LinuxPlanet Blogs

Guess where did I play Quake III Arena for the first time. Not place, I am talking about the platform/Operating System. Nope! its not windows, its Linux . Surprised, right? I was too when I found this brilliant opensource version of Quake III Arena aka OpenArena.

While looking for a good one man shooting game in the software center, I bumped into this one which says, "a fast-paced 3D first-person shooting game." I decided to give it a try. After downloading around 300 MB of the packages the game was finally installed and while runnning and shooting weird creatures(some almost nude lady warriors too ) I couldn't believe that even such a game could be totally free.

I was indeed dazzled by the brilliance of this game but since I had never played Quake III Arena before, I never realized that it was almost exactly like it. One day co-author Chia saw me playing it and asked where the hell did I get Quake from? Thats when I came to know I had accidently found something really cool.

After gathering a little info about, I found out that it is actually Quake III Arena. Its built upon ioquake3, based on id tech3, the Quake3 game engine which was opensourced by the company, id software, in Aug 2005.

Thats when OpenArena project was established to built an opensource FPS game derieved from Quake III Arena. ioquake3 is a project aimed to improve the opensource engine further.

If you have been a Quake III Arena fan and miss it on Linux then you should give openarena a try. The one thing that sucks is its incompatibility with the propreitary game. I haven't tried coupling the original with openarena but I guess that won't work. However, its being cross-platorm removes most of the hurdles for network gaming. You can find the listing for online openarena servers here.

Install OpenArena

It is available in repos of almost all common distros. You can easily install it using the package manager. Otherwise, try running these commands.

[shredder12]$ sudo apt-get install openarena     #for Ubuntu or Debian based systems

[root]# yum install openarena    #for Fedora or RedHat based systems

0.A.D is a real strategy game like Ages of Empire but opensource. This game is still in development but usable. I’ve tested it and I’ve found it very impressive. It’s so rare to see an opensource game with this quality.

I am pleased to announce that 0.A.D is now available on Frugalware current as nobuild package. To install it:

# repoman upd && repoman merge 0ad

During the good old days of console gaming(I mean in 90s), I really liked Bomberman. Once I started exploring the world of Linux games, I did a search for "bomberman" and actually found a pretty good version of it, called Granatier. The description says that its a bomberman clone, but thats not completely true. The environment is pretty different and you won't find the good old monsters trying to crush you all the time.

The good part is that the game is still pretty cool. There are a lot of maps and best of all, the game is multiplayer. Instead of a small bomberman, the players look like a ball here. The powers/bonuses are similar(actually more), only the icons are different.

Instead of just winning rounds fighting monsters in a oneman game, as in bomberman, Granatier is designed keeping in mind the multiplayer support. The aim is to be the last man standing by somehow bombing others. The powers that are hidden behind explodable blocks are not always bonuses. Some may increase you speed or blast range, but others might slow you down or revese the movement keys.

Its not a traditional Bomberman, which I was expecting after reading the description, but its definitely good and one might even say better if one likes bombing a real opponent once in a while .

Installation

I am not sure, but I believe this is a default game for KDE. Since, I mostly work on Gnome on Ubuntu, I ran the following command to install it.

[shredder12]$ sudo apt-get install granatier

You can even click this link to install it on any Debian/Ubuntu based systems.

Hey Linux gamers, World of Padman (WoP) is now available on Frugalware Linux as a « nobuild » package. At last, I closed request #1896 !

WoP is a first-person shooter in a cartoon universe and with funny weapons, I recommend you to try it !

To install it on Frugalware current:

# repoman merge worldofpadman

Good frags !

You can now play HoN for FREE!
Come join us for a Free To Play Week starting Monday, August 2nd at 1:00 PM EST and ending on Monday, August 9th at 1:00 PM EST.

Set up your free account and download the client from here. It’s fast and easy to do. You’ll be playing HoN again in just minutes! And, for FREE.

Come see what you’ve been missing. You will have access to the full game and all 68 heroes, including the newest hero, Doctor Repulsor.
You will be able to see all game replays, but no cumulative stats will be available for F2P accounts.

