Gaming in Linux Mint!

[Condorman]

So, who does it, and what are you playing?

I have quite a few native Linux games that I like to install, such as World of Goo and And Yet It Moves. And I still love discovering new stuff in the software centre in Mint, such as 0 A.D. I'm not very experienced at all with RTS games, but I could feel myself slowly unveiling the gameplay in that one when I tried it the other day.

I've also rediscovered my ancient love for openBOR (http://lavalit.com:8080/), and was thrilled to find not only is there an up to date Linux version, but there's a ton of new games too. OpenBOR is sort of the side scrolling beat-em-up equivalent to MUGEN's one-on-one 2D fighter engine. So far I've managed to get about 10 or so games running with it, and they take me right back to the beloved DC age! The best games so far imho are Night Slasher X, Golden Axe The Myth, and World of Heroes: Supreme Justice.

Are you gaming on Mint? What's your weapon of choice?

[DrHu]

I am not a gameplayer, but I do like fps (first person shooters) and the original cave underground adventure, text based commands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork

I also quite like racing games and planes, like Microsoft flight simulator (xplane or flightpath)
http://torcs.sourceforge.net/index.php
http://www.x-plane.com/desktop/landing/

Though I can't say I am much of a fan of graphic scrolling (side) games, like mario bros etc..

[xenopeek]

I enjoy the odd indie game from one of the many game stores (Desura, Humble Bundle, Indievania, and so on). I especially enjoyed the action puzzler Blocks that Matter. Most recent purchase was the Humble Bundle #6, of which I've just finished playing Rochard; another nice action puzzler (though nowhere near as challenging as Blocks that Matter ).

[Condorman]

See, I must be the only person in the world none to fussed with Steam on Linux. I mean, I know it's a ground breaking thing, and amazing that it's coming, but I just love the whole indie gaming scene on Linux. I'd much rather play games stuffed with new ideas and gameplay, than the same old EA tripe that we'll no doubt end up stuck with. I'm not a big fan of FPS games, being a bit more of a retro loving gamer. That said, I love games like Penumbra and Amnesia that seek to involve players in other ways than shooting stuff.

[homerscousin]

Thank-you. One of the very few game related threads I have seen here. I am not much of a gamer. Don't care about FPS or online games. The only ones I really played for any length of time was the Myst series on my retired xp rig, and Need for Speed, and Flight Sim. I recently built the Ivy Bride rig and kinda want to install just one game to test the performance. I've heard of Amnesia-the dark descent, watched a couple you-tube videos and it seems this is about as close to Myst as you can get today. I check lgdb.org occasionally, but haven't seen anything interesting. Maybe you have some recommendations I don't know about.

I hope that remake of Riven goes faster than expected.

[caerolle]

I do something online, is called a game, but really isn't at this point, called Second Life. More about shopping, dancing, and talking, at least for me, lol. Though supposedly they are moving to more game-like things, I think Steam is coming there (don't really know what it is though).

Mint is actually the only distro so far I have been able to get to work with sl (video card related).

[pickles99]

See, I must be the only person in the world none to fussed with Steam on Linux.

I like single player first person shooters. The new games requiring Steam....have to connect to their internet server to get the game to work.....got me out of PC Gaming. I won't be buying anymore new PC Games.

Sitting for 30-45 minutes waiting for the internet Steam connection to go through so I could play a game....yuk.

I'm no Steam fan. They are a waste of energy and internet bandwidth and should be made illegal as they're polluting the planet. (Wasting Energy which required pollution to create)

[Lnx_User1]

Once you connect once online you can switch to offline mode. I've been going to Steam for cheap gaming for years. I mean hell...They just had the Thief series available all for less than $7.00! I just hope this will inspire video card manufacturers to better support Linux.

[bimsebasse]

I'm playing Xonotic through Desura (while waiting for Steam's Linux client to arrive - soon!)

[Onsen]

Games I enjoy: Enigma, FreeDoom, Super Tux Kart, gbrainy
, , ,

[Condorman]

Once you connect once online you can switch to offline mode. I've been going to Steam for cheap gaming for years. I mean hell...They just had the Thief series available all for less than $7.00! I just hope this will inspire video card manufacturers to better support Linux.

