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Games Entertainment

Myth 2: Soulblighter Review 77

Posted by justin++ from the go-loki-go dept.
Lee Anderson writes "Myth 2: Soulblighter is about to be released for Linux by Loki. I managed to obtain a beta copy, and have reviewed what is to become the latest in the ever growing Linux gaming arena. This is a game not to miss out on! "
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Myth 2: Soulblighter Review More

Myth 2: Soulblighter Review

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  • 3Dfx cards have been supported closed source via ONE third party programmer under NDA. Given the recent Matrox and nVidia actions, they may be much more viable in future. The Voodoo3 is certainly not on the top of my shopping list anymore...
  • Why, I guess YOU do! You have the opportunity
    to exclude Linux articles from what you see at
    /. And if you HAVE, you still must care some,
    else you could just pass over articles like this
    one. rah .. rah .. sssss goomba

    I want more games on Linux, which would be cool
    even if it weren't free!
  • ...did the reviewer pull his copy of Myth 1? "Didn't live up to its full potential"? "Bleak and empty battlefields"? "Just another game on the shelf"? Myth is one of the best games I've ever played, and I don't even like the RTS genre. There was hardly a moment when I wasn't fending off enemies, and when they temporarily pulled back it just made me fear their return. Myth won several Strategy Game of the Year awards and pretty much revolutionized the genre (and did away with resource management, thank god!)

  • The Win32/MacOS versions were coded simultaneously. All the datafiles are platform-independent, and Loki doesn't need to do anything to them.

    What Loki is doing is taking the Win32/MacOS source (neither source nor binaries is freely distributable: if you don't like that, don't buy it) and porting it to Linux. The entire value of their service (other than publishing, if they're doing that themselves) is in the port of the app itself.

    So, I really doubt they'll be releasing any binaries.

    -Imperator

  • I'm guessing he went back to play MTFL after playing whatever strange version of MII he reviewed. When you think of MII first and MTFL second, MTFL doesn't seem all that great.

    -Imperator
  • Think about this: for every Win32/MacOS box sold, Bungie gets to keep all the money. They're both the developer and publisher, so everything that they sell the game to the resellers for, they get to keep.

    But Loki is spending money paying coders to port the game. For each Linux box sold, Bungie gets a portion of the money, and Loki gets a portion of the money.

    So, if they put all 3 versions in one box (I doubt they'd still fit on one CD, BTW), they wouldn't have any way to know whether the sale was a Linux sale or a Win32/MacOS sale.

    -Imperator

  • gg (Score:1)

    by arielb ( 5604 )
    Hooray! We did it! Alright! Yes! Make room the the dorfs! It's going to be fun watching the linux newbies as they are slaughtered by the iMac veterans
  • How does it perform compared to the Windows version? I seem to remember Quake ran fractionally slower under Linux.
  • Once the app has ~32 MB real RAM and ~P2-233/G3-233 (I may be overestimating, because I only play on machines way above the thresholds), the bottleneck is entirely in the graphics card. With a Voodoo2 12 MB, I get from 60 fps in normal play, to 200 fps when I zoom way in on a boring piece of land. (The latter is not something you'd ever do in normal gameplay.)

    So, the real question is how well it runs on the lesser machines. If it's really just a question of OS overhead, you know the answer already.

    -Imperator

  • I stand corrected. Go here. [slashdot.org]

  • High framerate is pretty, but nowhere near a necessity for enjoyment.

    High framerates aren't necessary, but sufficiently high framerates are. When the game dips to 13 fps and below, I find it difficult to retain control of the situation, especially in a multiplayer game. I've lost too many units to low framerate. A guaranteed 20 fps would eliminate that kind of waste. Unfortunately, no hardware setup can guarantee any framerate. The best you can do is try to keep the average framerate as high as possible so the low framerate doesn't impede gameplay.

  • Can it do software rendering?

    :( Do strategy games require 3d cards these days?
  • Yes, Fear and Loathing will be ported. They both use Gtk+ for their user interface, and Loathing uses the game engine itself for the level rendering.

