enough people will buy their game for Linux if they go through the trouble to port it.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Granted, you may not care if you're part of the problem, and that of course is too bad for Linux gamers.
And you're wrong about it getting better.. It IS getting better. Games like Doom 3 and Ut2k3 are running under Linux - those engines are used for future games. (Quake 3 engine was used for many games, as will the Doom 3 engine.) Once developers see a reasonable profit to be made by porting their already portable game to Linux (due to the cross platform nature of Doom 3 or Ut2k3), it will be an easy decision for them to make.
Serious Linux gaming won't happen quickly (and people like you and other Linux advocates who hate Microsoft but love gaming under Windows even more will see to this), but it is happening.
Why do I keep typing pythong?
It IS getting better, contrary to popular belief.
I mean, look at the recent announcements, most of which were Slashdot headlines: Disciples 2, Bandits, Ballistics, Serious Sam 1 and 2, America's Army, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and Medal of Honor: Spearhead... That nearly doubles the number of games we already have.