Gaming Daily A-Z

Complete Annihilation Apparently the Spring mod Complete Annihilation is rather good, although it's about to be renamed and not quite fully free of its ties to the original Total Annihilation content. The goal is to be totally Free. And it's pretty complete(ish) as a game already. There's lots of lovely screenshots . Glest Advanced Engine 0.2.12 got released . They also got a Sourceforge project for GAE . Q3Rally Fun racing games are always, er, fun. Well, in demand as well. So maybe Q3Rally can strike a chord with the Free gaming public? Apparently the original Quake Rally was the best Quake mod ever, although it was never completed and all that is left of it is Quake Rally: Leftovers . There's plenty of maps and cars and it is billed as a mod for OpenArena so should be totally Free. \o/ Here's a promotional video for Q3Rally that makes it look rather ooo aaah: Dark Phear, a classic Phantasy Star-like RPG, as reported in the Ubuntu forums . Go there ...

Quite a lot to cover, simply because there's a lot of small items that have backed up in my little "FG updates" list which I've been waiting to pool together. Firstly, the "big" news in that UFO:AI 2.2 got released. There's plenty to write home about , tons of new features, and it's an awesome game. I'm not a great fan of some of the micro-management although it's part of the original X-COM games so understandably part of UFO:AI - I would like to see some automation aids (auto-assign ammo etc) - but that aside this is a really, really good game. If it was released as a commercial game it'd be respected, and because it's Free Software it's only going to get better. Here's a video: So, the Apricot project is gaining pace. They have still to decide on what type of game they are making. I hope they make, out of their choices, a platform game. I must say, I really disagree with some of their assertions. If a platform gam...

With many thanks to ghoulsblade and hagish of SFZ fame, there is a new Free Gamer forum . :-) Unfortunately there is no way to transfer to old database over and even if it was possible the majority of useful content was posted during the period of data loss (anything after June 30th). However, lessons learned, this new forum should be more responsive (freeforums.org was slow), have better uptime (freeforums.org was frequently down) and is far more customizable (i.e. expect a FG theme in the near future etc). Parallel Universe There's a new release of Privateer Gemini Gold . Bug fixes and some improved artwork prompted the team to release 1.02a just a month after 1.02 - release early, release often so this is a good thing in my book. I'm not sure if they have addressed the reported high difficulty level of the game though. If you find PGG too difficult, check out Privateer Remake and/or Parallel Universe . Or wait for the new Vega Strike release which is coming in August....

Parallel Universe , a modification of Privateer Remake , has gotten itself a rather smart website and community forums . There's a good bit of work going on over there and the feedback on PU is generally pretty good. Definitely worth a look for space game fans. It is also part of a rather complex development scene based around Privateer & Wing Commander games. I'll get back to that in a bit. A couple of Ubuntu users have posted their first serious effort at a game, Slingshot . It's a fairly simple 2D affair, take it in turns to shoot at each other, your shots being affected by the gravity pulls of planets. I've mentioned Egoboo Resurrection a few times - a continuation of the classic game Egoboo. I've not really mentioned that it's only released for Windows despite the original predominantly being a Linux game. It just comes down to a lack of Linux based contributors. However there's another "branch" called Egoboo 2.x which has binari...

Gamma Low is an interesting new multiplayer RTS project. Players act in teams in some kind of light oriented battle. It is very early in the project and the only worthwhile information seems to be in their roadmap , but it's an intriguing concept nonetheless. Hex-a-pop is an original and well implemented puzzle game with cute graphics. Once you get your head around the basic techniques used to consume common hex patterns, it's pretty easy, but I think it's a good game for spatially challenging a younger audience. And it's open source and available for most operating systems. Open City There's a new Open City screenshot, seen here on the right. How cool is that starting to look, eh? New release soon? Fingers crossed. I mentioned the space sim Stress Free Zone for the first time a few weeks ago, a space combat game which aims to have cooperative multiplayer gameplay (e.g. defending space stations) as well as modular ships among other features. They are m...

The Castle is a rather intriguing looking fantasy FPS where your main weapon is a sword, so combat is generally very short range. Currently this open source game only comes with 3 levels and 5 types of enemy, but is very well documented for prospective contributors. The game engine is a custom one written using Pascal and compiled with FreePascal . The game runs on Linux, BSD, MacOSX, and Windows (LBMW). :-) Whilst originally created for one of the Pascal Game Development (PGD) annual competitions with the current [realistic] scope as the game focus, the author's long term ambitions make for interesting reading: Basically the game is intended to be like FPS but with some nice storyline. This also means that it should feel more like RPG (in more-or-less fantasy setting) — large world, many items, weapons, some character stats and levels etc. Also I want to utilize my engine to make levels more "interactive" — some objects on the level are able to move etc. There are ...

Privateer Gemini Gold 1.02 rc1 - the game bringing the classic commercial title Privateer kicking and screaming into the modern era - is ready and they require testers . They only provide a Windows binary, however the game is based on the cross-platform Vega Strike game engine and previous versions have had Linux and Mac binaries too. PGG is just one of the variants to spring from the original Privateer Remake. Another one, Privateer Universe , seems to be gaining a bit of popularity - it adds to the gameplay whereas PGG strives to remain true to the original. It's a 3D space combat RPG, for the very few that don't already know. Freeciv Tileset updates - Freeciv 2.1 imminent? Hmm, rumour mill, speculation, and sensationalism, all in one. ;-) Er, "A Sauer Mod" The so-titled Unnamed Sauer Mod is looking promising as the developer continues to make progress - now with zombies. In case you didn't read about it previously here on FG (I did mention it, right?...

I don't know how this game isn't more well known, but I only just found out about XEvil . This game is a cross between Commander Keen and Quake and it's very fun, if a little dated. Action packed and chaotic, it's all about extreme violence platform-style. Be warned, this game contains lots of violence and lots of adult language so really is not one for your kids should you have any. I'm keeping an eye out for the next release of Privateer Remake or Privateer Gemini Gold . In the latter they are busy taking the rather garish low-res base and npc graphics and overhauling them , so the next release should be much more pleasing on the eye. When I downloaded PGG, I found the low-res bases too much of a clash with the gorgeous 3D space flight and it put me off considerably. There's also a new release of Battle for Wesnoth around the corner. The amount of people contributing to this game is phenomenal and as such version 1.2 will look absolutely gorgeous. The...

Welcome to a space game special on Free Gamer! No Gravity Vega Strike Oolite Parsec Crimson Space At the heart of open source space game development is Vega Strike , a 3D space trading and combat game. With a dynamic universe and dynamic econmies, there is massive depth to the game. However the current stable version (0.4.3) is aging. While there is an update to the development version , it is not yet stable nor easy to try but does include some great new models and art on top of various gameplay improvements. Feature-wise it rivals commercial counterparts and the next releases should restore Vega Strikes position as one of the showcase open source games. Vega Strike is highly moddable and has spawned some excellent mods. There's something for Babylon 5 , Star Wars , and Star Trek fans, with the latter moving forward nicely. The most well-known mod is Privateer Remake , a modernization of Wing Commander: Privateer - an offshoot of the Wing Commander series . Privateer Remak...