    Michael Vance
    Programmer
    Loki Entertainment
  • This isn't true, insofar as you assert that there is full 3D acceleration for these drivers. The NVidia drivers are very limited feature and performance wise (ie, the z-buffer depth is fixed, and Q3:A performance is terrible, etc.), and the G400 driver is just coming into its own.

    Glide, however, has mature support on Linux thanks to Daryll Strauss, and a very nice OpenGL/Mesa driver thanks to David Bucciarelli.
  • Yes, it does software rendering through SDL.

    Michael Vance
    Programmer
    Loki Entertainment

  • Aye. The Great Library is an outdoor battle (his screenshot looks like something from The Baron) and by the time you get around to boarding that ship that he mentioned, the walking dead are the least of your concerns... ;-)

  • Checkout glx.on.openprojects.net [openprojects.net] if you're interested in the development drivers. There's cvs source and binary packages available.

    The drivers provide hardware-accelerated OpenGL support for the Matrox G200 (and maybe G400) cards and the nvidia riva series under linux and other unix-ish systems using Xfree 3.3. They're still under heavy development, but quite usable if you stay away from the bleeding edge features (mesa 3.1, dma/agp support).
  • I doubt they will have both the linux & win95 binaries on the Loki release, but I can see Bungie doing it for future releases. It doesn't make sense for them to distribute a separate CDrom or DVD for each OS (Winbloze & Mac come on the same disc already).

    BTW any of you who haven't seen or played the game
    IT ROCKS, The fighting is better than Warcraft and you don't have to build a bunch of chit.







    -
  • I bought the game for Win9x, will the Binaries be released so I can play it on Linux without haveing to buy ANOTHER copy? I would really like to play it now that I switched over to Linux. Or is Loki taking to rape route unlike id Software?
  • Just wanted to say that this is a great game by a great company. Bungie is known in the Mac community for quality software, and now PC users know it too with the Myth series.

    I beta tested Myth I and Myth II, and I volunteer as a Bungie.net Administrator. If the Linux port is as good as the Mac/PC version, it should be on every game player's to-get list.

  • Wow, those graphics look sweet . . . so what is this puppy built on, anyway? SVGAlib? SDL? Glide? Or true-blue OpenGL?

  • Re:Games... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you want free games, then go
    to www.linuxgames.com or www.happypenguin.org.

    Loki is trying to fill in a gap to the widespread
    acceptance of Linux: that being the lack of
    commercial games at your local software store.

    I picked up their Linux port of Civ:CTP from
    my local CompUSA last week. You should too.
    They deserve support for what they're doing.

    Geez, not everything in life is free. And not
    every programmer cares about kernel internals to
    make the OS better than NT.

    If their port of Myth II is even half as good
    as their Civ:CTP port, then it'll be another
    must-have for every gamer running Linux.
  • Wait, so does this mean there is no OpenGL implementation? I realize it's not very useful for anyone besides 3dfx owners at the moment, until DRI is finished, but still! Humph.
  • For linux to be accepted on the desktop it needs a few things and quality games is one of them. It is great if linux can serve web pages, but very few computers are used for that. I am very willing to pay for good software.
  • I enjoy the game, but I thought the PC version showed some port-ish behavior (incorrect handling of mouse pointers and windows and such). I can't provide specifics - I haven't used the PC version in a while - but I remember the interface feeling like something developed for MacOS (which, of course, it is, but it shouldn't feel that way).

    I just hope the Linux version feels a little more "native".
  • Nevermind the political BS on this one. It's simply unecessary. This game stands on it's own merits. If you are into such games, then go and buy a copy and have fun...

    The same appears to be true of Myth II as well.
  • There are two different versions, the standard X11 version which I believe uses SDL and the Glide version.

  • Will it be free? Who cares? If he wants it to be free, that's great. But this act alone puts a brick in the craw of a few people. Two friends of mine have a 'interest' in Linux, but put it off because 'there aren't any decent games for it'. Now we have Myth II.

