Update 20/01/08 : Thanks to Elane, I’ve added 4 more excellent games, making it a nice round number of 25. =)

Update 26/06/07 : I have decided to check out the games that some of my readers suggested. In the end, I found 13 more excellent games and have added all of them to the original 8.

Below are addictive 3d games for linux users to fill their time with. These games are really good and some have won awards or have been featured on magazines. Most of it is cross platform and free. You don’t have to use ‘Wine’ to be able to play as they come with Linux installers.

Battle For Wesnoth



David White who started Wesnoth back in 2003, had a vision of a free open source strategy game that had very simple rules, uses a strong artificial intelligence, challenging and fun. Wesnoth has already passed the 1 million mark for downloads. As of March 2007, the game is available in 35 different languages.

A normal Wesnoth player has

• 200+ unit types
• 16 different races
• 6 major factions

to choose from. Actually, you can even make your own custom units, design your own map, scenarios or even campaigns. It’s all up to your creativity. The most interesting part of any game is the ability to multiplay. You can challenge up to a total of 8 friends in multiplayer fantasy battles.

Nexuiz



Nexuiz is a free, cross platform, first person shooter distributed under GNU General Public License by Alientrap Software. It started back in May 31 2005 with version 1.0 using DarkPlaces, a significanlty modified quake engine. The current version, 2.2.3, was released on January 26, 2007. Nexuiz’s logo is based on the chinese character “力” which means strength.

Several notable features of the game include

• ability to multiplay up to 64 players
• ability to generate bots for practice sessions
• dynamic lighting system similar to Doom 3

America’s Army



America’s Army is a tactical, multiplayer, first-person shooter owned by the United States Government and released as a global public relations initiative to help with U.S. Army recruitment. The first version, Recon, was released on 4th July 2002. The current version 2.8.1 was released on 22nd Mar 2007.

It’s the first well known computer game used for political aims. The game is used as a playable recruiting tool and critics have charged the game serves as a propaganda device. A counter on the homepage of the PC version shows over eight million registered accounts as of 2007. GameSpy tracked the game usage and reported an average of 4,500 players at any one time between 2002 and 2005. It is enough for America’s Army to rank in the Top 10 Online Games chart.

Enemy Territory : Quake Wars



is a first-person shooter follow-up to Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. It also has the same science fiction universe as Quake 4, with a story serving as a prequel to Quake II. Quake Wars is the second multiplayer-only game in the Quake series after Quake III Arena. The gameplay is almost the same as Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, but with the addition of controllable vehicles and aircraft, asymmetric teams, much larger maps and the option of computer-controlled bots. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is being developed by Splash Damage for the PC using a modified version of id Software’s Doom 3 engine and MegaTexture rendering technology.

At E3 2006(Electronic Entertainment Expo), the game won the Game Critics Award for Best Online Multiplayer.

Tremulous



Tremulous is an open source team-based first-person shooter with a game play that is similar to Gloom(a quake 2 mod) and Natural Selection (a Half-Life mod). The game features two teams, humans and aliens, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The game has been downloaded over 200,000 times and was voted “Player’s Choice Standalone Game of the Year” in Mod Database’s “Mod of the Year” 2006 competition.

Tux Racer



Tux Racer is a newbie friendly, open source, 3D computer game starring the Linux mascot, Tux the penguin. Like many open-source games, the replay value of Tux Racer is extended by easy modification of the game. New maps can be created by making three raster images to indicate height, surface, and object placement. The last release of Tux Racer was version 0.61, 29th October 2001.

World Of Padman



WOP is a new and free comic style game that uses the Quake 3 engine. The game was recently featured in 3 German magazine covers; PC Action, ‘BRAVO Screenfun’ and ‘Linux Intern’.

Vendetta



is a first person twitch based MMORPG. New players get an 8 hour trial which is enough to get anyone hooked to it. After that, you gotta pay $5 a month which is quite worthwhile, especially considering the incredibly communicative development of the game. It has a native linux installer as well as one for Macs and Windows.

Alien Arena 2007



Thanks AstralSin for mentioning it.

