Before we get into this you should know the hardware requirements of this game. For it you will need: a minimum equivalent 3DFX Voodoo2 8MB. No ATI Rage cards. You will also need a minimum of a PII 233MHz processor, with at least 96MB of RAM. If you meet those requirements, prepare to install and blow away your opponents.

Installation

Installation of OpenArena is actually quite simple. You will be shocked to know the steps are as follows:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software tool.
2. Search for “openarena” (no quotes).
3. Select OpenArena for installation.
4. Click Apply.
5. Sit back and watch the progress bar.

I will warn you, the files to be downloaded are quite large, so the sitting back portion of the installation will take quite some time.

Once installed, you will find OpenArena in your Games sub-menu of the Applications menu in GNOME.

Tricks for running the game

Figure 1

It’s not really necessary to get into the mechanics and play of the game. Most people know how to play a first person shooter. There are some things you will want to know when playing this game in Linux.

If you’re like me, you don’t generally play games in full-screen mode. By default OpenArena runs in full screen. To get OpenArena in windowed mode (see Figure 1) you need to hit the the <Alt>Enter key combination once the game has loaded. After you have switched to windowed mode, you will have to manually switch back to full screen, otherwise the game will always run in windowed mode.

Figure 2

When you are running in windowed mode you will notice you can’t get your cursor out of the game window. The only way to manage this is to get the OpenArena console window to drop down. To get this hit the Shift<Esc> combination which will lower the console onto your screen (see Figure 2).

Connect to server

If you want to play some multi-player action all you have to do is, from the main window, click the Multiplayer option and then click the Specify button. From this new window you will enter the address of the server you want to join. For a list of servers take a look at the server listing on the OpenArena site.

Final thoughts

It’s not WoW but at least you can get your first person shooter thrills without having to run a game through Wine or a virtual machine. OpenArena is a fun game that, for many, will be nothing more than nostalgia. No matter the reason, you should give this game a go.

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Now this game isn’t your standard, free, GPL fare. This game allows you to download a demo but to get the full blown fun you need to purchase the full version. The good news is that the full version will only set you back $19.95 for the download version. You can also purchase the CD version for $39.95. Believe me, this game is worth the price of the download version. Let’s take a look and see why.

Features

• Tile-built, turn based game where nearly every move is determined by roll (automatically done for you).
• Plenty of items and creatures to make the world interesting. Many items are randomly generated making replay value high.
• Unlimited character development.
• Non-linear story.
• Epic adventure for single player.

The feel of this game will take you back to the good old days of Ultima or Might and Magic. If you hearken for the days where game play and story were more important than 3D graphics, this is your game.

Getting and installing

Figure 1

Playing Eschalon in Linux is simple. Download the demo file (or the full version if you have purchased) which will be a compressed tar file.  If you are using the demo you will have to execute the following commnads (we’ll assume you are executing the command from within the directory the demo was downloaded to):

• tar xvzf eschalon_book_1_demo.tar.gz
• cd eschalon_book_1_demo
• ./eschalon_book_1_demo

The final command will open up the Launch Menu where you can select your Graphic Renderer, Color Depth, and Screen Preferences (see Figure 1).

I prefer to run the game in Windowed mode but you might prefer a full screen option. Once you have chosen your options click the Start button to begin your game.

Gameplay

Before you actually begin playing Eschalon you will have to create your character. In one version of the demo I downloaded there was a random character generator button. In another version of the demo there was not. It’s not a big deal because character creation is part of the fun.

Once you have created your character you will be, like most good RPGs, tossed into your world waking up to see your world is not how you last left it.

Figure 2

The gameplay of Eschalon will take zero time to get used to for anyone who has spent any time at the helm of an RPG. As you can see, in Figure 2, the interface is clean and easy to use. You have the usual arsenal of spells, weapons, items, and more at your fingertips.

At the bottom of the screen is your story window. There is no voice acting to cause the game to seem hokey, so you will have to read to see where the story is going. The story window automatically updates for you so you will want to keep watch out for what is going on.

So far Basilisk Games has III books planned for the Eschalon series. I would encourage any Linux user longing for more games to purchase all three books to make sure Basilisk Games continues to develop for the Linux platform.

Final thoughts

I have yet to complete the demo of this game. I am thoroughly enjoying my experience with the game and plan on purchasing the full version once I have completed the demo. And based on my experience with Book I, I will be purchasing Books II and III for Linux as soon as they hit the interwebs! Keep up the good work Basilisk Games!

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One of those games  really stole my .25 and my attention more than any other. That game? Tempest. If you’ve never played the original Tempest you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s a wireframe pseudo 3D game that would have today’s game players yawning with boredom. So you can’t imagine my joy when I found an updated variation on the Tempest game installed on my Elive distribution. That game? Torus Trooper. This game is a fast-paced, scrolling 3D shooter that takes place in, you guessed it, a Torus.

A Torus is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three dimensional space. Otherwise known as a 3D ring or, better yet, a donut. Now in this game you are inside this donut shooting at oncoming ships and dodging oncoming barriers. It is fast, it is timed, and it is addictive.

Getting Torus Trooper

If you open up Synaptic or gpk-application (or which ever GUI tool you use for installation software) do a search for “torus” (no quotes). You might wind up with three different results:

• ttrooper
• torus-trooper
• torus-trooper-data

Install the latter two and you will be ready for some action packed fun. If you don’t find Torus Trooper in your repositories, never fear. Download the tt tar file from the Torus Trooper Sourceforge download page. Once you have this file downloaded unpack it with the command:

tar xvzf tt-XXX.tar.gz

Where XXX is the release number. Change into the resulting tt-XXX (Again where XXX is the release number) directory. To run the game issue the command:

./ttrooper

which will start up Torus Trooper. You can copy this file (ttrooper) into /usr/local/bin so the game can be run from any directory, the run dialog, or even a menu entry you create.

