Bonus: The Best Linux Games

Posted at 11:45am on Monday June 13th 2011

Jon Roberts says:

I'm afraid I've been a little dopey - I completely forgot to ask what everyone's favourite games are! So whether you love the fast-paced, cartoon styled fun of Warsow or you're more of a Nethack fan, go ahead and let us know what your favourite games are in the comments.

The only rule is that they need to be native to Linux (although we know how great Wine and Dosbox are!).

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Your comments

The best Linux game for me...

Anonymous Penguin-driver (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 12:23pm

... is SuperTuxKart.
That being said, I expect 0 A.D. to be able to surpass it, but STK is the game giving me most fun at the moment.

Koules

TuxRadar - June 13, 2011 @ 12:41pm

I'm going to say Koules, because I spent ages playing it when I installed SUSE Linux 6 a zillion years ago :-)

-- Mike

Doom!

Stephen Ward (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 12:51pm

Doom always has a place on my hard drive and there are plenty of wonderful clients to run this classic game and it's sequels/spin-offs.

But speaking of Nethack, if you want a rougue-like with a sci-fi flavour try DoomRL, much easier to get into and runs in a terminal.

CFDG

AnonymousPenguin (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 1:20pm

CFDG filled my gaming-niche: http://www.contextfreeart.org/

xkill

AgentScully (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 1:20pm

xkill is the best first person shooter ever!

Wesnoth

Peter Kropotkin (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 1:23pm

Battle for Wesnoth is a pretty awesome turn-based strategy game with decent graphics and art, good music, and plenty of campaigns to while away the hours of one's life (then again, I traded hours of my life to KBounce, so what do I know?)

Best linux game

Chankey Pathak (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 1:24pm

Urban Terror

clearly

Spangwiches (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 1:59pm

Minecraft.

Conquest

jon - June 13, 2011 @ 2:21pm

Just tried out Conquest myself - pretty excellent game that's worth checking out if you're into turn based strategy that's a little frantic.

http://www.conquest-game.com/

Hard one, a lot of great ones.

Shimi - June 13, 2011 @ 2:22pm

Wish I had more time to play them.

World of Goo(awesome puzzle), Nexuiz(great fun in LAN party), Wesnoth, Hedgewars(worms clone) and Pingus(lemmings clone) are the best I have played(assuming ScummVM counts as an emulator).

If I had to pick one it would be World of Goo

Legends

Anonymous (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 2:42pm

The only cross platform "Tribes" style game out there for Penguinistas is Legends.

http://www.legendsthegame.net

Trine

kerato (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 4:16pm

Trine was pretty awesome too.Bought it during the Frozenbyte Humble Bundle sale.

Best Linux Game

slippycurb (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 6:54pm

Im pretty sure it has to be UFO:Alien Invasion. no contest!!

Not a great one for games...

Rhakios - June 13, 2011 @ 7:03pm

Aisleriot, Frozen Bubble and TuxRacer (or whatever it's calling itself these days) are about it for gaming for me.

Quake Wars

Spotzero (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 8:24pm

A lot of the Id tech games have native linux binaries.

I'm a big fan of "Quake Wars", which ran great on linux. They also kept the patches for the linux binaries up-to-date with the windows ones FTW. Though the linux binaries were download only, and did not come on the disc.

It was already mentioned, but Trine was really good as well.

Doom 2 and Quake 2

DavidDutch (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 8:34pm

Classic, well made and thought out. Good fun over and over and over and over... :D

...Also had a lot of fun with the original Castle Wolfenstein but not sure if there is a Linux version out there or where to get it....anyone?

Warzone 2100 sticks out in

bananaoomarang - June 13, 2011 @ 8:39pm

Warzone 2100 sticks out in my mind.

However, all the humble bundle games? Braid sticks out for me, as does World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish... you get the picture.

my list:

Penguin hurt by x-ray (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 9:13pm

Heroes of newert
minecraf
urban terror
xbill
those humble indie bumble game packs
supertuxcart
0verkill (ascii fps)
asciiquarium ( when tired of playing games)

I can't believe no-one's

Dafydd (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 9:37pm

I can't believe no-one's mentioned Osmos yet. A brilliant, clever, absorbing game.

World of Goo, too, I suppose.

But the win surely goes to the Linux port of SMAC :D

got to be the best

zingyyellow (not verified) - June 13, 2011 @ 9:54pm

armagetron

Savage 2 ftw

Flying Penguin (not verified) - June 14, 2011 @ 12:28am

The best game linux native game for me is savage 2, which is also free of charge. I never was an RPG fan but this game amazed me :). By far my favorite game -either on Linux or Windows-.

http://www.savage2.com/en/main.php

Also a nice game is Clockwork Man, which is noticeably DRM free !

http://www.totaleclipsegames.com/en/the-clockwork-man-game/

You all forgot !

dtmfTones (not verified) - June 14, 2011 @ 12:44am

You all forgot about Defendguin . Ive been messing with those Mutants for years. I usually have about 2-3 games of this to see how my brain and reflexes are really working and then go and do something else. You cant go past this one.