Alien Arena is a completely free FPS started by COR Entertainment in 2004 comprising of a science fiction ambience and a Quake like gameplay. This game is playable in single player mode against bots, but the action and thrill lies at the online multiplayer mode. Features of the Alien Arena 2007 include an internal server browser for finding other people to play online and an external program that acts as an IRC interface. There are 6 game types and 6 game mutators that changes the gameplay. Cattle Prod is a new game type that requires you to herd robotic cattle to earn points. Alien Arena 2007 is playable in Windows, Linux and FreeBSD.

Urban Terror



Thanks AstralSin for mentioning it.

A mod of Quake III Arena, Urban Terror focuses a lot on realism. Number of weapons and gear that can be carried is limited. Accuracy is reduced when fired while moving and magazines require reloading upon expension. Damage areas are identified throughout the body. Wounds require bandaging and slows down movement significantly if the damage is not bandaged. Even a stamina bar is present to indicate if the player is able to sprint or jump. Released on 1st April 2007, Urban Terror 4 introduced 4 new features namely, ‘powersliding’, new weapons, player models and improved hit detection. It also supports anti cheating tools like PunkBuster, BattleEye and RunDMC.

A Tale In The Desert



Thanks Kristjan Siimson for mentioning it.

Set in Ancient Egypt, ATITD focuses on society rather than combat. Actually, there is no combat system whatsoever. The fun of the game lies in economic development. Most of the players are from the US and Europe and the variety of social activities encourages a lot of interaction. Players are to participate in building, community, research and test themselves through challenges called ‘Tests’. The male to female players ratio is considerably equal compared to other online games and the game is also noted by many to have high levels of civility and generosity. The first 24 hours is free, after that a monthly fee of $13.95 is required to continue playing.

Second Life



Thanks MariusZ for mentioning it.

Second Life is an online virtual world that allows ‘Residents’ to explore, meet each other, socialize, participate in group activities, trade items and services. It’s creators, Linden Lab, intends to create a world like the Metaverse described by Neal Stephenson in his novel, Snow Crash. In this Metaverse, people can interact, have fun and do business. The current currency is Linden Dollar (L$) and is EXCHANGEABLE for US$ in a marketplace consisting of residents, Linden Lab and real life companies. It is hardly considered a game as tt does not have points, scores, winners or losers, levels or an end-strategy. More than 7 million accounts have been registered since its conception. Basic accounts is free but Premium account is US$9.95 if you want to own lands.

Savage 2



Thanks nemesis for mentioning it.

This fantasy / science fiction, real-time strategy, fps, rpg game is a sequel to to S2 Games’ Savage : Battle for Newerth. Both teams of human and beasts are pitted against each other in a gameplay where strategy, agility and alertness is needed. The game is downloadable for free but online access requires a one time account purchase of US$29.99. Activities such as kills, deaths, assists, building razes, damage and score points are tracked. All Savage 2 matches are saved and thus searchable in the form of replays. The automatic replay network is a system that will greatly increase the skill levels of overall player populations and competitiveness.

Warsow



Thanks mroyf, Cholulalulip, João Rodrigues for mentioning it.

Warsow is a free FPS based in Qfusion 3D engine playable on Windows and Linux developed under the motto ‘by gamers for gamers’. Beta testers from the community goes through internal testing sessions and gives feedback on public releases where the main developers will carefully judge suggestions and comments made. Gameplay is focused a lot on agility. Weapons picked up will have weak ammo until a new ammo pack is found. Graphic effects are minimal, clear and visible.

TrueCombat: Elite



Thanks João Rodrigues, Michael for mentioning it.

TC:Elite happens to be a total-conversion modification of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory by Team Terminator and Groove Six Studios. The game is free and playable across all platforms. Notable features include iron sights aiming (no crosshair), multi layer object penetration, letterbox / wide screen view modes, lag compensation, client side bullet prediction and support for PunkBuster, the anti cheat software.

Frozen Bubble



Thanks PhoenixByrd, Ferk for mentioning it.

The latest version 2.0 includes an adjusted launcher speed, new scoring system, 4 lives and online multiplayer mode, but only available to Linux users at the time of writing. Version 1.0 of the game is available across all platforms including Symbian Series 60 line of smartphones and a single player Java applet version. Written in Perl, the free to play Frozen Bubble features 100 levels and a cute penguin (I think it’s supposed to be Tux) who shoots to form bubbles of the same color.

The Open Racing Car Simulator



Thanks to PhoenixByrd for mentioning it.

