Heroes of Newerth trial

Heroes of Newerth has just opened up their latest trial to everybody to join in on the fun. Apparently it only allows 10 matches to play but I cannot confirm that yet. For those that do not know, HoN is heavily based on the Warcraft III scenario Defense of the Ancients. What this means for us Linux gamers is that it brings a very competitive real time strategy game to our lovely platform of choice. With graphics as amazing as this and game play as fun as it is you really can't go wrong. Give it a whirl at Heroes of Newerth Trial Sign Up.

Source: Linux Gaming News

Lord of the Rings Online - Free to play!

So today is the big day, unfortunately yesterday was barely a day to me but today is great! Remember my post a few days ago at this point? Yeah it came true at long last. As the title says, Lord of the Rings Online has finally gone free to play.

What this means for us Linux folks is that we now have an MMORPG that doesn't stink on ice free and usable in Wine quite nicely. I'll give you folks a quick run down of how to get it working properly.

First off you will need to make sure you have glx support on your system. Open up a terminal and type "glxinfo | grep rendering" press enter. You should be seeing "direct rendering: Yes" if you see nothing or a No instead you need to install the proper GLX drivers. Look to the upper right hand portion of this blog for the drivers if you're using an nvidia card or AMD/ATI card. Installing those should set you up with direct rendering no problem.

Secondly, get yourself a bottle of Wine. This involves going to WineHQ and going to the download section and following their instructions on getting Wine for whichever distribution you are using. I'd offer screenshots of what you need to do, but the download page at the WineHQ site does quite sufficiently for that.

Thirdly you'll want to trick out Wine with Winetricks. Open up another terminal screen and go to a folder you use for downloading various programs (I like ~/Downloads personally) and type the following into the prompt:

wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks 

This will download Winetricks to the directory you're currently inside of in the terminal. The download shouldn't take long and once it's complete you need to install a couple of tricks for your install of Wine. Installing these tricks is as simple as typing :

sh winetricks vcrun2005 vcrun2005sp1 d3dx9 d3dx10

What this command will do for you is install the Visual C++ 2005 libraries, DirectX 9 and the DirectX 10  libraries. This enables you to play games with DirectX 9 and 10 graphics which Lord of the Rings Online is a game that uses DirectX 9 at minimum.

After you get the tricks downloaded and it sets them up its time to install Lord of the Rings Online. If you happen to have the DVD's on hand then you are lucky enough to be able to do this with Wine. If however you need to use the download launcher from turbine this part requires an install of Windows. If you don't have the install DVD's go ahead and head to Lotro Download and select which version you want to install on Windows. What you'll need to do is download the whole thing on your Windows machine/install and copy the folder over to your Linux box once its done. If you dual boot Linux and Windows this is easily handled because you can just direct the launcher to the install directory on your Windows partition.

UPDATE: I just found a site that provides a link to the full client for Lord of the Rings Online which can be installed from within Linux. Head on over to LotRO: SoA & MoM client and download the file, its approx 9.2 GB but it should get you going rather than using a Windows install. Thanks go out to ajackson on the Ubuntu Forums and his work on PyLotro. This download will need to be patched significantly once downloaded.

While Lord of the Rings Online is downloading you'll want to do yourself a favor and create an account.  This should be able to be done from within the launcher itself. If not please respond and I'll find the proper solution for you. 

So now you've installed Wine, Winetricks, Lord of the Rings Online and you've created an account. You are almost done w/ this crazy guide wrote by a mad man. The last step left to getting Lord of the Rings Online working on your Linux box is to install a working launcher for Linux called PyLotro. Head to Lotro Linux and go to the download page there. Once there follow the instructions based on your distribution, if you are on a Debian based install it gives a pretty good amount of detail. If you are not on Debian you may have to get the source and compile it but being the lazy gamer I am, I would recommend you get the standalone version. This is a .exe file which is a Windows file so it works from within Wine. I had to use this for a while because of a weird problem on my system installing the PyLotro launcher from the repositories. 

Once PyLotro is installed you'll need to set it up to read your install directory for Lord of the Rings Online and doing that is quite simple. Select "Tools > Settings Wizard" from the menu up top. This will let you find the install of Lord of the Rings Online automatically, however I'm not sure it'll work if you installed it within Windows.  Go ahead and select Wine and Lord of the Rings Online like below and then press Find Games. If it found your install, select the install and press Apply then follow along below.

If this works for you, great it made the next step easier. If this did not work for you, you'll need to enter some information manually in the next screen. Close that screen and select "Tools > Options" which will open up another window. From within this options window there are a few things to enter. Here's what mine looks like.

