Software:

We can divide the games themselves into two categories, mainstream (i.e Windows) games and games developed for the Linux platform. The mainstream games are obviously the headline grabbing games. Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Farcry, Rome- Total War, and the like are the Hollywood blockbusters of the gaming world. Everyone has heard of them, even if they have no intention of playing them. On the other hand, you have games that are developed for Linux, which are not so well known, but are eminently playable nevertheless.

There are two ways of looking at the state of Linux gaming. One-way is to see if the blockbusters run at all on Linux, and if so, how well. Another approach is to see how good the native Linux games are themselves.

There are a small number of major developers who offer native ports of their games. Id is one of the biggest houses and they have native ports of all their games including Doom 3. Unreal Tournament 2004, Neverwinter Nights, Serious Sam, Medal of Honor and America's Army:Operations are also available natively for Linux. But if you want to play a pure DirectX based game on Linux you can only hope it runs on Cedega. Cedega is a product from Transgaming Corp. that allows you to play many A-list games on Linux with minimum effort. They are doing a great job of letting Linux gamers in on the fun. According to their website, the latest version of Cedega allows you to play Farcry, Sid Meier's Pirates!, Half Life 2 and GTA Vice City. These are all games that are hot right now, or at least the lag time between the latest and greatest and the games supported on Linux is not so bad.

Cedega is a commercial product that costs US $15.00 for a three-month subscription. This may seem too much to some, but others may find it worthwhile. Their software is not without its flaws, but it does work well with some games, and it does let you play some of the newest games on Linux. The trick is to look up their database of supported games to see if the games you want to play work properly before you put up your $15.00.

Why don't more developers make native Linux games? Well, it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Developers don't want to port unless they are convinced that there is a substantial market for Linux games, and that market will not come into being unless there are more games being released for Linux.

However, there is a change in the developers’ attitude these days. Many developers are recognizing that there is a market out there for Linux versions of their games. Also, porting a game to Mac OSX is somewhat similar to a Linux port, and the Mac gaming market is also beginning to grow. For all you know, if the Mac Mini is a huge success, it will spur more developers to develop for Linux and the Mac. Of course, this may well be mere wishful thinking on our part.

Another problem is that DirectX is, of course, Windows only. OpenGL, however, is cross platform and that is why games based on OpenGL are much easier to port. Unfortunately, DirectX is becoming more and more popular with developers, and porting such a game is very difficult. Transgaming does allow you to play DirectX games, but with varying degrees of success. And a native port will always win out over an emulator.

In the second category of games, those developed from the ground up for Linux, the scenario is improving a lot. There are many games out there which are made for Linux. Some of the commercial games are Ballistics, Postal 2: Share the Pain, Software Tycoon, all available Linux Game Publishing. Others like A Tale in the Desert, Soulride, and many more are also out there.

Besides the commercial games, there are many free games available. Some are very good, like the classic Frozen Bubble, and the interesting Armagetron. There are flight and car simulations also made natively for the Linux platform.

Some of these, notably Flight Gear, are as good or better than their commercial counterparts. Getting them to work is also getting easier and easier. A quick look at OpenGL shows the number of games available for Linux. Sure, some of them are a little (a lot?) rough around the edges, but still, there are some gems hidden away.

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