So this time even people who don’t have a beta account will be able to register and play, but they will be limited to no stats matches only

Links
HoN
Free To Play Week

Site: http://sauerbraten.sourceforge.net

Sauerbraten is a free multiplayer/singleplayer first person shooter, built as a major redesign of the Cube FPS.

Most of you guys already know about Sauerbraten, but it has been updated again. So if you didn’t heard of it yet or just feeling like kill someone, make sure you try Sauerbraten.

Changelog:

• 30 new maps
• 2 new player models: Captain Cannon and Inky
• new game modes: hold and efficiency variants
• can now configure texture slots in-game
• transparent world geometry
• multi-threaded lightmap generation
• radar mini-map

To install it, open terminal and write:

sudo conary update sauerbraten=gameway.rpath.org@fl:2

The current version is: 2010_07_28_justice_edition

Updated and added few games last few days in Foresight Linux.

Here is a brief:

Pingus

Site: http://pingus.seul.org/

Pingus is a free Lemmings-like game.

Install, open terminal:

sudo conary update pingus=gameway.rpath.org@fl:2

Ri-Li

Site: http://ri-li.sourceforge.net/

You drive a toy wood engine in many levels and you must collect all the coaches to win.

sudo conary update ri-li=gameway.rpath.org@fl:2

Warzone 2100

Site: http://wz2100.net/

you command the forces of The Project in a battle to rebuild the world after mankind has almost been destroyed by nuclear missiles.

The game offers campaign, multi-player, and single-player skirmish modes.

sudo conary update warzone2100=gameway.rpath.org@fl:2

Had a night out with friends, the plan was to watch a lot of movies but ended up playing this awesome game from 3am until morning. And the amazing part - all of us had hardly ever played any cue games before. I never realized that a non-arcade game like this could keep me awake all night .

My whole experience with the game might look a bit false based upon the fact that I haven't played such games in real-life much, but listen to this, "Foobillard was actually suggested to me by a college friend who is a die hard fan of cue sports and a good player too". So, if a real-life player is recommending it, you have got to give it a shot.

For the introduction part, Foobillard is free and opensource, cross-platform, OpenGL based game and the best part is that it was originally built for Linux and later ported to MacOS and Windows. The games that can be played in Foobillard are - Carambol, Snooker, Pool (8 ball and 9 ball). It can also be played over network, making it a complete multiplayer game.

Probably a little bad thing about the game is that it directly throws you in a game - no menu, no key bindings help, no game options etc. Although, it sucks only the first few times. Once you know stuff, it doesn't look like a bad thing anymore.

If you are planning to try it out, which you should do, I would suggest you to go through the key bindings first. It won't take you much time to figure out the basic controls, but to have a better gaming experience, do learn all the controls.

Install Foobillard

Ubuntu/Debian users, either click this link or run the following command to install foobillard

[shredder12]$ sudo aptitude install foobillard

For Fedora users, run the following command in the terminal

[shredder12]$ yum install foobillard

So, now go on and start playing .

Version 2.3.2 of the famous strategy game Warzone2100 has been released.

This version brings new features including:

• A new map, 4c-Pyramidal.

• People with with no middle mouse button will be able to rotate the screen by holding down the left and right mouse buttons at the same time.

• Many fixes (see changelog)

This morning, I bumped Warzone2100 package in frugalware current repo to 2.3.2 .

Enjoy !

Just before the freeze of Frugalware current (to prepare the the release of the first release candidate of 1.3 Haven), I pushed a new package into the repository, Speed-dreams, a racing game.

Speed-dreams is an opensource sport car simulator, actually a fork of TORCS (also available on Frugalware) with new features like new cars, new races and an improved opponent AI.

I packaged the version 1.4 (as a nobuild package) and to install it on Frugalware just do:

# repoman upd && repoman merge speed-dreams

The version 1.5 is supposed to be released next year and will bring new features like playing on internet, feeling force sensations with the car, racing by day or night, having different weather conditions and more stuff.