GAMING ON LINUX GAMING ON LINUX The tastiest brain candy to relax those tired neurons GNAEUS JULIUS AGRICOLA Star Conflict Like being a real space pilot, without the risk of death. ig news space fans! Star Conflict, a free-to- The action takes place in play spaceship combat B Sector 1337 of MMO has officially launched its the galaxy… Linux version as promised. This is one of our first major free-to- play titles that’s been released Liam Dawe is our Games Editor and the founder of gamingonlinux.com, from outside Valve. the home of Tux gaming on the web. The graphics are simply fantastic, which is surprising ine enables us Linux users for a free game. It also doesn’t to run Windows shove anything into your applications under Linux W face about paying for in-app without the need for a Windows licence. It sounds great, but it does purchases – it’s all perfectly The game starts you off This is the first Linux game come with its own set of drawbacks, optional, which is again very slowly to not overwhelm you from Star Gem Inc, and we such as poor performance in certain surprising. You can buy extra with a few tutorials showing hope it will only be the start for games; and some games may refuse credits for ships and paint jobs you basic flight and combat, them. See you in space! to work without a lot of tinkering. or buy downloadable content which it makes really painless http://store.steampowered. A problem has arisen now that Linux is gaining a foot-hold in the (DLC) packs from Steam. for you. com/app/212070/ gaming market: “Wine Ports”, developers who bundle their game with a copy of Wine and call it a day. I know what you’re thinking: “That’s not a Linux port!”, and you are right. It seems some developers are trying to Counter Strike: Global Offensive short-cut their way onto Linux like The next-generation of what was originally just a mod. they do on Mac OS X. Sometimes bottling Wine along o you see yourself as a with a Windows game can be counter-terrorism hero? acceptable, if, for example the source code to an older title has been lost; DOr do you see yourself we can live with that. This situation is as an evil terrorist? Well now good because of two things: it gives you’ll get the opportunity, as us a game we wouldn’t otherwise get, Counter Strike Global Offensive and it counts as a Linux sale to the is coming to Linux. The news developers to show them interest for futures titles to be ported. comes as a result of the Reddit “Ask Me Anything” that Gabe The problem is when developers The AK-47 remains look to cut corners and shoehorn a Newell (the owner of Valve and a favourite among Linux version out the door without Steam) did recently. There is no looking into porting it natively. This discerning terrorists. ETA, but Gabe assured us that can be a problem, as these developers could see poor sales due to using it is coming. With Valve’s Wine and Linux users being wise to notorious “Valve Time” it could shooter boasting improved Game” where you swap guns that fact, the developers can then still be a while before it comes graphics, new game modes, on each kill. The last weapon is easily claim Linux doesn’t sell. to our beloved platform, so we support for weapon a knife, which doesn’t make it So I ask you dear readers, how do just have to be patient for a customisation and a lot more. easy, but it does make it you feel about Wine Ports? Let us know on the Linux Voice forum. little while longer. One of the best parts of interesting… http://forums.linuxvoice.com CS:GO is a next-generation CS:GO is the frantic and http://store.steampowered. police vs terrorists first-person fun new mode called “Gun com/app/730/ 10 www.linuxvoice.com GAMING ON LINUX Luftrausers ALSO RELEASED… Take on the Nazis in a crazy-coloured world. uftrausers is an arcade-style aerial combat game with some over-the- Ltop action from the well-respected developer Vlambeer. The game features over 125 combinations of weapons, bodies, and propulsion systems offering you a lot of customisation to keep you coming back Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians for more. It also opens up different ways Your ears are in for a real treat with Beatbuddy: to play each level as you try different Tale of the Guardians. The game is an combinations to beat it, you can unlock exploration/puzzle game that involves music in different colour-sets to play the game in to everything you do, with fantastic results. The levels are all hand-painted giving it that extra keep you interested. loving touch, and it really is a beautiful-looking The game won’t bring your PC to a game. Stop the evil Prince Maestro from crawl either, so it should work on some stealing all the music! older computers. As it uses so little in teh http://store.steampowered.com/app/231040 way of system resources, you only need a Luftrausers’ simplistic graphics and frantic graphics card that has OpenGL 2.1, which gameplay remind us of 80s arcade machines. is quite old now. Luftrausers is a great timewaster for the and more. It lacks the glitz of a modern armchair general to sit back comfortably FPS, but it’s full of charm. with a game-pad in hand and annihilate http://store.steampowered.com/ some enemy planes, submarines, ships app/233150/ Unvanquished Xonotic Unreal Engine 4 You might want to keep one eye to the The direct successor of the Nexuiz Epic Games has unleashed hell on Linux as it ceiling in this one. first-person shooter project. has announced that Unreal Engine 4.1+ will support Linux officially. Unreal Engine is an extremely popular engine with big-name developers, so this is some of the best news we have had since Steam on Linux. Epic is offering the engine at a low price with source code access too. www.unrealengine.com/blog/41-update- preview Unvanquished is a hybrid of first-person Xonotic is another free and open source shooter and real-time strategy wrapped in shooter; this time, rather than pitting a good-looking package for open source humans versus aliens, it’s war between fans. The game is now in its early alpha humans in fast-paced game modes. stages, but it is already playable and Xonotic is similar to the famed Unreal looking really slick. It pits human marines Tournament series of games only with no versus vicious aliens in all-out war. The price tag attached to it. It features many game improves dramatically with each weapons, each with their own secondary CryEngine new release, and the team are always fire mode, and there are plenty of game Crytek (the developer behind such games as looking for help with programming and modes to keep you going. If lots of Crysis) has ported its CryEngine games engine translations for anyone to get involved. weapons aren’t enough for you it also has to Linux. This means in future we will be able to see games as graphically amazing as Crysis The game is a fork of another open 18 different maps, all wrapped up in a neat on Linux, and who doesn’t want that to source game, named ‘Tremulous’, which free package. happen? The free SDK is looking like it will add sadly seems to have died out, but the The game has its own statistics system Linux support too, so onwards and upwards survival of Unvanquished is what makes integrated with it, so you can even keep from here for all of us. open source great. track of how terrible you are! www.crytek.com www.unvanquished.net www.xonotic.org www.linuxvoice.com 11.