Hello all
I'm looking to see how the gaming life in Linux has shaped up in the past few years.
Lately, I've been playing with FlightGear. It's a decent flight sim. In fact, with the right scenery, machine, and with certain planes, it's top notch. However, it has some planes that are just plain broken, and some scenery glitches that need to be worked out (in a simulator, I expect it to be very realistic WRT looking out the window at scenery or in chase mode looking at the plane). I can deal with its flaws, and even some of the developers that occasionally get rude with you if you don't thoroughly search the forums, website, IRC and mailing lists for three days straight to answer your own questions before you ask them... BUT, what I *REALLY* miss is a good combat flight simulator where I can hunt down enemy planes and shoot them out of the sky.
Blowing things up can be fun sometimes, even if only in a computer game
I did a quick search for combat [space]flight sims for linux and the newest posts I found were late in 2004. Being a quarter of the way through 2009, I figure the information may have changed since then. So here I am, after doing an admittedly short search for "combat flight sim linux" in Google and getting the same games named to me that I've run into before.
Today, I've downloaded the source codes for ACM and Thunder&Lightning (sorry, would like but already closed the pages) but from the screenshots of TNL, it appears to be a little dated on graphics (I may be pleasantly surprised when I compile it though, as I haven't tried that yet) and I had ACM before and didn't like it then (but the newer version may again surprise me).
I've also tried GL-117 before, and although it was okay, the graphics are circa 1998 and gameplay left me a little underwhelmed when I tried it a little over a year ago.
I'm not looking for something with e.g. photorealistic scenery and super accurate flight dynamics. However, back before I really got into Linux, I played games like U.S. Navy Fighters in Windows (so old it allowed you to set which address your sound blaster was on) and even though its graphics may not have been state of the art, they were decent enough that it didn't look like the games in the corner arcade.
Even after getting into Linux, I still liked the Descent series, and I even bought (and absolutely loved!) Descent3 and Descent3:Mercenary. I would love to find a 3D combat game like that one for Linux.
My favorite games included Descent3 and Delta Force (the first one). I played them, multiplayer, ALL the time, and they were fun. They weren't overly complicated with this-key-does-this-and-that-key-does-that, but they offered enough configurability that I could choose which keys did what and set them up to my comforts. I'm curious, are there any games like these for Linux?
I did try, a while back and maybe here again soon, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. It was fun, but a little too complicated: I had to have someone in game explain to me that I needed to select the pliers, then kneel by some box, then repeatedly click on it to build some device. That's all good and well, and a lot more realistic than some games, but I'm a little more toward gameplay and a little less toward simulation in ground combat games.
I would have tried America's Army if it didn't require registration on some Army website. On that note, I'm looking for games that don't require any registration. I don't want people e-mailing me or calling me trying to sell me something to go with the game or recruit me or anything like that. Maybe they don't do that, but I got that feeling from them.
I see my father in law play World of Warcraft a lot. I'm not too interested in that. It seems a little busy, and I've always hated the idea of creating a character with an account and basically following the rules where some kid learns that for $50 he can buy someone else's account on the grey market and wipe out a bunch of people with weapons he shouldn't be capable of having on his character yet. My FIL puts up with that, as do many of my coworkers, and it's not for me.
I liked the original Warcraft and Warcraft II was better, as were Microsoft's Age of Empires I and II. However, the closest to these I've seen in Linux is Freecraft, which although playable, reminds me too much of what I did nearly ten years ago (so I'm looking for something a little more up to date).
Maybe a year ago, maybe two, I tried Nexuiz. It seemed cool, but all I ever saw online were 90% bots and maybe one or two human players. This isn't cool to me. I want to fight against humans that are unpredictable, maybe better than me or maybe worse, and who don't always know where I am on the playing field.
I also started about 2 or maybe even 3 years ago Vegastrike. I started on version 0.43, and stopped after playing version .50 for a while. I realize this is a kind of beta game, but it's done very well. I even has decent AI in the computer-controlled players when you dogfight them. I really liked it. Until the gameplay turned into "go here, get stuff, sell there, blow up a pirate, repeat". I started exploring, and found earth, but playing the game eventually turned into a chore for me. I was playing it just to play it, just to see what came next. It took way too long to save up money in the game, everything's too expensive, and the dialogue is almost nonexistent. Plus, you can't ever please everybody... there are too many factions in the game. Where that's more realistic, it makes gameplay too much like real life in complexity. I'm not complaining though, because I realize it's not at a release version yet, and there may not be too many devs working on it at any given point in time (I might even update my installed version too), but overall even though it's a decent game, it's too slow, taking too long to do. I really don't have enough time to sit and play it like this and get the enjoyment out of it I know I could with some changes.
I realize this is a lot. I did do a basic search both in Google and right here in LQ, and I admit I could search even more, but I don't get a lot of time to be on the computer (maybe a few hours a week) and searching for answers will eat that time up in a heartbeat. You guys play these games already, so what's out there for Linux?
Oh, one more thing. I'm not against paying for software, as nearly all the software I truly enjoyed in Windows was paid for. However, I've never payed for Linux software and as much hassle as it has been for me to install certain apps, I need to know I won't run into trouble getting a game going before I'm going to shell out my hard earned cash for it. So feel free to list non-free apps
Thanks!
