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Games Software Entertainment Linux

25 Best Linux Games 308

Posted by CmdrTaco from the kinda-sad-actually dept.
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.
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25 Best Linux Games More

25 Best Linux Games

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  • 25? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Schnapple ( 262314 ) <tomkiddNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:26AM (#5181543) Homepage
    Linux has 25 games now? I guess they all win...

  • there are 26 linux games?? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:27AM (#5181550)
    Wow. But are 10 of them "moria" variants? Or are we talking about 25+ *unique* games??

  • List of Award Winners (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:30AM (#5181572)
    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

    • Re:List of Award Winners (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Is that free as in very cheap, or free as in Kevin Mitnick?
    • Some of these games got the "best game" of a particular category because they are the only game in that particular category :)

      • There is not a sports game category? I would like that category to be filled. Unfortunately, people see linux users as geeks unlikely to be interested in sports I guess...
      • You are right, there are much fewer to select from. I was surprised, however to see the lack of Unreal Tournament. I was playing it on linux a couple of weeks ago and it seemed pretty good. I still like Wolfenstein better, but, thats a personal preference (I like killing Nazi's more than robot-suited men.)
    • 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/


    • 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 [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 [pompom.org.uk].

    • I only see 20 games listed here. Some games won more than one award. So the title should be, "25 best game categories", not "25 best games"

      Reid

    • This list is why I keep a Windows box around. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Wakko Warner ( 324 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @01:15PM (#5182374) Homepage Journal
      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.

      • Re:This list is why I keep a Windows box around. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Afrosheen ( 42464 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @01:44PM (#5182563)
        Quake3 is still the best because of mods like Urban Terror [urbanterror.net] and tons of others. It's the engine that counts, not the game itself.
      • Not necessarily. Just take a look at the windows gaming community.

        Pretty much the entire Windows gaming community also agree that Quake 3 and CounterStrike are the best multiplayer FPS games (UT 2003 may have taken the lead recently, but it runs on linux as well, so...). They're both 3 years ago (if you count the fact that CS was built on Half-Life, it's over 3 years).

        Just because it's old doesn't mean it's bad. Movies such as 'Gone with the Wind' and 'The Sound of Music' have been around for decades, and are still regarded as some of the best movies ever made. LOTR and The Hobbit were written well over 50 years ago, and are still loved today.

    • Liquid War (Score:4, Interesting)

      by philovivero ( 321158 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @05:32PM (#5184450) Homepage Journal
      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.

  • Old (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dissonant7 ( 572834 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:31AM (#5181578)
    ...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.

    • Re:Old (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kvn299 ( 472563 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:37AM (#5181642)
      Just because a game is old doesn't make it bad. In my opinion, a game that can withstand the test of time (such a SimCity or Civ) is worth a hundred new games, in my opinion.

      • In my opinion, a game that can withstand the test of time (such a SimCity or Civ) is worth a hundred new games, in my opinion.

        Oh, do you also work for the department of redundancy department, too?

      • Re:Old (Score:2)

        by Malc ( 1751 )
        Talking of Civilization. I found I still had a copy about a year ago. I installed it on my computer promptly lost a week with little sleep to it. This was the first time I'd played it since the early nineties. I'm guess I'm still addicted! I wiped it off my computer lost the disks. It's like being an alcoholic. What a game!

    • Re: Old (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:49AM (#5181736)


      > ...almost all these games are over a year old.

      Are you bragging or complaining?

      IMO that's the strength of OSS games: they can evolve continuously rather than being discarded after a year due to marketing demands. Within a decade the best-of-breed in every gaming category will be an OSS game.

      • Re: Old (Score:4, Insightful)

        by fitten ( 521191 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:12PM (#5181932)
        Cling to your dogma. Variety is the spice of life, as they say. With your logic, PacMan and Mrs. PacMan should still be the top games in the arcades and MYST should still be the hottest game on the PC. The fact is that some games do enjoy long life (StarCraft, etc.) but people do like to play new games.