TORCS is an open source 3D racing simulator using OpenGL technologies. It is runnable on all Linux, FreeBSD, MacOSX and Windows platforms. There are 50 different cars, 20 tracks and 50 opponents to race against. The multiplayer mode can accommodate up to 4 human players. Several of the simulation include damaged models, collisions and aerodynamics like ground effects, spoilers, etc. Development is currently being carried out to enable online racing mode.

FlightGear



Thanks to PhoenixByrd for mentioning it.

Since 1996, FlightGear has been a collaborative project that aims to create a sophisticated open source flight simulator framework. FlightGear uses the SimGear simulation engine. Some of the aircraft models available in FlightGear include gliders, helicopters, airliners, fighter jets, etc. Weather effects such as clouds, lightning effects and time of the day is illustrated.

Frets On Fire



Thanks to PhoenixByrd, Solitary, Hellmark, tuopppi, for mentioning it.

Winner of the Assembly Demo Party 2006, Frets on Fire is a music video game that uses the keyboard to play along with scrolling on-screen musical notes to complete a song. The player has to imagine the keyboard as a guitar and pick it up to play. One hand will be used to press the ‘frets’ (F1 to F5) and another will be used to press the ‘picks’ (Shift or Enter). Colored markers that appears are to be played by pressing ‘frets’ of the correct color and ‘picks’ at the correct moment. There are also song editors and tutorials featured in the game. This game was addictive once I got the hang of it.

Scorched 3d



Thanks james, Pyro for mentioning it.

Scorched 3D is a 100% free turn-based artillery game modeled after the classic DOS game Scorched Earth ‘The Mother Of All Games’. Operatable across all operating systems. What started as a 3D landscape generator has now become a cool 3D game that requires skills to master. Players are supposed to take turns homing in to hit the target by adjusting the angle, rotation, power and a weapon of choice every other turn. Hits and kills will generate income for you to buy better weapons and items. Note that items are as important as weapons.

ManiaDrive



Thanks to Shamar for mentioning it.

ManiaDrive is a free clone of Trackmania, the great game from Nadéo studio, and is an arcade car game on acrobatic tracks, with a quick and nervous gameplay (tracks almost never exceed one minute), and features a network mode, as the original. Lots of crazy driving involved.

Warzone 2100



Thanks Elane

Warzone 2100 is a real-time strategy and real-time tactics hybrid computer game, developed by Pumpkin Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. Outside of the story, Warzone 2100 only has a single faction, limiting some of the variety that can be expected from such games of its kind, although the faction is very complex. Essentially, Warzone 2100 plays much like Earth 2150 with 3D units and terrain, customizable vehicles, a lack of traditional standing infantry, use of “research” to acquire new technologies, and perceptible differentiation of vehicles types.

Spring



Thanks Elane

The game is mainly focused around multiplayer games over the Internet or a LAN connection. There are currently a few single player missions, built on the basic support for this through Lua scripting. There are also many skirmish AIs under development, allowing for offline play or extra players in an online game. Two skirmish AIs ship in the game package, as well as three maps and the XTA mod.

Battle Tanks



Thanks Elane

“Battle Tanks” is a multiplayer game in the first place. Network game and split screen mode are available, and also a mixed mode is possible, when two players use split screen on the server computer, and others connect via LAN. Two possible modes are deathmatch battle and cooperative game. Hardware requirement is minimum and the game is cross platform.

Excalibur: Morgana’s Revenge v3.0



Thanks Elane

EMR 3.0 is a unique scenario based upon the Aleph One (Marathon) engine. It is a first-person action adventure game, featuring an epic and in-depth story line. It brings more exciting new maps, new high resolution textures and landscapes, a completely new set of weapons, new monsters and friends, new scenery, new 16-bit sounds, original music, and a carefully woven original story line that transcends time.

Know that spyware has overtaken viruses as the largest online threat, infecting 90% of internet connected PCs. It’s important to be aware of the risks that spyware poses. Spyware can be classifies into 3 different groups.

Severe Threat – Spywares from this group is the most dangerous of all. They log user keystrokes, which means everything that the person types is gathered. Imagine yourself typing ‘paypal.com’. Surely the next thing that is logged would be the username and password. Imagine the pain for losing all the money in paypal. 15 out of 100 computers infected belong here.