In the WINEDEBUG section enter "fixmeWINEPREFIX section enter your Wine install directory. Typically the Wine install by default is "/home/user-name/.wine" for example my name is James so it shows "/home/james/.wine". The next section is the most important, if your install was detected in the previous window it should be filled out already for you. If its not filled out or is filled out improperly you'll want to select the "..." button and navigate through your drive to the install directory. Once you find the install directory press Open. The Hi-Res Graphics section is based on which version of the installer you selected earlier, if you selected Standard select "Disabled" otherwise select "Enabled".  Press Save and you'll be back at the main PyLotro screen.

One last step I forgot to mention is to go to "Tools > Patch" in PyLotro  on the new window press Start and let it do what it wants. The patch process will most likely take a while unless you already did this at some point in the past either on a Windows install or a previous Linux install. 

That's it for setting the game up. Now all you need to do is select your realm and then enter your account name and password you made earlier. Press Login and you should be in the game. It might crash on the initial loading because it is creating the config files necessary for it don't be alarmed. If it does crash just open PyLotro again and give it a whirl. Hopefully all goes off without a hitch.

Good Luck and I hope you enjoy.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is released!

At merely $20 USD who can ask for more? This game is looking fantastic and I can't wait to try it.  Here is an excerpt about the game:

"Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a first person horror game with a focus on immersion. It is a game where atmosphere and story comes first. We hope that the game will be a breeze of fresh air, in a genre otherwise populated by "one-man-army action hero" sagas. In Amnesia you are almost completely defenseless, something we believe not only makes the game a lot scarier, but also gives a vastly different experience."

Multi platform game developers have come a long way and are definitely helping us along in this everlasting battle for quality games with tux by our sides.

Source: http://www.amnesiagame.com/

Warsow

The ever so popular standalone first person shooter recently had some fresh screenshots of its upcoming version .5. Warsow is a game based on the QFusion engine, which is an engine based off of Quake II. What does that mean? A fantastic first person shooter experience thats totally free, our favorite price tag.

To see more, please visit their ModDB site and read up on it.

ModDB: ModDB - Warsow
Source: Planet Quake

On your right you will see...

Current Drivers. I'm sure some of you were wondering where my current drivers gadget was at, but I didn't forget. So there it is, I'm going to try to keep it updated and all that. Good luck, and get your game on in Linux!

Angry Birds Android

Not our typical desktop game here, however Android is my current favorite smart phone OS and so you have this.

Angry Birds has finally came out for the smart phone of choice for myself and many others. It's currently in beta form but it is still very playable and very fun no less.



One of my favorite people in the world currently, Kevin Rose creator of Digg, absolutely loves the game and i couldn't agree more. This is a fun game to kill time on the go and even when at home.

Get the beta of the Lite version on the android market.

Engadget App Review: Engadget - Angry Birds Review

Friendly reminder.

Update your drivers! Specifically speaking your video card drivers. I like I'm sure others out there have often times found ourselves with outdated video card drivers and wish we knew new versions were out and about. So here's what I'm going to do for us.

The Nvidia team recently released 256.53 for Linux, of course I only discovered this yesterday. When it was released? Aug 31st. I'm not perfect, but with my imperfection comes help for you. I will be adding a thing on my blog to link to newest drivers for both Nvidia and ATI (AMD will be taking the place on the next iteration of cards if I understand things properly)

The ATI/AMD team released version 10.8 for Linux most recently. Created on Aug 25th it is still quite new. I personally don't use ATI/AMD products at least not in a Linux environment so please tell me if there is other drivers out there that out perform the Catalyst drivers so I can look into posting those as well.

Hope this helps.

NVIDIA: 256.53 x86 , 256.53 x86_64
ATI: ATI Catalyst 10.8 x86 + x86_64

Would you like some Wine with your day off?

I'm sorry I did not notice this sooner. If I wasn't super satisfied with my current installation of Wine perhaps I would have noticed it.

Version 1.3.2 of my favorite gaming tool on Linux has been released. In this release it brings along some neat things and as such I shall post a snippet of what was posted on their site.

• Update of the Gecko engine, now including a 64-bit version.
• New implementation of console support on Unix terminals.
• Many new functions in the C runtime dlls.
• Various bug fixes.

So there you have it, go get yourself some Wine on this lovely day off. Get your game on and go!

Source: WineHQ

Wakfu... On the way!

So this isn't as great of a post as i was hoping, but its Labor Day weekend here in the United States and I've been starving for my Linux game news. Nevertheless you better believe I've got some news, and its great news at that!


A little known developer in the major scheme of things has announced a partnership with Square Enix (the creators of the awesome Final Fantasy line of games among other things). This partnership will help Ankama Games bring its unique game Wakfu to North America.