        One of the reasons that games do well on the PC is that evne though the game will be pirated, there will still be enough sales to warrant the initial investment and recoup your costs of paying the programmers.

        The problem is that games don't fit into the enterprise software model (which is one of the few ways to make money in the Linux/OSS world). You have to have money to start the development on one and you won't make any money on support/training for it. In addition, few people are likely to even want to pay for the initial copy of it. In addition, even without piracy, the market segment for Linux/OSS is not that big. This leaves you in the area of doing it for FreeBeer(tm) style development. How many game developers are going to code a game for free? Some, sure. How many who code games for a big game house will have the free time (unless supported by the game house) of developing/porting for Linux/OSS? Maybe a few.

        Game lifespan is too short (among other things) to fit the enterprise model. Until you can make money developing games on Linux/OSS so you can pay people to code them, I'll predict that the rate of new games emergence will be slow.
      • IMO that's the strength of OSS games: they can evolve continuously rather than being discarded after a year due to marketing demands. Within a decade the best-of-breed in every gaming category will be an OSS game.

        Yeah, within a decade, Linux will certainly have the best "xbill" implementation out there!

        As for first-person shooters, sims, and, hell, even side-scrollers, allow me to vehemently disagree. Allow me to propose an alternate future scenario:

        The commercial gaming sphere is where all the research and development money is and where all the cutting-edge games will continue to be produced; OSS will continue in its proud tradition of blatantly co-opting and copying everything the commercial game industry does. People will continue to purchase, play, and enjoy commercial offerings and the Linux Game Tome will still have trouble finding 24 Linux games to award "Happy Penguins" to.

        Your pie-in-the-sky OSS fantasy is nice to think about, but, back in what I like to call "reality", things are a little different.

        - A.P.

        • Re:Yeah, man!! (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Afrosheen ( 42464 )
          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.

    • Re:Old (Score:5, Interesting)

      by StarTux ( 230379 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:57AM (#5181814) Journal
      And your point is?

      Of course some are over a year old, it takes time and costs money to port to Linux. Now if you stopped and thought about it and actually bought a couple of games for Linux from http://www.tuxgames.com you'd see more and more games appear a lot quicker from the bigger companies.

      OTOH, have you played Uplink? Just because it didn't end up on Happy Penguins winning list does not mean a thing, its one of the big surprises of 2002; a game by a small development team that is very addictive and was released on Linux at the same time as the Windows version. Its here http://www.introversion.co.uk.

      I didn't vote for Quake 3, its really quite sad people put that as the best game, as with all things Linux related my opinion differs. Perhaps next year they can limit the vote to commercial games released during the year. As for the free games, most are still in active development.

      The upshot of your argument and others who make it is that we'll never help break break the monopoly on the desktop with that attitude, and yes to begin with we need to help create the correct amount of market share (yes its hard to manage), but do you, when you see a game you'd like to play, e-mail the publishers and developers with a kind e-mail?

      Are you one of those people who runs a Linux gaming server? If so, write to the development and ask for a client and actually use that client.

      StarTux

    • Re:Old (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PunchMonkey ( 261983 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:03PM (#5181864) Homepage
      ...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.

      It does if the hammer is going to cost you $200.

      I like your analogy though :-)

      Why use a $200 hammer that can't turn a screw when you can use a free screwdriver that can pound in a nail.

      I'm sure someone can reword that nicely into a sig...

      • Re:Old (Score:5, Funny)

        by JustAnotherReader ( 470464 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @01:21PM (#5182414)
        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.

        No No No! You young people have no appriciation of the proper use of tools.

        Screwdrivers are used to chop a mortise for a door hinge.
        A chisel is for opening paint cans.
        A hammer is for driving screws IN.
        Pliers are for taking screws OUT.