    This and Q3:A are the opening salvos in the MCA War that's coming (MCA = Mass Consumer Acceptance). We need to do one of two more things to make it work out.

    1. kick the card makers a little more for the specs so drivers get out better for some of those nifty cards (IS there a Voodoo3 driver yet? Gotta check...)
    2. 2) improve the ease of installing new drivers. Until Linux can do the pop-in-the-disk-and-answer-questions, Wintel has the advantage in the MCA War.

    (Hey, I'd personally love to see Mechwarrior III on Linux...)

  • The reviewer didn't mention the fact that Myth II is a real resource hog. Most significantly, the 3-D modeled objects such as walls and windmills create a big performance hit whenever they come on-screen. Playing on Pentium II's when the game first came out, my friends and I were dismayed to find occasionally unplayable framerates in multiplayer, and, to a lesser extent, single player. It's a great game, but we had difficulty sustaining interest in the face of 13 frames per second.
    Note: Your mileage may vary. The situation I described above used varying makes of 3D video cards, none of them comparable to today's TNT2s and Voodoo3s.

    Myth ain't all that bad. The author made it sound like Myth players wandered endless deserts, looking for Thralls to kill. I'll admit I did some cross-country work on one or two Myth levels, but on the whole it was quite enjoyable. Almost as enjoyable as Myth II would be if I could get the blasted framerate up.

  • It's been on the PC/Mac for AGES now..


    I think start submitting articles on _EVERY_ game released on every platform now..


    We dont care! This is NOT a Linux website, its a GEEK website. The last thing we need to do is read about 10 billion games being ported to Linux/BeOS now... *sigh*

  • I agree with you 100%, but the only solution is to filter out articles on Games. It's really a shame, because I'd like to read more about games as well. Unfortunately, every game article on Slashdot is about Linux games.
    Timur Tabi
    Remove "nospam_" from email address
  • While the presence of this game is heartening to someone who is considering switching to Linux, there still is a ways to go. I mainly use my computer to surf the Internet or to play games, so all that remains in order to make Linux my main gaming platform is it's full emergence in the game market.
    In order for Linux to be a full player in the game market, steps must be taken to include many different types of games, not just ones that may have a mass appeal. The maturity of a system as a game platform can be determined by the type and amount of games that are available. A mature system will have genres that are not the most popular, ones out of the public fascination at the moment. While Linux has full coverage in terms of first person shouters, and now, real time strategy games, both of these games represent what most of the public is playing at the moment, games that have wide taste. RPG's, puzzle games, and adventures might not be your or my cup of tea, but their presence would mean that Linux was not a niche market, but could support a wide variety of gaming.
    What does this all mean? Advocate, Advocate, Advocate. Call up Interplay and ask that Baldur's Gate be ported. Write Lucasarts and try to convince them that they should port some of their adventures games. More importantly, try to convince developers to develop for both systems at the same time. As much as the arrival of Myth 2 brings joy to the Linux fans everywhere, most of the buzz has grown cold in the gaming industry. When more companies start announcing their games as "Coming in 99, for Linux & Win 95", it will be the start of Linux as a true gamer's platform.
  • Who asserted that?

    Not I.

    I was speaking to the future as there is more documentation available on the Matrox and nVidia cards and nVidia has already released driver source under the Xfree licence.

    Glide 3 is just as raw as the rest right now.
  • Loki would have trouble making money then.

    Loki isn't the original developer, and most of their money is coming from selling boxes with the Linux version in it. They don't get any money when a Windows version is sold.

    Also, I doubt that if there was a Linux version, a Windows version (same price) and then a more expensive Linux+Windows version that very many people would buy the "combo" version.
  • Loki Games' President, Scott Draeker will be speaking at NBLUG [nblug.org] tomorrow evening.

    He'll be demoing Myth II as well as Civilization: Call To Power, and talking about the other upcoming titles from them. He'll also be talking about bringing Linux to the Desktop.

