GAMING ON LINUX GAMING ON LINUX The tastiest brain candy to relax those tired neurons
TENTACLES OF CTHULU Portal 2 Prepare to return to the Aperture Science Labs.
ook out puzzle fans – here comes a big What is left of the labs! Lone! Valve, our new benevolent gaming overlord, has unleashed the Linux beta version of its highly praised sequel to Portal, and Liam Dawe is our Games Editor and the founder of gamingonlinux.com, appropriately named this the home of Tux gaming on the web. beast Portal 2. It was originally released in 2007, and Linux teamOS, from Valve, is a Linux users now get to join in on distribution aimed solely at the fun as Valve pushes more gaming, with Valve’s own S games our way. patches included to increase performance of various systems Something important to Portal 2 is a first-person a co-op mode too, so you can within the distribution. SteamOS was remember is the fact that it is puzzle game involving a solve puzzles with your friends one of the major announcements that in beta, so there will be certain special gun that opens portals – we suggest playing the Valve made in September 2013, bugs and issues you may between two places for you to single-player first. alongside its own gaming controller come across, but it is still well jump through and overcome http://store.steampowered. (the Steam Controller), and also its console-like Steam Machines. The worth a look. obstacles. This sequel includes com/app/620 distribution will be pre-installed on Steam Machines, removing a barrier to Linux adoption. SteamOS has gained positive feedback from quite a few big names in the indie gaming scene, including The Dark Mod Markus “Notch” Persson, creator of Did you just see something move? Nah, just my imagination… Minecraft, and DICE, the creator of the Battlefield series of first person pen-source developers shooters. But the really fantastic are at it again! The Peekaboo! thing about Valve pushing Linux so Dark Mod has finally Oh wait, I’m profusely is that it has led the leading O supposed to graphics card manufacturers (Nvidia released a stable version and be stealthy! and AMD) to improve their graphics it is simply fantastic. The Dark driver performance. Mod is inspired by the Thief Valve has recently open sourced series of games and plays a two internal projects, the first being its Direct3D to OpenGL translation lot like the older games in the layer, which could prove useful for series. It was originally a mod other big name developers in saving for Doom 3, before it became a time when porting to Linux. standalone game. The second of these big projects is The game is all about stealth: the new OpenGL debugger named “Vogl”, which should help developers you play a hooded ninja-like boost performance and find figure who is on a mission bottlenecks in their OpenGL hunting valuables. You have looks simply beautiful. It is The Dark Mod, as it doubles as rendering. To put it simply, to be careful though – the easily one of the best-looking a friendly toolkit as well as a performance of games for us Linux swordsmen of the land don’t free and open-source games game, so be sure to share your gamers in future should improve if they use Vogl. Onwards and upwards! take too kindly to thieves. around at the moment. favourite packs with us on the Liam Dawe, gamingonlinux.com The Dark Mod is set in a You can even create and Linux Voice forum. Gothic steampunk city and download mission packs for www.thedarkmod.com/main
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Wasteland 2 ALSO RELEASED… Massive robo-scorpions and other nasties await you.
PG fans, get ready to be excited, as Wasteland 2 – one of the Rbiggest crowdfunded projects ever, having raised over $2.9m on Kickstarter from 61,290 backers – is making its way onto a computer near you. Wasteland 2 is also the project that helped to get a Linux export option in the Unity3D Paper Dungeons game toolkit, so the developers do of Paper Dungeons is a brand-new mix of RPG, course plan a Linux version as well as Rogue-like and a board game. It mixes dice OS X and Windows versions. throwing into combat, and it’s a hard game to Wasteland 2 is a post-apocalyptic master. It features 155 levels, three different game-modes, five different classes and more turn-based RPG game with beautiful content! It manages to keep things fresh with graphics and solid-looking gameplay. We unlockable sets of dice and characters, and it don’t have many good RPG games like it, also gives you the ability to create and so it’s a welcome addition to our game download levels too. www.desura.com/games/paper-dungeons library. It is a direct sequel to the 1988 The original Wasteland was released in 1988, game Wasteland, which also has a Linux and has since been re-released for Linux. version now. The Linux version of Wasteland 2 hasn’t buy it now and consider it a pre-order of landed yet, but it is expected soon, as it sorts you will get a copy of Wasteland 1 has only recently become part of Steam’s for free, which is quite the classic. Early Access program, although if you do http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com
Oil Rush OpenXcom Stranded Prepare your tactical warfare skills for An open source engine for one of the You like pointing & clicking, right? Good. when the oil runs out. greatest games ever made. Stranded has just been released, promising to make you scratch your head while you wave your mouse around. It has a nice sci-fi setting where you have wound up ‘Stranded’ on an unnamed planet with nothing to guide you but your own will. Join us in being confused – you know you want to! www.petermoorhead.com/stranded
I hope you don’t get sea-sick! Oil Rush OpenXcom is why we love open source. It may have been out for a while, but it’s still has revived a true classic – UFO: Enemy not the best-known game. It’s sad Unknown, a strategy game from another because it’s actually quite brilliant. era in computing, originally released in Oil Rush is a mix of a real-time strategy 1994 for DOS and Amiga. and a tower defence game, set in a world You will need the game files from ruined by nuclear war changing the planet somewhere like gog.com, but it will be well forever. It was an early supporter of the worth the minor effort involved. Natural Selection 2 Linux platform, and when it came out it UFO: Enemy Unknown pits humans Dust off those graphics cards: Natural was one of the most graphically intensive vs aliens in a mix between real-time Selection 2 is a seriously demanding hybrid of games we had (it is still easily in the top strategy on a planetary view and turn- first person shooter and real time strategy games that pits humans vs aliens. 10 in that respect). based tactical combat when you shoot You can play as a traditional shooter or be a There is no micro-management to be a UFO down. You will need to capture team commander, whereupon the game turns had; you don’t even control the units and research the aliens while keeping the into a real time strategy in which you directly during battle, so it’s easy to get world happy with funding you raise from command other members of your team. into, but hard to master. the nations of the world. www.naturalselection2.com http://oilrush-game.com http://openxcom.org
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