LINUXGAMES

Evil3D.net’sAvatar let us know that they’ve posted areview ofIntroversion’s futuristic hacking simUplink.

I think we neglected to mention earlier that MandrakeSoft is now takingorders for Mandrake Linux Gaming Edition, which uses TransGaming’sWineX fork of Wine, and includesa copy of The Sims.

A few of you have asked in our news followup forums and via email if we knew what happened to The Linux Game Tome, specificially, why their site was unavailable for so long. We’re still not sure what the case is/was, or why they were down for so long, but it appears as though they’re back up. I’ve emailed the guys for more info so I’ll keep you posted if I hear anything.

Version 0.1.13a of the the Scorched Earth clone xscorch has been released; changes since 0.1.11a include:

• new shields
• interface and AI updates
• tunnelling works
• overhauls in accessory handling
• bug fixes

xscorch 0.1.13a source: xscorch-0.1.13a.tar.gz

Version 1.1.8 of the hex-based strategy game XBattleAI has been released; changes since 1.1.4 include:

• new victory detector module
• improvements to the second ai algorithms, campaigns, victory detector, maps with forest and hills
• bug fixes

XBattleAI 1.1.8 source: xbattleai-1.1.8.tgz

Version 1.6.2 of the SDL-based Missile Command clone Penguin Command has been released; changes include:

• fixed a music bug
• increased sound effects volume
• updated man page
• increased music quality to 44khz
• probably fixed the crash-when-dsp-is-in-use-bug
• new SDL_gfxPrimitives version

Penguin Command 1.6.2 source: penguin-command-1.6.2.tar.gz

Digging through an old mail that Sam Lantinga sent to the SDL-announce list, I ran across ScummVM, an implementation of LucasArts’s SCUMM interpreter, used in games such as Monkey Island and Day Of The Tentacle. ScummVM is currently at version alpha-0.0.3, but regardless, it is possible to play some games in their entirety with it.

ScummVM alpha-0.0.3 source: scummvm-alpha-0.0.3.zip

Ralph Schmeisser wrote in to letus know that there are some new (German) game reviews at gamesforlinux.de:

• CodeBreaker
• X-Rally
• X-Bomb
• Emperor
• FreeCiv

Version 0.1.2 of the turn-based strategy game FreeLords has been released; changes include:

• removed libxml and libxml++ from the dependencies
• fixed multiple armysets
• added pictures for the main-buttons
• added Makefile flag for profiling information

FreeLords 0.1.2 source: freelords_0.1.2.tar.gz

NVIDIA has released version 1.0-2314 of theirLinux kernel driver, which fixesinstall issues with version 1.0-2313. This new version is also still compatible with the recent 1.0-2313 GLX driverrelease. Thanks to klone for the heads up.

NVIDIA Kernel Driver 1.0-2314 Download:
http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=linux

Miles from the British game development team PomPom wrote in to announce that their game SpaceTripper is now available, including a Linux port. SpaceTripper (Screenshots: 1 2 | 3) is a shoot-’em-up action game heavily influeced by retro arcade games like Defender, only it uses 3D graphics and other modern twists. A demo of the game is available for free download and the full version lists at $12.

SpaceTripper demo: st_demo.tar.gz
Purchase: www.pompom.org.uk/PurchaseST.htm

LinuxWorld‘s Joe Barr has published a new articleon Q3A: Quake 3Arena takes Linux by Force. At the beginning of the article, Joe admits”Serious gaming is out of character for me” but he goes on to give his “six tips to keep you from getting fragged” which may appeal to Linux users unfamiliar with FPS gaming.

Moritz Moeller-Herrmann wrote in to let us know that version 0.96 of the SDL/OpenGL space shoot’em up game Critical Mass (screenshots) has been released; changes include:

• a leader board
• the scoring is now based on the skill level
• the weapon balance has changed again and it’s now possible to get armor piercing ammo
• the model and level count has increased
• compiles with gcc 3.0

Critical Mass 0.96 source: CriticalMass-0.96.tar.bz2

Daniel Olson wrote in to announce that version 1.1.0 of the Hexen II source project Anvil of Thyrion has been released. Full support of HexenWorld Hexen II, and Hexen II: Portal of Praevus are included in this release.

