The Pre-Sequel Cities Skylines

GAMING ON LINUX GAMING ON LINUX The tastiest brain candy to relax those tired neurons

MISTY AND MELLOW Borderlands: The Pre-sequel Get ready to shoot ’n’ Loot!

o not adjust your reading glasses – you One of the many random guns! Ddid read that correctly. A Borderlands game is really coming to Linux and promises to excite the many fans of the franchise as it lights up the first Liam Dawe is our Games Editor and the founder of gamingonlinux.com, person shooter genre on Linux. the home of Tux gaming on the web. Previously the CEO of Gearbox Software (the omething of a hot topic recently developer) told Linux gamers in the world of Linux is OpenGL. to not get their hopes up about The reason behind this is that S Borderlands 2, but a recent seemingly out of nowhere a number of developers have started doing big public financial document blog posts on the poor state of the from the publisher and later frantic action that mixes first There isn’t currently any OpenGL graphics API. confirmation thanks to IGN person shooting with random word on when it will be For those who don’t know, OpenGL showed that Borderlands: The loot generation, and some fun available to buy, but we do is an API that enables developers to Pre-sequel has plans for a Linux graphics added into the mix know that it will retail for hook into your graphics chips, and it’s comparable to DirectX from Microsoft version. make it something that serious around the £30 mark. platforms. OpenGL is of course an The Borderlands series is well Linux gamers are going to go http://store.steampowered. open system where a consortium of known for the excellent and nuts over. com/app/261640/ people and companies have come together for a common goal. A lot of complaints about OpenGL are based on the way it performs across different graphics chips from Nvidia, AMD and Intel, and quite Cities Skylines rightly so as they differ massively from one vendor to the next. We don’t need no Sim City! There is also the fact that OpenGL support across different platforms is ities Skylines has been patchy, with Linux, Mac and Windows announced by publisher That’s an actual bridge all supporting different versions, and Paradox Interactive and you can build... more so in the case of Windows as it C developer Colossal Order, doesn’t come with it as standard. promising an excellent city AMD came out with its own API, named Mantle, aimed at increased builder experience for Linux performance, but the problem with gamers. Since we don’t have a Mantle is that currently it’s pretty well game like Sim City this should closed off, and AMD still hasn’t given help fill a rather big gap left a clear indication of whether it will wide open for Linux gamers. It come to Linux or not. The question we pose to you is can be played offline as this: Do we need a brand new opposed to the horribly will have support modding it, services. There’s no word yet graphics API to compete with DirectX DRM-crippled Sim City fiasco so you can expect many weird on pricing or a release date, but and alleviate developers’ woes Cities will be full of the usual and wonderful buildings to we will be sure to update you surrounding OpenGL? A new API with features you would expect like download from the community. on its progress closer to the a new name could offer a fresh start. Let us know what you think: building roads and different Cities will also have water flow release. http://forums.linuxvoice.com zones for buildings. One of the simulation to bring some more www.paradoxplaza.com/ best features of Cities is that it strategy in for water-based cities-skylines

10 www.linuxvoice.com GAMING ON LINUX

AI War: Fleet Command ALSO RELEASED… Breaking the RTS mould wide open.

hat’s that? Another from Arcen in AI War really matter, as you aren’t just Games? You read that right fighting in one battleground, but across Wfolks: AI War: Fleet Command many. You can, for example, bring a is another excellent game from the back couple of hundred spaceships from one catalogue of developer Arcen Games, and system to another, so your early game can it brings some real time strategy to the matter just as much as the late game. table this time around. It has become quite the favourite here AI War: Fleet Command is a very different due to its massive amount of gameplay. Football Manager 2015 kind of real time strategy and it seems to You can grab it from Steam for £6.99. Big news sports fans! Football Manager is the be inspired by some of the classics of the http://store.steampowered.com/ highly popular simulation game that first genre with certain features. The choices app/40400 arrived on Linux last year, and now we will be graced with another! Probably not one to pick if you don’t like AI War: Fleet Command football, though it must have quite a few fans has a staggering six on Linux for the developer and publisher to expansion packs. bring FM15 for us too. www.footballmanager.com

Sanctum 2 Darksiders 2 Dungeons 2 A blend of FPS & Tower Defence. From War to Death Do you feel like doing a bit of digging? Do you dream of being an evil overlord? If those boxes are ticked then you’ll love Dungeons 2! Kalypso Media is starting to push out more Linux game announcements and Dungeons 2 is among them! It promises a very Dungeon Keeper-like experience for Linux gamers, and that’s not a bad thing. www.dungeons-game.com/en/index.php

Ryan “Icculus” Gordon, formerly of Loki Hot on the heels of last issue’s Software, sure is a busy man – and his announcement that Darksiders will come most recent work is a new Linux port of to Linux, Darksiders 2 is also planned for Sanctum 2! Sanctum 2 is a hybrid of the Linux to complete the series! tower defence game genre combined with We haven’t even seen the release of the first person shooting, and it’s really rather first instalment of the series yet, but the good. It’s the sequel to the world’s first developer has enough confidence in Linux tower defence/FPS hybrid game which to announce that the second is on its way. sadly we don’t have on Linux, but a sequel This crazy hack and slash RPG will Unvanquished is the next best thing. have you embark on a quest to restore Unvanquished continues to push for a beautiful You don’t have to go it alone either, as mankind even though your name is Death. and fun open source first person shooter with the game offers up to four players to play An odd name for a hero don’t you think? the latest alpha release. The new release has new building models, optimisations, weapon together in co-op mode. There’s even an As if being one of the legendary Four inertia to be more realistic and much more! in-game visual novel to keep you busy too. Horsemen and having a brother named It is not without bugs as it’s still early days, You can grab it for £10.99 from Steam War wasn’t odd enough. It usually retails so you have been warned, and it’s free under right now and join the fun. for around £24.99 on Steam. the GPL v3 licence. http://store.steampowered.com/ http://store.steampowered.com/ www.unvanquished.net app/210770/ app/50650