Penumbra?

Tr (not verified) - June 14, 2011 @ 12:51am

Anyone every try the Penumbra Series? Excellent games.

A few

Chris Lees (not verified) - June 14, 2011 @ 4:21am

Marathon 2, running on the Aleph One engine, is an excellent if-dated FPS. It involves mild puzzles and has an engrossing storyline. People express surprise over the tricks the Doom engine could do on such limited hardware, but the Marathon game engine was so much more advanced at around the same time. Aleph One is improved from the Marathon 2 days, too.

Minecraft has the capability to suck hours out of people's lives. I gave it up because I found I was neglecting my girlfriend from it. I'm simply not touching Minecraft anymore because it's too dangerous.

I also like Kobo Deluxe, it's quite an addictive and satisfying arcade space shooter.

And finally, Sopwith is pretty cool in a lo-fi way. Especially when you modify the source code to give you near-infinite lives so you have a chance to finish the second level :-)

So many...

dismal_denizen (not verified) - June 14, 2011 @ 4:47am

I'm quite fond of World of Goo, Aquaria and Trine which were available in various Humble Indie Bundles. I also enjoy Tasty Static because of my old Skyroads-playing days. Of course, Nethack is definitely still an epic win (especially on machines which can't handle fancy 3D graphics). For online multiplayer fun, Teeworlds is a good little game as well. Who said games on Linux suck?

Strategy

bruce muggins (not verified) - June 14, 2011 @ 6:47am

I've spent many an hour on Freeciv, though I find the easy levels to be difficult. I just love developing those cities.
Also Wesnoth is great. Thank you to the people that put together great stories there.
Lately I've been playing OpenTTD, I just love playing with trains.
On Windows I play first person shooters, but the Linux ones, just don't play as nicely.

I suppose my favourite of the lot would have to be Freeciv.

Oooo, many

Gavin (not verified) - June 14, 2011 @ 9:17am

Pingus! If the ID Software titles with downloadable linux installers count, then Quake 4 should be on my list. I'm also a bit partial to World of Goo. It was a shame I could never get the sound to work on the linux version of Enemy Territory, but there we are.

WHAT!?

Eages (not verified) - June 14, 2011 @ 11:53am

How can Nexuiz only be mentioned once here!? I thought Linux users were hardcore! Also, Xonotic (a continuing GPL fork of Nexuiz) is worthy of a mention.

Tremulous!

Twister_Kuriboh (not verified) - June 14, 2011 @ 2:07pm

The game I've chosen to mention is Tremulous. The fact that it blends FPS and RTS into this particular type of game (and that it is free as in both beer and speech) keeps me addicted to this game.

@Gavin: There's a fix for the sound in enemy territory under Ubuntu (10.10 onwards). You will find the link to the guide below...

http://www.hirntot.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=97&Itemid=109

Enjoy!

- Twister_Kuriboh

Windows

simon - June 14, 2011 @ 4:31pm

Sad to say it but a windows partition has my favourite games on it. Not a big fan of Tuxcart or Warmux etc.

If Half Life can be ported to Mac, surely it can be ported to Linux too without too much effort...

performous

Spud u Like! (not verified) - June 14, 2011 @ 6:58pm

This is a family selection, ages 10 (daughter) and 21 (Mum and Dad)
Performous..helps if you can sing in tune.
Go Ollie!
Five or more!
Atomic Worm
Word of Goo
Supertuxcart
Extremetuxracer
FrozenBubble
Billard-GL

I'll just take the ones that

GameLux (not verified) - June 14, 2011 @ 8:20pm

I'll just take the ones that are'nt mentiond:
OpenArena
- QuakeRally (it's beeing devd as a standalone, out soon)

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
- True combate (check the alpha, looks great)

Nexiuz
- Xonotic [fork] (actully think this is nicer, would love a story mod on it thou, her it might be in the works)

Galactic vice
- pre alpha (but looks like a real contender to commercial RTS's)

Zatacka
great old time waster, play whit other people x8 players on one keybord and mouse

Braid
Great and fantastic

Osmos and Supertux

Giant Albino Penguin (not verified) - June 15, 2011 @ 1:24am

Osmos
and Supertux

MX Simulator is the most

RMJ (not verified) - June 15, 2011 @ 5:10am

MX Simulator is the most realistic bike simulator I've played, (it also has an arcade mode for beginners). It's a very niche market but there are regular updates from the creator, an active community creating tracks and bike skins and an online racing series and various servers to practice online on too, love it

http://mxsimulator.com/

Just a few

anOminousEudyptula - June 15, 2011 @ 6:13am

World of Goo,
Revenge of the Titans,
and - for when I'm *really* bored - KBounce.