  • Linux games vs. shareware stuff for Win (Score:5, Insightful)

    by October_30th ( 531777 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:31AM (#5181587) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • I find Vexed [sourceforge.net] to be more fun than any other game lately. Nethack is nice too. I really haven't enjoyed commercial games in a while.

    • Re:Linux games vs. shareware stuff for Win (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LoudMusic ( 199347 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:02PM (#5181849)
      Why should we expect Linux games to be any better than the millions of shareware games made for Windows?

      Because not all Linux games are free ...

      Unreal Tournament, Railroad Tycoon 2, the various Sims, QUAKE! - these games aren't free or even shareware. I wouldn't expect them to be better, but at least comparable to their Windows counterparts.

      Why is it that when people think of Linux, or any other OpenSource project, they immediately think "free"? These terms aren't interchangeable. And not all the software that goes with them is going to be OpenSource or free either.

      Grow some balls, pay for your software.
    • You havent? With games like crossfire and freeciv I've wasted months playing. They're easily on par with any bought games I've played for sheer 'fun-ness'.
    • Shareware != free

      That aside, maybe this is what Linux needs, a great native (no win32 version) game where the first few levels are free, but you'd have to pay to play the rest of it. Of course, we'd have to hope pirates wouldn't ruin the system for everybody.
    • One of the winners on the linux list (bzFlag) is available as freeware for windows. It hardly has stunning depth of gameplay, but it's fun for a quick multiplayer blast.

  • I'd rather not... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Big Mark ( 575945 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:33AM (#5181601)
    "Take a look at the best Linux gaming has to offer."
    That'll be a stack of empty pizza boxes and a tower of coffee-stained mugs. I can see that in my room already, why'd I want to see someone else's mess?!

    -Mark

  • I hope they included nethack (Score:5, Funny)

    by MoreDruid ( 584251 ) <moredruid&gmail,com> on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:33AM (#5181602) Journal
    You turn around the corner. Your foe (Server, 58 Hp 3D1) awaits. You engage battle. You /. the server.
    You gained an experience level!

  • Stores to buy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Winterblink ( 575267 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:34AM (#5181614) Homepage
    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?

    • Re:Stores to buy (Score:4, Informative)

      by SLot ( 82781 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:51AM (#5181758) Homepage Journal
      Fry's usually has some linux games. I just picked up Myth2:Soulblighter and Heretic 2 this weekend for 5 bucks a piece! :)

    • Re:Stores to buy (Score:5, Informative)

      by slux ( 632202 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:08PM (#5181900)
      Tux Games [tuxgames.com] sells Linux games exclusively and provides packages with Linux binaries even when the developers choose not to. (Medal of Honor: Allied Assault has been added as a preorder item already after the icculus.org announcement)

      Loki Games' has ceased to exist but their site still lists their resellers here [lokigames.com], I'm sure many of them still stock Loki's old games and probably titles from other publishers too.

      Linux Game Publishing lists their resellers here [linuxgamepublishing.com].

  • YASP (Yet Another Stupid Post) (Score:3, Funny)

    by Rameriez ( 644702 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:36AM (#5181631) Homepage
    Bah! Falcon's Eye takes all the fun out of Nethack! Half the fun is pausing for a moment and trying to remember what a red 'L' meant.

    Falcon's Eye isn't Old-Skool enough! And another thing: how many of those games would require X to run?

  • Linux needs games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TTMuskrat ( 629320 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:38AM (#5181651)

    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 :)

    • Re:Linux needs games (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Zelet ( 515452 )
      OS X IS Unix based. It has a gui (a great one) it has games and it has MS Office yet it still can't beat MS. Why do you think Linux ever will? Linux doesn't have a unified GUI. Unix can't even get anti-aliasing out of the box for browsers or much else. Linux isn't on the desktop because it still doesn't beat windows in day to day usage. Not for non-geeks. Karma to hell, OS X is better than any OS out there and it still isn't winning against MS.
      • First. I think games are big for Linux. It is another one of those applications that some people "must have". If almost every application that was for Windows ran well on Linux, AND people had to choose to pay the microsoft tax (new machines), then I believe that quite a few people would be running linux on the desktop. I have found that most people use Microsoft products only because they are free (pirated) AND that is what other people use. (Catch 22 problem). However when they have to fork over say, $500 for Office, then somehow they "decide" to try OpenOffice or something else.