Anvil of Thyrion 1.1.0 downloads: aot.linuxgames.com/downloads.php

Sierra’s Alex “Marweas” Rodbergposted onthe TribalWar forums to updateTribes 2 players on Sierra’s plans for the sci-fiteamplay-oriented game:

The upper management approved every plan we proposed. (w00t!)

While this is a great step forward, it’s all for naught until we can get a developer signed to do the work. We are in this process right now, which is why I cannot discuss who the developer is, or any specifics of the plan. I have stated before that the first step would be to issue a patch for T2 that addresses UE’s, the recent FPS loss some people experienced, and look at fixing things like the ELF.

Once the developer is signed, I’ll fill you in on more details. – Alex

Also, the venerable Panama Jack has released updated versions ofhis T2 scripts.

Version 1.10 of the Doom engine source port Vavoom has been released; changes include:

• now has a glBSP plugin and a glVIS plugin
• the main task for this version – making Vavoom C scripting language object-oriented
• vcc now haves a built-in preprocessor, which means that you don’t need an external compiler to compile progs
• some extensions to the MAPINFO script and finally implemented a skybox script

Vavoom 1.10 downloads: vavoom-engine.com/download.html

Also, note that the URL for Vavoom has been changed to vavoom-engine.com

Version 0.56.1 of the the Multi Arcade Machine Emulator X11 port Xmame has been released; changes include:

• everything from MAME 0.56.
• the svgafx driver is working again–it was broken by the removal of 8bpp support from the core
• numeric keypad support is now much better
• added arbitrary height scaling, available via the -arbheight option and started sanitizing the blit core
• added support in makefile.unix for the Intel C++ compiler, and also a sample wrapper script in contrib/tools
• added -usbpspad/-pspad switch for support of the direction buttons on the Playstation gamepad
• fixed a bug that prevented romalizer from working
• the xgl target should work much better
• the -hotrod/-hr and -hotrodse/-hrse commands should actually work now
• fixed a bunch of warnings that occurred when linking with GNU binutils using -warn-common
• added DGA2 documentation: src/unix/doc/dga2.txt

Xmame 0.56.1 downloads: http://x.mame.net/download.html

In addition to this new version, the Xmame Website sports a new design thanks to David Heremans.

Kris Kersey, site manager for LinuxHardware.org, wrote in to announce that they have added two new gaming-related features to their site:

• KT266A motherboard reviews: covers the (Athlon-based) SOYO SY-K7V DRAGON Plus! and the EPoX 8KHA+ and includes Quake 3 benchmarks
• New NVIDIA Driver Performance: covers performance of the recently-released NVIDIA 1.0-2313 drivers at various resolutions in both Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament

Version 0.92 of GLMame,an OpenGL display driver forxmame has been released bySven Goethel. Changes:

• clean up: glvec.c again
• added 2 new options for vector games:
  • -[no]glantialiasvec, -[no]glaav , default true !
    Enable/disable vector antialiasing (otherwise 16bpp opengl displays lookskinda bad ..)
  • -[no]gldrawbitmapvec, -[no]glbitmapv, default true
    Enable/Disable the drawing of the bitmap only for vector games – speedup(remember, you can also toggle this via RALT-O)
• added vector flickering ;-)
• because of the buggy dirty-code, i recommend you use -nodirty for opengl as default ..

GLMame 0.92 Patch for xmame 0.56.1:
http://www.jausoft.com/Files/GLMame/xmame-0.56.1-xgl23.diff.bz2

There is a new port of Hexen to SDL, which goes by the name of UHexen. This new version of Hexen has some new features:

• Plays digital music via DSP device using SDL_mixer’s timidity library (requires instrument patches)
• Some new menus added for easier configuration
• Auto video mode detection

The sound module from this game is taken from hhexen and modified to support SDL.

Download: uhexen-latest.tar.gz