Techies and gamers seem to always be faced an unfortunate lack of video games available for the Linux operating system. While many techie gamers would prefer to move to a cleaner, leaner Linux environment, the Microsoft world it seems has held the monopoly when it comes to supporting great computer games. While Apple has made great strides toward supporting a wider variety of games, Linux clearly trails behind the big commercial operating systems in game support.
To help alleviate this unfortunate situation Linux aficionados find themselves in, here is a list of the top ten Linux games released or updated in 2012
Oil Rush
Oil Rush is a much anticipated Real Time Strategy game in the vein of the classic RTS genre. If you are a fan of the Command and Conquer series, one of the most famous in the genre of real time strategy games this will be right up your alley. Oil Rush also boasts an amazing graphic engine, so if you have a new graphics card you will not be disappointed.
Oil Rush is a naval strategy game that takes place in a world where nuclear war has melted the ice caps, changing the face of the planet forever. Oil Rush offers unique gameplay, avoiding micromanagement of every single unit, while still providing full control over all important aspects of strategy and economy.
Capture, upgrade, and defend floating production platforms and oil rigs. Discover new technologies and send squads of naval and air units into the battle!
The game cost 20$ on the official website or 15€ on Desura
FlightGear
Flight Gear is an amazingly realistic flight simulator for the Linux environment. The Flight Gear project is open source and has been around since about 1997. It has had the input of some of the top research scientists in the field including personnel from NASA and Boeing. The Flight Gear simulator is actually used by research engineers, but also makes for a great game for those who enjoy aviation as a hobby.
Heroes of Newerth
If role playing games are your forte then Heroes of Newerth may be for you. Based on the Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne mod map called Defense of the Ancients, this multiplayer role playing game has great atmosphere and good game play. The graphics and music is top notch and the multiplayer environment is very stable. While this game is free to play, you can also buy extras in the store with real money.
Heroes of Newerth puts two teams of players against each other: the Legion and the Hellbourne. Both teams are based at opposite sides of a map. The standard map is split into three continuous ‘lanes’, running from one base to the other. Defensive towers are positioned evenly through each lane, until the lanes terminate at a team’s base. Bases are strongly defended with extra defensive towers, and buildings from which units spawn. These units, termed ‘creeps’ are spawned every thirty seconds, and run along their lane until they meet opposition – which they then attack. Victory is achieved when one of the teams manages to push into the base of the opposing team, and destroys their primary structure.
Players on each team choose ten of 2 heroes, featuring a variety of abilities and advantages to compensate for any shortcomings. Players control a single hero from a top-down perspective, while common features of real time strategy games such as base management and resource collection are removed
Trine 2
This is the second part of the popular game, Trine 2 is a great successor to the original. The graphics and physics engines have been updated and the puzzles are more challenging than before. Trine 2 also offers a multiplayer mode where players can cooperate with each other to solve the puzzles together.
You play as one of the Three Heroes who make their way through dangers untold in a fantastical fairytale world.
Physics-based puzzles with fire, water, gravity and magic; Wicked Goblins; Climb the tallest trees and towers in the enchanted forest!
Wakfu
Almost 1,000 years after the start of the Age of Dofus, new heroes are emerging to bring hope to a world in ruins. Everything must be rebuilt, and whether you’re a fighter or a politician, a merchant or an artisan, in WAKFU, everything depends on you!
Wakfu is one of the few massive multiplayer online role playing games available for the Linux operating system. Players can choose to join one of four nations that each has their own set of laws and territories. There are 14 different classes to choose from, each with unique spells and abilities.
For the first time in an online game, the plants and animals that inhabit this world interact to form a huge global ecosystem! Players can protect the natural habitat or use it for profit … In Wakfu, even total extinction is possible.
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
After the initial success of the first game in the Amnesia series: The Dark Descent, Frictional Games have planned a sequel due for release in the Halloween season. The new Amnesia game, entitled A Machine for Pigs, will be yet another mind bending horror game that shares the same world as the first, but follows a new and unique story line.