    Look on NBLUG's web site at http://www.nblug.org/ for more details.

    (The meeting is in O'Reilly's Sebastopol office, starting at 7:30 -- this is about an hour north of San Francisco)

  • Actually, Loki isn't in the business of selling Windows games. They're trying to get more games ported to Linux. If Bungie wants to start making their games available for Linux as well as Windows and Mac, then they should probably all come in the same box since Windows and Mac already do. If a game is released for Windows only, then Loki can do a Linux port and sell it. They don't have any incentive to add the Windows binaries as well. Bungie is the one with the incentive to add binaries for multiple OSes. They get a broader customer base then. Loki only caters to Linux users, so they can reach their entire customer base just by distributing the Linux version.

  • I have a TNT and an SBLive!, but the support is not as good as I would like yet. I hope it will get better. It kinda sucks that only 3Dfx cards get any real support under Linux.

  • Loki isn't the company that created Myth 2. Bungie created it. Loki is porting it to Linux. That's what you're paying for. If you don't like it, then tell Bungie to start writing their games for Linux and selling all versions in one box. At least Loki is making the games available for Linux users.

  • In a way, it's worse than that, I think... Microsoft owns FASA itself, which is the owner of not just the Mechwarrior games but the entire Battletech franchise (including the tabletop RPG game), plus Shadowrun and possibly other RPGs.
  • Alas, I fear that Mechwarrior III for Linux isn't in the cards. As far as I know, Microsoft owns FASA.
  • It's a great game, but we had difficulty sustaining interest in the face of 13 frames per second.

    Oh come on, I played the game for months on end, rarely seeing more than 13fps. Myth II is a strategy/tactics game, not an action game. High framerate is pretty, but nowhere near a necessity for enjoyment.
  • so... you want a command line interface instead? The interface is a little Macish but so is Windows. I have played it on both platforms and it works well on both.
  • The W32 version used software rendering, D3D, or glide. Go figure.

    -Imperator
  • Wait, so does this mean there is no OpenGL implementation? I realize it's not very useful for anyone besides 3dfx owners at the moment, until DRI is finished, but still! Humph.

    There is a GLide version of the game, so why would you want an OpenGL version? And, since there are no OpenGL drivers (That I am aware of) for Linux, we might as well wait for the DRI drivers. At least, IMHO.
  • There are two things here:

    A) The W32 version had mouse issues with some mice. This was platform-specific. Go figure.

    B) The game didn't allow unit deselection with the secondary mouse button, using it for gesture clicking instead. The option was put in with the 1.2 patch, so it should come right out of the box on the Linux version.

    -Imperator

  • Well, because I don't have a 3dfx card and we can all hope that the G200/TNT drivers will mature in a reasonable amount of time (getting more impressive with every cvs commit). There are hardware OpenGL drivers (through glx), just not the DRI. But if they don't have the version now, I'm a little skeptical that they might not have the OpenGL version ever, though they might surprise me.
  • I thought "wow, I might buy this game" until I rad the fine print - needs glide. Sorry, but 3dfx screwed over the entire video card industry and it'll be a cold day in hell when I buy a game that requires their non-standard proprietary libraries to do 3D graphics. Come on Loki, OpenGL has been around a long time and is portable across architectures. It is also usable on hardware that simply pisses all over crappy 3dfx cards, like the nVidia TNT2 Ultra, 3dlabs Permedia/3 and Oxygen, etc. You'll get a lot more money out of people if they're actually able to use your software. Locking it into a minority market with proprietary, binary-only drivers like 3dfx is really limiting your potential customer base and profits.
  • I agree. The original release of Myth II got no mention on slashdot, but a belated porting of it does. The initial release of a game is obviously more news-worthy than a port of the same game, unless slashdot is a Linux website (which it claims not to be).