Oh yeah, I'm not saying anything bad against Steam per se, just saying that I don't really find commercial games appealing anymore, and more digging the indie scene. Everything's about the budget with commercial stuff, and it's all locked down. The indie scene is more vibrant and imaginative imho, and often has no DRM restricting the end user. I'm still curious to see how Steam works out on Linux though.

[Condorman]

/cool stuff!

Thanks for the heads up on FreeDoom and Enigma btw. Never played those, but now have them installed and they're awesome.

[Lnx_User1]

Actually indie games is another reason I like steam. In fact I end up discovering quite a few games that way:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/21268 ... teredDLC_1
http://store.steampowered.com/app/21567 ... teredDLC_2

And of course more well known indie games like:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/200710/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/201790/

Then there is a whole back catalog...

[jamvaru]

gaming will give Linux on Desktop the boost it needs to make a real dent in the market

if we could get wine to behave properly we would already be there

it will be a no-brainer once Linux gaming catches up to windows gaming; gamers will choose linux; till then, forget about it, well, keep on trying

I'm playing some betas, though not on linux; I do like linux games, just not as much as i like windows games; i don't like wine, so i have to logout of mint, reboot, login to windows to play games; i use portableapps.com for all my other needs while in windows, instead of installing stuff; one of these days I will figure out wine, and virtual box, and all that stuff; hopefully someone will figure it out for me, so i just have to click install game and it will work, lol

I'm about to have some fun with planetside 2 as I plunked down $40 for the founders beta package; in fact, here I go; been putting it off to do real world stuff like homework, lol

[Lnx_User1]

If Linux recieved better support by video card manufacturers then the OS should be superior for gaming than Windows all way round. It be interesting to see if the gaming console/PC Valve is working on is Linux based.

[jamvaru]

Game developers have to decide to port to linux and do the graphics card work themselves. Apparently there is a Unity engine that allows for a game to be ran on any platform. Maybe that is the answer.

[bigj231]

Some guys on the Terraria forum ported Terraria to mono game. I've enjoyed that despite the nightmare of setting up the sound (still have no clue how I did it) and the little bugs. Minecraft is fun too. I've also been playing torchlight some, but it is broken right now. Looking forward to the source engine coming to linux so I can start playing TF2 and L4D2 again.

[dogsolitude_uk]

Apologies for late reply (been out and about!), but I'm a big advocate of gaming on Linux.

My weapons of choice? I'm very lucky because most of my favourite Windows games are also available on Linux!

Eschalon Books I and II: two old-school isometric RPGs with stats, dicerolling etc. a bit like Baldur's Gate, for example. Very atmospheric, you can tell that Basilisk have put a lot of love and attention into these games. I've probably played these more than Skyrim http://basiliskgames.com/

Amnesia: The Dark Descent: an utterly terrifying first-persona survival horror game, inspired by HP Lovecraft. This is considered by many in the PC gaming scene to be a real classic. http://www.amnesiagame.com/#main

Braid: an award-winning and engaging platform game with beautiful handpainted graphics and a fascinating gameplay mechanic involving time, where some levels 're-wind' etc. http://braid-game.com/

Darwinia: a wonderful, vector-graphics-based retro shooter/rts based inside a computer, it's serious eye candy as well as being a glorious gaming experience. This is another real classic PC game by Introversion, who also made the wonderful DefCon and Uplink (also available on Linux)

Psychonauts is also available, another cult game on Windows, which didn't get the recognition it deserved on release.

With Valve porting Steam over to Linux, and having discovered that the Source gaming engine works really well on this platform, and other initiatives such as the Humble Bundles insisting on Linux ports for their games, and the improvement of WINE as well, I'm happy to suggest that Linux is becoming a viable gaming platform. Steam is great for small Indie games (sales of Braid, for example, really took off when it started selling on Steam), and is what I use it for mostly.

[mfluder]

I had good experiences running windows games in wine. Actually, I use Playonlinux with does most of the configuring for you. I'm running Linux Mint 13 cinnamon 64-bit with an ATI Radeon 5770 video card. I have Elder scrolls III: Morrowind running perfectly in wine. Also, I played Fallout III all the way through using wine. I never had a single crash. Certain games in wine require certain windows components to be installed. The trick is knowing which components to use for your particular game. Anyway, minecraft has a native linux port. What more do you need than that?

[bigj231]

I once got GTA IV to run with wine. Never again... I'll have to see if I can get Fallout New Vegas to even run on my laptop.