As I promised earlier, it’s time for my first “Linux game review”. The game I choose to play is OpenArena, a free and open source fps game, similar to Quake 3.  The reason I choose this game is because it’s extremely fast paced, and from the moment I joined a server, I had to dodge a rocket that was coming straight at me. Now, let’s split this review into several chapters, including Graphics, Gameplay, Sound and Impressions.

Graphics: OpenArena seems to use OpenGL for graphics, making the game available on several platforms including Mac, Win and Linux. Also it’s playable even on old computers,  so you may not find the graphics as realistic or appealing as any other modern game graphics, but it’s ‘almost’ pixelated textures give you a special kind of retro feeling. When you are in the middle of a fight, and you have 3 rocket launchers and 2 plasma guns pointed at you the last thing you think about is how “rough” those edges are.

Gameplay: What do you think about the screen above? I missed the damn chicken! Chased him all around the map, but he managed to turn the tables on me. As I said in the beginning of the article, OpenArena is an extremely fast paced game. Don’t even think of lifting your hand of the mouse, if you don’t want a chicken to “hump” you. Controls are standard, W A S D and mouse + space to jump, but you can change them to you lickings. You can also change your player model from the option menu, by clicking on one of the portraits there. OpenArena can be played locally or online. Several game modes are also available, including Death Match, Team Death Match, Capture the Flag and Free For All. My personal favorite is Capture the flag! I feel great when I rush with my team straight into the enemy base and expect to get out alive, and even grater when I notice that 3 team mates of mine where blown to pieces and I was still alive… Still alive? That was a triumph, I’m making a note here.. Agh a review. Sorry, got carried off.

Sound: Not much I can say here, since the game almost went ballistic. Sounds where all screwed up, and I could barely distinguish what the voice on the background said. But I’m sure this is because of my crappy, old sound card.

Impressions: The thing that I love the most about this game is that I can camp the hell out of people, and most of them won’t complain about it. The bad part is that there aren’t to many people left to complain. One year ago the server list was over saturated, while today, I could barely find a server with a decent amount of players. Hopefully some new content will be added to attract the old players back to it.

Gameplay footage:


You can download the game by clicking on one of the links here. Click here to view the server list.