The best news of it all? It is multi platform, meaning our brothers and sisters on Mac OS X, Linux and even the quite unpopular Windows operating system are able to play. This game looks promising, with Square Enix backing it, I'm sure it'll be a great product.

Here is to hoping it comes sooner than later. To see screenshots and videos of the game click the media link down below.

Here's the news post on Ankama Games' site.

"Ankama has chosen a 5 stars partner for the launch of its coming MMORPG: the renowned game publisher Square Enix! The company known for titles like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy will present the tactical game with turned based fights to the American players.

Wakfu offers the same tactical turned based fighting system as DOFUS, as well as the same 12 characters, and also stands out with its evolving ecosystem: your actions will have an impact on the environment! If you kill a monster, the species might disappear, if you extract a mineral, the resource might die out. You will be able to choose if you want to protect or exploit a natural resource of your environment! "



Source: Ankama Games
Media: Wakfu

Starcraft 2... Again

Surely this has been discussed to no end, but what would I be without including a bit of a message about Starcraft 2 ? Basically everything I'd like to accomplish here is to provide a link to the readers which might want to find out if Starcraft 2 is playable in Linux.

Of course it is! Wine 1.2 proved to be capable enough without any major modifications. Short and simple all that is needed is Wine 1.2, proper video drivers installed, winetricks with a few extras installed, and Starcraft 2.

Heres a link to a guide that I personally can say works fine. Good luck.

Source: http://www.retrohive.com/2010/08/20/play-starcraft-ii-linux/

Is the world ending?

No idea if this is coming to Linux or not, but now the world can either rejoice or fear for our lives. Duke Nukem Forever is officially going to be getting a release. If it comes to Linux that'd be fantastic, if not, well  thats unfortunate and we can only hope that Wine is able to run it properly.

Source: Wall Street Journal Speekeasy

Ubuntu Linux beta

Not necessarily a game but this is indeed a Linux distribution that helps bring Linux gaming to many people out there. Now there are purist out there who believe strongly that Ubuntu is becoming bloatware and I'd tend to agree. This isn't a debate of whether or not Ubuntu is amazing or rubbish. Moreover this is a post to indicate that if you use Ubuntu you should know that the developers have reached a new milestone yesterday with releasing the beta of Maverick Meerkat (the name of their next release).

I've personally been using the alpha release of Maverick and i'm pleasantly surprised, the new kernel base is working nicely for me and with Wine 1.2 i'm quite happy with how it performs. If you're using your desktop or laptop as a primary computer I suggest waiting until Maverick comes out of beta and to official release since this is a beta and prone to many bugs. If however you've got nothing better to do then give this a shot and test it out, help the developers over there at Ubuntu.

If you want to find out about Ubuntu and give the LTS (Long-term support) release of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 then head to the source link. If you're looking to help out a great development team then head to the direct link to their meerkat testing forum.

Source: http.www.ubuntu.com
Direct: http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=385

Role playing

Who enjoys a bit of role playing on a friday? Well most certainly I do, especially when it's free to me. Too many times has it cost me an arm and a leg to role play. Needless to say the makers of Summoning Wars don't want that.

Summoning Wars was just updated to version 0.5.2. For those that aren't familiar with it, it is a role playing game that is entirely free and under GPL. The game supports both a single player mode along with a multiplayer mode that allows for 2 to 8 players. Not only are they making a free RPG for everyone to enjoy, but they also are trying to make playing the game being a color blind individual a little bit easier. Here's an update list to explain that a little bit more:

"- Added option to choose highlight color to improve gameplay experience for colorblind players
- Added option to adjust difficulty

Graphics:
- new images for various skills
- improved image for the world map

Music/Sound:
- Added lots of music
- Added various new sounds"


On that note, it's great to know that there is still developers out there supporting the color blind as well as updating the major aspects of the game like sound. Keep an eye on this game as I suspect it'll be getting popular rather quickly. Atleast I hope it will.

Source: http://www.sumwars.org

Cool down with Cooldown

Like using your mind? If you enjoy puzzle style games then you'll definitely enjoy this little gem. Originating as an entry to the Pandora Angst Coding Competition 2010 the developer has decided to keep updating it for our enjoyment. How great is that?! Free and updated regularly.

The basic premise of this game is to connect a bunch of tiles together much akin to the ever popular Pipe style games from yesteryear. The goal of it is to cool down a ball coming from the starting area, and get it cooled down. The catch is that there are tiles you can use that help and increase your score quite a bit however they also heat the ball back up and if you overheat the ball you... well I'll let you find out. The game is simple yet fun, what more can you ask for ?

