The Battle for Wesnoth is a free, turn-based strategy game with a fantasy theme. Fight a desperate battle to reclaim the throne of Wesnoth, or take hand in any number of other adventures. www.wesnoth.org
If you’re interested in games for a Linux platform, then you know that game probably is open source, free from cost in most cases, and free to modify. The latter attribute is why Linux games are so popular…a developer can take a great game and make it even better, share it with the world, and become a hero. So, why waste your time and money on proprietary games when so many great Linux games are available?
We’ve listed the top 25 Linux games for 2008 below. While we believe that Spring is defintely tops on the 2008 list, we had a difficult time aligning the other games by numerical order. Therefore, take those numbers with a grain of salt, because each game is so different and it’s the best in its league. Take FreeCiv, for instance (#3) - some players will love this game, yet others will like the simplicity of Battle for Wesnoth even better (#6). Or, some people may not like civilization games at all, as they may be addicted (and will continue to be addicted) to the older game, Tux Racer (#18).
Linux has games. I’m not just talking about solitaire, chess and mines; I’m talking about the dozens of great 3D first person shooters, puzzle games, role-playing games, community games, simulators, and more. If you’re hesitant about making the switch to Linux, or you’ve made the switch but now you’re itching for some solid game play and impressive graphics, then here’s a list of games we’ve found. We’re giving you the official websites, genres, what’s open source, what’s free, and what’s not, and a few screenshots here and there.
Before we go into the game list, we know we missed a few, because there’s just so many Linux games. We mostly chose the games that we’ve had a chance to try out ourselves. Please contribute some more games in the comments, so we can expand on this list, or contribute to our general game forum.
First, I am not a gamer for any platform (Windows, Linux, Playstation, Wii, Xbox, etc). That wasn’t always the case. When I was growing up, I had about every game console that existed….the first generation atari that did pong, the third generation ColecoVision, the atari 2600, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64. I even own a playstation and a playstation 2, yet I never really ever played them — and only a handful of times in the last 10 years, with the most recent being guitar hero 3 with my daughter on the Wii on christmas day. I still own the atari and colecovision and they still work too.
My point is it takes a lot to excite me enough to play a game. I have never really every played computer games, outside of solitair and killbill. I wrote about Frets On Fire recently and it received some pretty good attention. So, I decided to take a stab at another game or two or three….just to see what I have been missing over the years.
Nexuiz
Nexuiz is a 3d deathmatch game project, created online by a team of developers called Alientrap. It is available for download for Windows, Mac, and Linux (all the same archive).The first version was released May 31st 2005, released entirely GPL and free over the net, a first for a project of its kind. Since then it has been downloaded over half a million times, and the game is still being updated and developed, currently at version 2.3 and new releases being developed.
Version 0.8.0 has just been released! It’s a complete rewrite of the original project, including completely remade graphics.
Hope you enjoy this new version. It’s still very limited, but soon new features will be included.
Think you’re smarter than the meatheads on your local city council? Now you can prove it — without running for office — courtesy of the original city simulation game. Electronic Arts (EA) has released the source code to SimCity under the GPLv3. The newly freed game is dubbed Micropolis, and it is playable in most major Linux distributions.
The original SimCity was published in 1989, and spawned 18 spinoffs (and counting), plus dozens of expansions and sequels. For years it was the bestselling PC-based video game, until it was eventually unseated by its own spinoff The Sims. Given its nonviolent, educational nature, SimCity was a natural fit when the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project solicited games for inclusion on the XO laptop.
Who Says Linux Doesn’t Have an Extraordinary MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) that’s extremely easy to install (yes, like in Microsoft Windows)?? I love this game!
I started playing this game about a year ago in Windows, but I’m not a big gamer and I’m mostly in Ubuntu and it was not available for Linux at the time, so I didn’t continue playing after my trial.
But now it’s available for Linux — actually, it has been for a while, including a Mac client.
GamniX is Digg proof thanks to caching by WP Super Cache!