        I agree that OSX looks great.
        Why don't people use OSX? It only runs on Mac hardware. I am not saying that Mac hardware is bad, but there are a LOT of people who won't buy it AND it is more expensive than other X86 platforms. One last point is that it says Macintosh. A ton of people hate Apple, or bought an X86 box and want to "justify" their decision by puting down other systems.

    • Linux needs marketing (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mausmalone ( 594185 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:06PM (#5181888) Homepage Journal
      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 can agree with you on most of everything you've said up there, but would like to add something else.

        Linux has become easy to install, but is still a pain to configure. There is no good equivilant to the control panel. Linuxconf isn't nearly thorough enough, and can be confusing. SuSE has YaST, which I hear to be good.... unfortunately, SuSE isn't intended as a desktop OS. We need to appeal to the quasi-power-user crowd. Believe it or not, most windows users aren't idiots.

        Package managment as it stands now is pitiful. On windows and MacOS, I can download a binary, double click it, install it, and run it (all in under a minute).

        Linux, on the other hand is a pain. I have to download a package, pray that it works on my distro (if i'm lucky, I can find an RPM or DEB). Then I have to satisfy dependencies (which might not be an official part of my distro). More hunting. When it's finally installed, it doesn't even bother to put an icon in my menu or desktop, or tell me how to configure it (or even provide an easy means of configuring it).

        It's the simple things that make linux fall down. We've conquered all the hard stuff. Why is it so hard to get the small stuff worked out?
    • IMO, Linux needs games in order to "make it" in the mass market... Once you get developers either making games specifically for Linux...

      Now, which of those conditions would be "the chicken," and which "the egg?"

      I am frankly amazed that any game shy of some "Pong"-like thingie coded by some hobbyist across a long weekend has ever been made for Linux. There is a ridiculously small installed base of Linux desktops relative to even the Mac OS (and we all know how well they're taken care of by the game developing community...).

      I switched from Windows to Linux with nary a second thought once OpenOffice and GNUCash got real. It's all about productivity. Now I get my work done, business and personal, without the crashes and the hangs. That's what I need a computer for.

      Which is not to say I don't game. Several hours a day, seven days a week, in fact. All on an XBox, which is to say, a gaming console. Radical concept, no? And I never have to worry whether or not the graphics processor in my console will be sufficient for me to get the most out of the game I buy.

      I also don't use my propane torch to toast my bread in the morning, nor do I drink my beer from a bowl. I could, of course, 'cept I've got other things in my house already which are much better suited to that function.

      "Gaming On Computers" is a remnant of an earlier time. It was a GREAT time, don't get me wrong (I still gaze fondly at my carefully preserved 5.25" floppies of "Gunship" [CGA Version]) but time is marching on. Console hardware sales and console game production is up, the median age of console gamers is wa-a-ay up, and the original trend of games debuting on PC and porting over to the consoles is reversing.

      ...and the Linux-on-Desktop movement will be better for it. The faster people stop expecting or "needing" there to be Linux games (always poor, paler cousins of their Win counterparts) the faster they will make the transition. With a PS2 version of EQ going online this month (or next?),a number of MMORPGs scheduled to launch on console this year, and the success of the "live" broadband multiplayer initiatives, it is clearly only a matter of time...

      . ...which is good for Linux. I don't know whether or not it's good for the poor ol' sod who wrote "pySOL" or whatever the hell it was, but it's good for Linux.