Source: Linux Game Database

Homepage: http://code.google.com/p/cooldown-game/

Quake Live was updated

Somehow this slipped by my eyes. Being a rather large supporter of iD Software I tend to follow their products and news closely. It looks like there was an update to Quake Live (a web based version of their famous Quake III Arena game that plays inside your web browser) on August 31. This update mostly seems to be addressing the public by adding in support for changing team sizes.

"Today's update is most notably to address the request and concerns of players who have expressed interest in playing with specific team sizes in team gametypes, such as the ability to play 2v2 Clan Arena, 2v2 Team Deathmatch or 4v4 CTF. Now, up to 16 players may join any game server and the active teamsize will determine how many of those players may participate in the match. This allows you, the players, to decide what you like to play (and more room for spectators to fill in the gaps when players drop)! 

While everyone is having fun trying out the new teamsize options, you'll notice that we now display a teammate's health and armor status when you hover your crosshair over them so that you may easily identify which teammates need additional health, armor, or assistance. So no more excuses! Be sure to leave that armor for your team's flag carrier who so badly needs it!"

At the very least this is a good sign that iD Software still cares for a product after it comes out of the beta phase. Quake III Arena has made me happy for many moons and seeing it be modified and put out to the public for free makes me even happier. 

If you like first person shooters go give this one a shot! Installing the game and getting it running is pretty self explanitory, iD went to great lengths to make this very accessible so check out the FAQ if you have any questions.

Source: http://www.quakelive.com

Everybodies favorite Worms clone just got better

Well, maybe it hasn't got better yet, but they are working on it. Where this Worms clone might be you might ask? Of course i'm talking none other than Hedgewars. This game caught my eye and many others a while ago, and now its got me excited yet again. One of the developers has put up spoiler pictures of Hedgewars running on an iPad.

This may not seem like much to a Linux user like myself but it means more accessibility and more users to play a game I love. The game currently is only supported on all the major platforms for PCs, Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. Making this game one of the better Worms clones out there and the game play does not disappoint. You've got your normal worms style weapons and then there are the more advanced ones like the Sine gun which I've read might not stay in the game due to the difficulty of use. Show your support, go to the site and give the game a shot. You won't be able to pull yourself away from it very easily.

A list of features:

Hilarious and devistating turn based combat for up to 6 players

Both local and network multiplayer, with optional AI opponents

Battle on an infinite number of randomly generated maps, with over 20 environments

Utilise 47 (and counting) devistating weapons! Including the piano strike and explosive robotic cake

Play the game your way, with 18 different game modifiers, tweak almost every aspect of the match

Customize your team, with over 120 costumes, 30 graves, 12 forts, 100s of flags and unique voice packs

Huge battles with up to 48 hogs

Play both singleplayer and multiplayer minigames

Plugin your own custom maps, costumes, and other artwork

Source: http://www.hedgewars.org

Lord Of The Rings Online

With the onset of the free to play based system that will be coming in only 8 short days I felt it would be pertinent to post about Lord Of The Rings Online. Using one of the best sources to help people play games inside of Linux, Lord Of The Rings Online is one of the few MMO games that plays well with tux. Wine makes LOTRO feel right at home within Linux, and with free to play it seems like the perfect fit for those looking to get their role playing on!



Still not sure you can't be bothered spending $0 on a game to play it in a free operating system ? Well, then you're at a loss here. The game looks fantastic even in Wine. I'm currently a subscriber to the game and intend to continue paying since I thoroughly enjoy the game. Incase you wanted to see in game footage, heres a video of the game's beta currently being tested showing the beginning Hobbit quest.



I'll leave the judgement to yourselves, I believe this is a fine fit to anybodies Linux box and I hope others agree. Feel free to comment your feelings on this subject.

Source: http://www.lotro.com
Wine: http://www.winehq.org

Oil Rush!

A new real time strategy game, for the PC, Linux, and the PS3. This game appears to be a unique take on the RTS genre and boy does it warm my heart to hear it is for Linux. Unfortunately, its not at the price point that I always love to see (read: free) but since its multiplatform there is no reason to fault here.

I've read a bit of the game info on the site and it's got me excited, if only we could get our hands on it to give you a more in depth look at it. The site tells you many things including the setting of the game, here is an excerpt

"In the post-apocalyptic flooded world there are two things running short: oil and time. The last survivors in a desperate desire to seize control and dominate the enemy have started the naval warfare that made the whole world one large battlefield. In these harsh and cruel times, the oil is thicker than blood."


To that I say "Awesome". There is nothing more than I like to hear than a company trying to get into the Starcraft and Warcraft dominated genre of games. 

Source : http://www.oilrush-game.com/