I’m a big fan of the former game, so i can’t wait to see their new creation, I’m sure it will be a success !
Xonotic
A first person shooter in the vein of the classic arena shooters, Xonotic is a possibly the best FPS available for Linux gamers. Xonotic is built on the DarkPlaces engine, a highly modified version of the Quake engine. With great multiplayer maps and several game play modes, this is a sure winner.
The title is different from the other games of this type for two reasons: first, the game is back to essentials, with fast clashes and well balanced weapons, avoiding the strategic aspect assumed by many titles today, and secondly but no less important, veering toward the setting of the freedom given by codes and freely available software, rather than in the direction of a purely commercial mentality, aimed at maximizing success in terms of sales at the expense of the quality of the title, unfortunately this has recently also in software house that until a few years ago seemed to be exempt from this.
Xonotic is a direct successor of the Nexuiz project. It represents years of development from its humble beginnings as a Quake 1 engine modification, and now aims to be the best possible open source first person shooter available.
0 A.D.
0 A.D. (pronounced “zero ey-dee”) is a free, open-source, cross-platform real-time strategy (RTS) game of ancient warfare. In short, it is a historically-based war/economy game that allows players to relive or rewrite the history of Western civilizations, focusing on the years between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D. The project is highly ambitious, involving state-of-the-art 3D graphics, detailed artwork, sound, and a flexible and powerful custom-built game engine.
The game has been in development by Wildfire Games (WFG), a group of volunteer, hobbyist game developers, since 2001. The code and data are available under the GPL license, and the art, sound and documentation are available under CC-BY-SA.
Savage 2
A great description from wikipedia:
Savage 2 combines RTS, FPS and RPG aspects into its gameplay. The game is played with 2 teams (the Legion of Man and the Beast Horde) fighting against each other on a large playing field in an attempt to eventually destroy the durable command center of the enemy team, thereby winning the game. The game is played in rounds, and no benefits carry over from each match, despite the RPG elements present in each match.
Most of the players on each team are “action players”, fighting the other teams action players on the field, using powerful third person melee and weaker first person ranged combat. The action players can choose from a selection of unique units to play as, and may earn gold from their actions on the field, which in turn may be either donated to the team, spent on useful items in an RPG fashion, or used to buy more powerful units.
On each team, there is one “commander” player, seeing the game from a top-down RTS perspective. From there the commander can issue orders to the action players, cast spells on both teams action players and build structures for the team. Different structures act as spawnpoints, gold mines and technology buildings which unlock more units, abilities and items for the action players. Buildings require gold to be built, which, in addition to being donated by the action players, can be extracted from gold nodes across the map by constructing gold mines on them. Normal buildings may be attacked and destroyed by action players, though the loss of these is normally only a setback whereas the destruction of the command centre results in the loss of the match.
Cradle
Last on our list is the adventure game Cradle.
Set in a science fiction world, this first person quester is built on the Unigine engine and offers tons of atmosphere and mystery.
From official website:
Cradle is a science-fiction first-person quest with freedom of movement. The story is built around the relations of the protagonist and a mechanical girl, who by enigmatic circumstances find themselves together in a yurt among the desert Mongolian hills. The player is to restore the lost functions of his companion’s mechanical body parts and together reveal the mystery of the neglected entertainment park found not far from the yurt.
Author Bio: This post is written by Jason Phillips, working as a self employed content writer and guest blogger. He loves sports games a lot and so play Motorbike dash Games whenever he is free.
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I’ve been using Linux for years but never tried any game so far. I never even know that such nice games exist for Linux. I think I should pick up one of these and try.
Thanks for the post.
how about some f****g links to get the games………
Hello Simon,
Try to click on the Big name of every game.
Best Regards
FTL was just released this week too.
Not to mention that Bastion, Psychonauts, Sword & Sworcery, Botanicula, Lone Survivor and many more great games all made it into Humble Bundles this year.