Moderate Threat – Installed programs, internal IP address, OS version, the existence and versions of service packs and security updates and TCP ports the spyware is listening to are some of the data sent across. Though it is less risky that the severe threat group, it’s still bad. It’s like having spycams around the house. 25 out of 100 computers infected are in this group.

Minor Threat – commercial-value information about the end user’s browsing habits are collected. This is like a supermarket installing a spycam in your kitchen, to know what you have and don’t have, so that they can knock on your door and present you with the right stuff that you are missing, with the likelihood of you buying it. 60 out of 100 infected computers lie in this group.

Spywares not only steal personal information, they also :

• consumes resources on your PC which disrupts workflow.
• causes PC crashes
• interferes with the web browser, slowing it down and causing downloads to fail. It can even hijack the browser to redirect you to sites containing unwanted contents.
• annoy you with annoying popup ads that fit your preferences from the information gathered.
• costs you money if your internet service provider charge you by the hour.

Here are 15 commonly used programs distributed with spyware. Seriously, be very careful.

1. Bonzi Buddy
2. Dope Wars
3. ErrorGuard
4. Grokster
5. Kazaa
6. Morpheus
7. RadLight
8. WeatherBug
9. EDonkey2000
10. Sony’s Extended Copy Protection involved the installation of spyware from audio compact discs through autorun. This practice sparked considerable controversy when it was discovered.
11. WildTangent
12. AOL Instant Messenger - it is still bundled with Viewpoint Media Player and WildTangent
13. DivX - prior to version 5.2
14. LimeWire - prior to version 3.9.3
15. FlashGet - before being converted to freeware

Do you know that spyware removal tools won’t remove spywares that are bundled with non-spyware programs? The reason is because there is a clause in the terms and conditions which prevents them from being removed, unless the non-spyware program is removed together with it. I believe 99% of us don’t read the t&c. I don’t. I’ll just keep clicking next until the installation is finished.

Ad-aware and Spybot are the 2 most reliable FREE anti spyware that I have tried so far. They have been doing their job well. I’d recommend those 2, if you haven’t got any.

Computer Security Software Reviews
Are you infected with spyware?

Do you get sore and tired hands from using the mouse so often? Well, mine does. 6 to 8 hours of writing articles for my 3 blogs is more than enough to sore an arm joint. It was worse when I was working for my previous company, handling the redesigning of the entire web portal by myself. There was a lot of pointing, dragging and dropping activities with the mouse.

It’s actually important to take preventions before carpal tunnel syndrome hits. I would love to switch to another OS that has lower mouse needs, but because I’m a hardcore gamer and several hardware pieces of mine are unsupported, I have to stick to Windows for the time being. Anyways, below are 2 common methods that you and I can take to run programs faster and minimize mouse use.

Use Windows Shortcut

This is the best shortcut method for anyone who is using Windows. We can bind ‘ctrl’ + ‘alt’ + 34 other keyboard keys to programs that are used often. However, it has to be in the Start Menu. Here’s an example on how to bind shortcut keys to Windows Calculator.

Mouse over to :
Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > Calculator > ‘right click’ > ‘Properties’.






Click on the ‘Shortcut’ tab and look for the ‘Shortcut key:’ field. In this example, I hit down the ‘ctrl’ + ‘alt’ + ‘L’ keys together and press ‘OK’.



You’re done! Pressing the ‘ctrl’ + ‘alt’ + ‘L’ keys will now bring out the calculator. Avoid the hassle of having to point here and there to get to the program that you want.

Seriously. I have bound shortcut keys for several common files and folders such as ‘bittorrent’ folder (yeah, you can also bind folders but a folder shortcut needs to be placed in the start menu), Firefox, Winamp, Filezilla, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ‘Programs Uninstaller’ and a few others. The time taken to set up short cuts is well worth it.

Use Launchy

Thanks to Josh who has started developing Launchy since 5th of March 2005. It’s small in size and free. It takes up a mere 7MB of memory to run. Users can easily hide / unhide the text box by pressing ‘alt’ + ’space bar’. Below are 3 common commands of Launchy that I find useful.

• Run Desktop Applications



Type in application name and get a list of files that match.

• Search Google



Type ‘google’ > press tab > type search query > hit Enter

• Check the Weather



Type ‘weather’ > press tab > type city / state > hit Enter

Launchy
Open source keystroke launcher