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Hyperion to Bring IncaGold Games to Linux
An Ominous Cow Erred writes "Just wanted to let everyone know that Hyperion Entertainment will be bringing IncaGold's game lineup to Linux (as well as AmigaOS and MacOS), starting with Midnight Racing. On a personal note, I'm happy we're giving Linux another shot, being a devout Gentoo user myself! (I should also point out that while the Linux section of the website is kind of old and crusty, there should be more info on the new titles soon!)"
just a bit outdated ^^.
now, to veer a tad. It's great that companies are releasing titles for Linux, it really is, but I want more and more of the brand-spankin-new games to run natively on Linux. Sure, I know, there are more and more FPSs coming out for Linux, but I want more than that. OTOH, It probably wouldn't kill anyone to keep a 10gig partition on their machine for running the latest and greatest (as well as all the old) games. I understand that you don't want to pay the MS tax, but that's what emule is for (not that I'm suggesting you dl a copy of win2k or winxp [wink, wink]).
Now, I'd be interested if a big player in the game industry said something to the effect of "all future titles will be released under linux." Now that would be news for nerds.
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Seriously, is this truly front page news? This seems more like a press release than a real story, and it's not really news to announce the Linuxification of Family Collection 1 and 2. And the last *real* game released by Hyperion for Linux was the poorly selling Shogo. It's gonna take more than a couple of B games to sprout a thriving Linux game community. Maybe the real starting point for Linux gaming is the distro for the PS2? At least I know one thing for sure: this is not it.
Its nice to see some games coming to linux - however they are clearly bargain bin games. Thats fine and all but lets hope they stay priced as bargain bin games.
Perhaps making these games open source might be a good idea. If Incagold really want to encourage interest in these games I think the interest will lie in modifying the engine to people's own devices.
Otherwise we're just looking at a sad indication of the fact that our choices are so few that people who make hasty, poor quality games can envision taking advantage and profiteering with this.
I digress though, no offence to Incagold, I'm sure they have talented coders who could write good stuff if they had the unlimited budgets and timeframes of some game houses.
Don't get me wrong, it's fantastic that Linux is getting more games. I love games. It's just that your average Joe definitely isn't going to jump on with Linux if the entire game collection consists of clones of other games and very few "big-name" games will run on it.
Porthouses like Hyperion need to start talking to the developers that make big-name games, considering that the publishers certainly aren't taking a chance on it. Simplistic? Yeah. Idealistic? Definitely. But it needs to happen.
That about says it all; sure we want more games on Linux but I think we want to see quality games. Sorry but with the hardware we have these days we should expect more from a game. The graphics from this game look a bit dated. What worries me is how much do they want to charge for this product? If they even think about $20 they will have one heck a battle in the sales department. Yeah, yeah I know they don't have the big teams like ID, EA, or anyone else. This doesn't excuse one of putting out a crappy game. For those people that want to prove Linux is better than Windows in every aspect-don't show them this game.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Linux doesn't need that many games, just a few key titles. Sure, the hard core gamers are constantly looking for something new. But for us casual gamers, things were perfected around the time of Starcraft, Half-Life and Unreal Tournament. Yeah, it's nice to have new levels and graphics, and a few new play modes. I for one don't need yet another deathmatch game. But for the most part older games are just fine. Now if we could just get some OEMs to start including decent graphics cards and maybe bundling some games...
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People don't seem to be too impressed with the quality of the games. I haven't heard of most of them, so I can't comment on them, except on Traitor's Gate. The Swedish company Daydream did a game called "Safecracker" way back. A very addictive little puzzle game, you had to crack all the safes in a house with a time limit. One or two of the safes were based on real safes, others were logic, mechanical or cypher puzzles. The game wasn't true 3d but used the Quicktime system where you can stand still and look around 360 degrees. When you click to move forward on one of the hotspots it plays a little movie until you reach the next place where you can stand still and look around.
Traitor's Gate seemed to be a bit updated version of it with a bit more action. There were guards, and you had some Thief style non-lethal ways of dealing with them, but if you were spotted it was game over. The few people who noticed it gave it quite decent reviews.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
I'm not a big game player, so I'm not that upset with the limited game selection on Linux. However, I do like to play them sometimes. I bought the tin-box Linux version of Q3A, bought UT and downloaded the Linux installer, and bought RtCW for Linux.
Last year I bought a PS2 to satisfy my non-FPS gaming desires. Since then I've bought about eight games for it (GTA, GTA/VC, Spiderman, ATV Offroad-whatchamacallit, and a few others I can't recall right now). I mostly play them with several cheats enabled to bring them down to a level where they're fun. I'm not a gaming purist. I have games to pass some time and divert my attention for a while, not to forge a new lifestyle (which is why I won't buy or play NWN or participate in any MMORPG).
The point of all this? I'm more than willing to pay for quality games that I'll only play every now and then, and they don't necessarily have to be big blockbusters.
Two of the most enjoyable games I've been playing recently aren't even commercial. I've been playing FooBillard off and on for a few weeks, and I love the game (I'm not even a pool fan). Same thing with Kolf. They're quite simple (from a playability perspective) and a great way to recharge my brain after (or while) working.
High quality doesn't have to mean expensive or big name. Too many game designers are focusing heavily on visual effects and too little on re/playability. Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake were brilliant (I am quite impressed with Carmack and co.) in terms of both replayability (I still fire them up from time to time) and uniqueness.
But now everyone and his brother (and including Carmack and co.) keeps pumping these rehashes out. When I had first heard of RtCW, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. After playing it for a while, though, it quickly dawned on me how repetitive and uninspired it was. It just just another Quake with different graphics and a new storyline. The gameplay was the same old stuff. Like Star Wars and Star Trek, it's time to let these franchises take a vacation.
I know that John, for example, is capable of great gameplay insights, and I'm still greatful that he is allowing for Linux versions of ID games (and releasing old games under the GPL!). But I just can't bring myself to buy yet another FPS or common rehash.
I remember from years ago, a company called MVP [Software | Games] made a very simplistic but incredibly fun game based on the 1991 gulf war. I had no money back then, but I would have bought the full version if I could have. Now that was different and fun. It was shareware, and would have been well worth the money.
Now that I've been gainfully employed for a few years, I have discretionary income that's looking for fresh outlets. If shareware game makers would use OpenGL/SDL and exercise creativity, I'd be happy to pay for their products. As it stands, games have become mostly monotonous and trite over the last couple years.