Freeware FPS Alien Arena 2007 Reviewed

Alienkillerrace writes "Linux.com has reviewed the brand new release of Alien Arena 2007, giving it a glowing review. 'New Alien Arena 6.10 blows away its FPS competition' claims that Alien Arena is now the very best of the freeware FPS games, surpassing even Tremulous."

Re: the very best of the freeware FPS games ?

[Hackeron]

And what about Enemy Territory? -- not opensource, but freeware. And the variety of mods available for it like True Combat. I tried this Alien Arena game and it feels like quake2 with new textures - very outdated...

Enemy Territory while based on the Quake 3 engine, doesn't feel like quake3 at all, this game feels like quake 2 :(

Re:Better than Tremulous ?

[BiggyP]

There's no way you can compare AA and Tremulous, Alien Arena is a simple and uninspiring FPS deathmatcher and always will be, Tremulous wins hands down for those with the mental capacity to play it.

Re:Ok...

[sammyF70]

Check out Scorched3D [scorched3d.co.uk]. *VERY* fun game, and the latest version looks just great.
Armagetron Advanced [armagetronad.net] is also a great free game, even though the grafics may not be your cup of vodka.

Additionally, you might find some very fun and good looking games by checking open source game- or 3D- engines. The showcase forum at ogre3D [ogre3d.org] is a good start.

The point is: there are some great looking, fun Open Source games out there they don't get reviewed or advertised in such a way that you'll hear about them often.

Artists

[Zombie Ryushu]

Linux Programmers have shown incredible technical skill. The issue is artists. It is very hard for F/OSS people to get art designers. Art Designers tend not to be F/OSS and not as knowlegeable to the technical side of things to help develop the beauty side of things.

Re:Better than Tremulous ?

[generic-nickname596]

Yes, I would love to hear in what ways Alien Arena surpasses Tremulous. Tremulous is one of the most interesting team action games I have ever played, far surpassing Counter-Strike and its cronies. I have never played AA, and the article is very low on details. Some of the innovations of Tremulous include wall-walking, strategy elements and a balanced two-class system reminescent of Starcraft. The aliens play like nothing you've ever tried before, except maybe that they are somewhat inspired by Alien vs. Predator. These stats are quite an opponent to match, but nothing would be better than the sorry state of Free Software gaming getting better.

A lot of the more interesting free software games are in fact based on the GPLed Quake 3 engine. There is a pattern here...maybe we could improve things by liberating more commercial gaming software? It's either that, or someone with authority has to take a lot more responsibility in designing tools for creating open-source games. I'm thinking something along the lines of procedural content generation, the major problem is creating all the models we need for a real game. There are many awesome things happening in academia on this subject right now, for example http://www.vision.ee.ethz.ch/~pmueller/wiki/CityEngine/PaperBuildings [ee.ethz.ch] from SIGGRAPH 2006. We all agree that most free software games don't work out, right? For all the interesting aspects in Tux Racer, it isn't nearly up to the standards of commercial software, and masterpieces like Tremulous are the exception in OSS.

I'm afraid I have to go off topic for a moment. But this is a thing I have been thinking a lot about lately, and I haven't heard it discussed in here before. I promise it is highly relevant to the task at hand.

The Mozilla Foundation is swimming in money from its Firefox ad programs, and I have seen little information indicating that they are using the money for the good of the entire Free Software movement. In fact, I have heard little information at all indicating what they are doing with all of their millions, except for the obvious team of programmers that are working on Mozilla software. This is one arena where the Mozilla Foundation could be much more active in participating: donating money to ransoming out commercial software. I am certain there is a lot of valuable code out there that could do good things for the open-source gaming environment. Firefox is unique in the free software world in being able to bring in huge amounts of revenue, so in my opinion the Mozilla Foundation has an obligation to help out and be more generous with their cash reserves. Firefox is free software, and its benefits should belong to all of us. We are all on the same team here!

Any thoughts? I feel that these things aren't talked about nearly as loudly as they should be, these are all important problems to both the Free Software movement and to nerds in general. Are there any big Mozilla players in here who might have some good answers?

This story was accepted?

[Aabra]

Don't get me wrong, personally I love articles like this. They worked hard to create a new versoin and want more people to try out the game. Getting the story posted on Slashdot helps get the word out. Considering the game is free I've got absolutely no problem with it. It's just frustrating for me that when I've submitted stories regarding new versions of Skulltag (another freeware game, which yes - also runs on linux) they've always been rejected. Is a Doom 2 port not considered cool enough these days?

Re:hmm

[Ticklemonster]

I'm still waiting for Unreal Tournament to be open source. I like it way better than other games based on the simple fact that I can sit down, raise cain for a few maps, then leave. I don't have time to learn a bunch of stuff just to play a game, but I do have time to sit down, get an adrenaline rush, then get up and walk away. I understand the draw that the other more complicated games have, but they aren't for me due to time restraints. I have AA on here (Ubuntu) and it's every bit as good as Q3 ever was. (a simple duh will suffice here). Frag on.