  • Bias (Score:1)

    by Trepidity ( 597 )
    Despite it's claims to be a general geek website, not a Linux website, this seems to say otherwise. The initial release of Myth 2 didn't get any mention on slashdot, but its porting to another OS did. The initial release is obviously more news-worthy, if the game contains any interesting and novel features. If not, don't mention it at all. Simple porting notices can be saved for freshmeat.
  • Obviously Loki can't include the win9x binary. But they are kind of stuck, many people won't buy this because the Linux support for 3D hardware is still fairly weak. so Loki is a bit screwed by not being able to sell to all of their potential customers. Wether Loki will be able to survive because of this is something which we will have to wait and see. My money is not with Loki unfortunately, they are in a tough spot, all of the popular games these days are requiring 3D video hardware. Your options with Linux is really only 3Dfx, TnT and Matrox are still too immature to bother with if you are just playing games. You just cut off a huge part of your market right there. Maybe XFree 4.0 will fix this, maybe not, we will see.

    Of course even if it does fix this, will Loki be in a good position? I still wonder, most games are written using D3D, are there any tools for easy conversion of D3D to OpenGL? Not that I know of. What about sound? How are they going to translate 3D sound into Linux? Most likely by dropping it. Like it or not game companies have adopted the MS API's for creating games. Someone needs to port these over or somehow translate these to comparable Linux APIs.

    I will most likely buy the Win9x version of Myth2 eventually. So that is one less customer for them.
  • Quit whining. If you don't like Slashdot's coverage, go read MSN. [msn.com]
  • I don't dislike slashdot in general, just some aspects of it. And I do read other websites (though MSN is not one of them).

  • I think you are really misreading the above statements. People are not posting they want it for free. They are saying they don't want to have to spend ~50$ on a win9x version and ~50$ on a Linux version.

    There is a vast difference between the two.

  • Then I won't RUN it. I don't run shell scripts people mail me either.

    Criminy... BO is a freakin free PCAnywhere, cDc has never even claimed otherwise...
  • NO! (smashes head against keyboard as memories of Usenet threads flood in).

    Microsoft purchased FASA Interactive, a division of FASA--the video game division. FASA is still independant, and maintaining Battletech (and Mechwarrior), Shadowrun, Crimson Skies and Vor (and abandoning Earthdawn, which was fast becoming my favorite FRP).

    -jcl (Btech since '91, MW since '95, ED and SR since the beginning)
  • http://www.bungie.com/oni/ [bungie.com]

    -Imperator
  • It seems the reviewer wasn't looking at the full game. He mentioned lots of features inaccurately, and obviously never saw certain levels. It wasn't anything critical, but the reviewer didn't come across as knowledgeable.

    -Imperator
  • I would really like to get both the win9x and Linux versions for one price. Given the choice I am afraid that I am probably going to be buying the Win9x version. My Riva TnT and SBLive! has much better support there. This may change in a few months, but I want to play the game now, not in a few months.

    I much prefer the Quake/Quake2 model where free binaries are released for Linux, using the platform independant data files installed previously. This way we have the choice.

    I am not bitching about free games, I am fine with spending $50 on a game I enjoy (though I usually wait a month or so till it goes on sale, I am cheap).

    I will happily pay Loki an extra $10 if they will supply the Win9x binaries with their distribution.

    Until the state of Linux 3D/sound improves I won't be buying any Linux exclusive games.

    Of course if Loki already supplies the Win9x binaries, let me know and I will go out and buy it as soon as it comes out.
  • There have been GL linux drivers for ages actually. They were previously only Voodoo based but Matrox and nVidia drivers are now in development.

    There's no real reason or good justification for any Linux game being glide only.
  • Buying Myth II today will not keep me from buying Tiberian Sun tomorrow. Whereas other notable market segments thrive on preventing their customers from fully exercising free choice the next time they're ready to buy something.

    There is simply no potential for lock in, especially if the game is coded in something like SDL.
  • mizz? Is that really you?

    Loathing is the mesh editor. Fear is the tag editor, including many mesh properties. I'm assuming they'll both be ported.

    -Imperator

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