  • Spectrum emu. - one of the best games for Linux (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BACbKA ( 534028 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:39AM (#5181652) Homepage Journal
    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...

  • Gaming on linux (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kirby-meister ( 574952 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:39AM (#5181654)
    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.

    • Re:Gaming on linux (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:04PM (#5181868) Homepage
      And the only way that'll happen is if someone gives Linux support

      You mean, kinda like how id Software does? Or maybe Epic (Unreal, Unreal Tournament)?

      The reality is that there are some companies supporting Linux - id Software is probably the best as far as it goes - but it's not making money. For id it's not a huge deal, since they've specifically chosen a portable development structure, but for most companies it's a huge ordeal to not use DirectX, or to port from DirectX to anything else. And sales (and usage) figures aren't indicating that it's worth the money to do so.
      • If I remember correctly, Loki, who's out of business, brought Unreal Tournament to linux.

        • Re:Gaming on linux (Score:2, Informative)

          by UberLord ( 631313 )
          You're correct, but then Epic hired Dan Voguel from Loki before Loki went bust. Epic brought UT2003 to Linux by themselves.

          They also ship the Linux binaries on the 3rd CD that ships with the game. Hows that for a top selling game with Linux support straight out of the box eh?

  • Cut-n-Paste Karma Whoring (Score:5, Informative)

    by bellings ( 137948 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:40AM (#5181668)
    Free Games
    • Best Free Game - Frozen Bubble [happypenguin.org]
    • Best Free 3D Action Game - Cube [happypenguin.org]
    • Best Free Arcade Game - Frozen Bubble [happypenguin.org]
    • Best Free Cards/Board/Gambling Game - PySol [happypenguin.org]
    • Best Free Multiplayer Action Game - BZFlag [happypenguin.org]
    • Best Free Multiplayer Strategy Game - Freeciv [happypenguin.org]
    • Best Free Role-Playing Game - NetHack: Falcon's Eye [happypenguin.org]
    • Best Free Simulation Game - Flight Gear [happypenguin.org]
    • Best Free Single Player Strategy Game - Freeciv [hrefhttp]
    Non-Free Games Miscellaneous Categories
  • I play and AWFUL lot of games. Too many games, probably, but I find myself booting into Linux just to play Frozen Bubble. Of all the small puzzle-type games I've ever played, Frozen Bubble is just the best. The only problem with it is that 50 levels just isn't enough for me. Great audio. Polished graphics better than any other free X11 game by leaps and bounds. No, it's not a gaming powerhouse, and it won't take the world by storm, but it's still damn good.

  • Er, MAME? (Score:5, Funny)

    by kahei ( 466208 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:48AM (#5181733) Homepage

    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 ...why, I don't believe it's possible to pick just 25! And that's before I turn on any *console* emulators! LIFE IS TOO GOOD!

  • Huge omissions (Score:5, Funny)

    by fishdan ( 569872 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:57AM (#5181811) Homepage Journal
    Actually, over all "su" is the BEST game ever.

    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! [oracle.com] 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.

  • The Top 3 Mac Games (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quarters ( 18322 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @11:59AM (#5181828)
    Breakout, Super Breakout, ...photoshop...

  • The Linux Game Tome has announced the winners of the Happypenguin Awards

    Is the penguin happy about the /. effect ? ;)

  • Add one to the list! (Score:5, Funny)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:02PM (#5181850) Journal
    It's called "Get Linux Ready for the Desktop"!

    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"! [apple.com]

  • Number 26 (Score:4, Funny)

    by duckpoopy ( 585203 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:02PM (#5181856) Journal
    It has to be xbill.

  • Tribes 2 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FuzzyBad-Mofo ( 184327 ) <fuzzybad@gmaCURIEil.com minus physicist> on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:04PM (#5181867)

    T2 is a newer game than Quake 3, has unbounded maps and much deeper gameplay.. yet does not even warrant a mention? Come on!