To start the game installed from your Add/Remove Software utility just go to your Games directory and click on the Torus Trooper entry.

Gameplay

Playing Torus Trooper is fairly straight forward. You use the left-right arrow keys to move side to side while using the “z” key to shoot.

Figure 1

When the game starts up you will be on the welcome screen (see Figure 1) where you will choose your difficulty and begin. You choose from Normal, Hard, or Extreme difficulty. Once you have chosen your difficulty click the “z” key to begin.

The game is simple – just blow away everything and don’t get hit by various objects. Oh, and remember this is a timed game. You can control your speed by pressing the up arrow (to go faster) or the down arrow (to go slower).

Figure 2

Figure 1 shows standard gameplay for Torus Tooper. If you look closely you can see where your torus is leading you. You can also see the small red-ish circle coming to the left of the shooter – that is a trap the enemy drops which you have to avoid. At times the screen can get full of them. You can’t just shoot them, you have to get out of their way. This makes game play even more of a challenge.

Final thoughts

When you first start playing Torus Trooper make sure you play on Normal mode. Extreme mode is, shall I say, rather extreme. The last time I attempted Extreme mode I think I lasted less than 10 seconds.

Torus Trooper is a lot of fun. Give it a go and you’ll find yourself quickly becoming addicted to this simple game.

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So now and then I am going to add to ghacks an article about a fun Linux game that you can install and enjoy quickly. I will try to cover all types of genres of games. And remember – these games won’t stand up to the graphics of many of the games you will find on retail shelves as these games will be open source games that are created by users just like you.

20,000 Light-Years Into Space

This first game I discovered while scrolling through Synaptic on my Debian-based system. 20,000 is a steam-punk themed strategy game where you have to manage a steam system to power a city. During this game you will build steam plants that power your city via steam pipes. As the game progresses you will have to over come natural disasters and aliens that do everything they can to take down your pipes and plants.

The game is played in 2d from the top down and offers very simplistic game play in either full screen or windowed mode.

Getting and installing

If you use Ubuntu you are in luck: Just open up Synaptic, do a search for “lightyears”, select the results, and click apply. You can also issue the command sudo apt-get install lightyears to install. If you use Fedora you can follow these directions:

• Install python and pygame with the command yum install python pygame (as the root user)
• Download Lightyear tar ball
• Untar the package with targ xvzf lightyear-XXX.tar.gz Where XXX is the release number.
• Change into the newly created lightyears-XXX directory
• Issue the command ./lightyears to start the game.

If you install on Ubuntu you will find the game in your Games directory or you can issue the command lightyears from the command line.

Basic play

Figure 1

The main window is where all of the game play takes place. As you can see (in Figure 1) you are on the surface of another planet and your task is to supply your city with steam. Around the surface of the planet are steam pockets that you have to build nodes on in order to pump steam into the city. So you build nodes and then pipes to get the steam to the city.

If only it were that easy. The game depends heavily on the efficiency of the nodes’ and pipes’ ability to get enough steam to the city. So you have to upgrade nodes and pipes, place nodes strategically so longer pipe runs, when destroyed by aliens or earthquakes, will not completely deplete your city steam pressure.

Games tend to be fairly short lived. My max game so far has been around twenty minutes. This is mostly due to the nature of the game – having to make sure you are as effient as you can be in creating enough steam to get to the city.

Final thoughts

Although Lightyears seems very simplistic it will challenge you and keep you interesed in the way many of the tower wars games have done.

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AssaultCube

AssaultCube is a quite simple 3D FPS available for Linux, OS X and Windows, which just reached version 1.0 about a week ago. The graphics are not very advanced, but a benefit of this is that it’s easier to run a server and that it can run on nearly any machine.

The best aspect of AssaultCube is the online play; there’s always a few busy servers available where one can play capture the flag, deathmatches or variations on those modes. AssaultCube is limited to seven weapons: sniper rifle, assault rifle, handgun, grenades, knives, shotgun and submachine guns.

Maps can be created for AssaultCube quite easily.

Sauerbraten

Sauerbraten is an FPS built on the same engine on which AssaultCube is built but has much more sophisticated graphics and is built in a fantasy world as opposed to a real one.

In Sauerbraten, weapons include crossbows, guns and rocketlaunchers. This is definitely a more interesting variety than AssaultCube! Once again, CTF and deathmatch are popular game modes.

The game notably lacks a crouch mechanism and struggles to run at higher resolutions on my MacBook Pro. However, it is an amazing open-source game with many fantastic maps.

Once again, Sauerbraten is orientated towards online pay but the CPU games are much better than AssaultCube’s.

Interestingly, the game can also be played as a 3rd person shooter!

Nexuiz

Nexuiz is an FPS with quite fictional weapons, like electricity guns etc. The game clearly belongs in the realms of fantasy, being set on a space station where one must shoot aliens.

I find the game difficult to play. Movement is far too fast compared to Cube engine games and it really does require quick reflexives.

The game isn’t smooth either. Before a game starts, there’s a text-only screen telling me what is loading etc. and the menu at the start looks terrible, especially at my screen resolution.

It’s still a fantastic game to play, however.

AssaultCube

Sauerbraten

Nexuiz

Needless to say there’s scores of other good games, these are just my favourite free (as in beer and freedom) shooters.

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