(And you're right - Wine is great[strike that: awesome!] Love my Steam games!)

Not a very big gamer...

Tobi - June 15, 2011 @ 10:36am

...but I did enjoy the following:

- Freecol
- Battle of Wesnoth (very addictive!)
- Osmos
- World of Goo

but probably I spent most time with Supertuxkart...

Ooh Ooh WAIT! Osmos. Awesome

bananaoomarang - June 15, 2011 @ 7:52pm

Ooh Ooh WAIT!

Osmos. Awesome game.

Dudes

Extraordinarily well known penguin (not verified) - June 15, 2011 @ 7:55pm

No one has mentioned the ultimate Linux game as far as I can see:

Every Distro has a built in mode for this game, control alt F1/any of the other agetty terminals. They say it's a fallback, something for productivity. Really, we all know the truth:

It's Nethack mode.

World Of Goo, DEFCON (really

djura-san (not verified) - June 16, 2011 @ 12:43am

World Of Goo, DEFCON (really killingly good strategy), Toribash (super fun but it's very hard one to play), Incursion rpg (for true D&D/rpg fans), Tribal Trouble (killing time stuff), Neverwinter Nights (!!!) and warsow (nice graphics and gameplay) + ut2k4.

I would also mention xboard and many chess engines available for it. It's a piece of jewel for every chess player :)

Not Much Time to Play But

pengythai (not verified) - June 16, 2011 @ 6:23am

The games that I do play when I get the time are:

Spacechem
World of Goo
SuperTux Kart
Armagetron Advanced
Frets on Fire

The last three I play with my 7 year old son.

Savage

CyberJack (not verified) - June 16, 2011 @ 2:26pm

I would have to save Savage.

I haven't played Savage 2 yet, but as long as i'm hooked on Savage (740+ hours on playing time and counting) I don't need to play it :)

http://www.newerth.com/

koules, supertuxkart, and frozenbubble

uomosenzanome - June 16, 2011 @ 7:00pm

and I also play angry birds in chrome ;) . . . I hope they make an open source version called "pissed-off penguins" one day . . .

Amnesia

Stewie2kill (not verified) - June 18, 2011 @ 10:04am

Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Native on linux and also extremely fun/terrifying. The Penumbra series is also excellent. I play them on windows with my friends as well.

Minecraft also fits into that category.

There needs to be an FPS (First Person Shooter) on linux that has Aim Down Sight - Where you can aim using the guns sights and now just the crosshairs. That's a game breaker for me.

SpaceChem

belko (not verified) - June 19, 2011 @ 5:03pm

Most certainly SpaceChem (http://spacechemthegame.com). While it's not *exactly* Linux-native (uses Mono) it's still got Linux packages, and is damn ingenious.

Dwarf Fortress

Zaxth (not verified) - June 19, 2011 @ 10:30pm

Without a doubt Dwarf Fortress, it has the awesome Fortress building with elements not unlike Dungeon Keeper, and the awesome roguelike Adventure mode.
Add to that it has got a ton of cool mods to play with, it's kept me busy gaming wise, for the past two years.
It's also free as in beer - but donations keep the project going.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

best game

Anonymous Penguin nor (not verified) - June 20, 2011 @ 8:39am

Wireshark.

Classic

Polar bear (not verified) - June 23, 2011 @ 10:01pm

My favorite games are Colossal Cave Adventure 660 and sokoban, curses version from cgames collection (http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/software/cgames.html)

My new favs...

AnonymousPenguin (not verified) - June 24, 2011 @ 12:30am

Red Eclipse
Super Tux Kart (SVN)

UrbanTerror

liberty_nz (not verified) - June 25, 2011 @ 1:20am

+1 for UrbanTerror

Best Game

knuckleheader (not verified) - June 25, 2011 @ 6:46am

Majesty

supertuxkart!!!

#! fan (not verified) - July 12, 2011 @ 1:02am

^ ditto

Sauerbraten!

Joste (not verified) - January 14, 2012 @ 6:44pm

No mention of Cube or Cube 2/Sauerbraten?
http://sauerbraten.org/

Spring, for RTS fans.

HitmanNumber86 (not verified) - April 12, 2012 @ 3:56am

It's not really a game, per se, but it does host an open sauce version of Total Annihilation, Balanced Annihilation (The best RTS ever). It also allows for immediate torrenting of RTS mods and maps from anyone playing them in springlobby at any time.

Keep in mind, it's still in development.

I heard you guys commenting on Desura, and thought you might enjoy this one.

Game

Annoy Tux the pirate (not verified) - May 2, 2012 @ 6:24pm

Supertuxkart, neverball, and supertux. They are the best, and supertuxkart is available for Windows 2000+, OSX (Intel and PPC), Linux 2.6+, FreeBSD 6+, NetBSD 2+, Solaris 10+, and the code! Supertux is old though (last stable release was in 2003!).