    • Dynamix is gone... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Wee ( 17189 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:56PM (#5182231)
      The reason Tribes2 isn't alive (or even worth a mention) is that Sierra killed (literally) Dynamix right after T2 was released. "Thanks for all the hard work and late nights... Now go home." Of course, Sierra still releases patches for Windows, but with Loki gone as well, the Linux patches lag months behind them (meaning Windows and Linux players can't play on the same servers). Consequently, T2 doesn't have the mod community that Tribes did and so can't depend on that to stay alive.

      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

  • Ur-Quan Masters (Score:4, Informative)

    by TeknoHog ( 164938 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:04PM (#5181872) Homepage Journal
    Don't forget Star Control 2 [sf.net]!

  • "Playing the Open Source Game" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by peterpi ( 585134 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:05PM (#5181879)
    Shawn Hargreaves (of Allegro fame, and also my lead coder) has written an interesting essay on why open source is quite a poor development model for games.

    Check it out Here [demon.co.uk]

  • They rejected my story :( (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @12:15PM (#5181949)
    I can't believe this article about Linux's top 25 games story beat my submission of the top 10 best versions of Mozilla. :(

  • Why Switch to Linux? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Orne ( 144925 )
    Boy oh boy, Linux as a gaming platform... Linux was optimized to outperform in the areas of Software Design (for stability of the kernel) and Server Architectures. I have a partition kicking around whenever I need to do *real* work with C++, and I've used it since Slackware in 1995

    But, as a gaming platform, Linux still isn't exactly jumping out at me ... the UI/core apps now need about a half a decade of interface redesign to catch up. For one thing, a Control Panel type app would go a long way towards standardizing the configuration of these beasts. In all, completely giving up Windows for Linux is about as compelling as Switching [ugo.com] to a Mac...
  • ..., while Java based, is the best game cross-platform, baby...

    Too bad Kolf didn't get released sooner. :-)

  • What about UT2003? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gukin ( 14148 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @01:13PM (#5182366)
    All y'all, UT2003 _should_ have gotten recognized, at least a little. It's the first game which actually had a Linux installer ON THE FRELLING MEDIA!! The graphics are astounding and the gameplay (aside from the cranked up announcer) is superb. Definitely non-free but still a hoot.

    • NOTE: (Score:2, Informative)

      by pecosdave ( 536896 )
      ON THE FRELLING MEDIA!! = not mentioned anywhere on the box, danced around on the official web site, and hidden on the last disk.

      But yes, it's there. That makes it much more convenient that UTGOTY which advertised works with Linux and pretended to have the installer on the disk. Upon insertion no installer was found and it said go to the website for download. GOTY was not covered, had to google for a 3rd (4th?) party hack that made it work.

      Agreed, other than the hide it and disclaim it part I think it's the best Linux game around.
    • Dominions from Illwinter [illwinter.com] came with installers on the CD for Windows, Linux, Solaris, IRIX, and HP-UX.

      This was in 2001.

      Oh, and on a different note, it doesn't have to be tough and costly to port games if they're designed from the ground up to be multi-platform; remember, only the executables have to be different - the trick is to spin off all the media (graphics, audio, etc.) into separate dynamically loaded files.

  • eductational games? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by axxackall ( 579006 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2003 @02:34PM (#5183079) Homepage Journal
    Where are educational games?

    I'd like to find good games helping kids to study Math (something more complicated than adding and multiplying. Algebra perhaps?), English grammar, typing (I do mean *blind* typing method), geography, history and literature.

    Each time I see some good games for Mac and Windows in nearby stores I ask myself - isn't anyone interesting to port (and sell!) them for Linux?

    I heard lots of stories about Linux in schools. What are they doing with Linux? Just browsing internet, reading email and typing (by single finger!) simple office docs? How about real educational programs?

    I am sick of game market - it's completely overwelmed by violence. Why do we prepare our kids to kill each other (and ourselves!)?

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