Click Carefully

It's been a while since I've encountered a good point and click adventure game, so when I saw on The Tome that pre-orders were being solicited for a Linux version of Jack Keane, I immediately downloaded the Windows version of the demo. I'm definitely placing a preorder for this one.

At this point, I could probably describe the game mechanics, but is it really necessary? An adventure game is an adventure game. Pointing, clicking, weird puzzles, you know the drill. Basically, if you've ever played a Monkey Island game (or any of those other Lucas Arts adventure games) you pretty much know what to expect here.

Jack Keane is definitely a charmer of a game. I can't really describe it beyond that. I'm not sure if it's the environments, the characters, the humor, or if it's all those combined (that's probably the case), but there's just something about the game that makes me smile while I play it.

Of course, this type of game isn't for everyone. The pacing and the style are probably not going to appeal to twitch gamers raised on nothing but shooters. But games like Jack Keane are few and far between nowadays, and it would be great to have this particular example ported to Linux.

They need 200 preorders to make this happen, so if you want the game to come to our favorite system, now is the time to act.

This Post Was Not Created Using Only One Button

I usually don't go for arcade type games, but browsing through the Tome, I came across one that looked too interesting to ignore. Fishie Fishie is an arcade game with a novel concept: you control it using only one button. Initially I was thinking to myself, "How fun can it actually be if you're only hitting one button?" It turns out the answer is "pretty damn fun."

You hold the space bar to turn left, and let go of it to turn right. That's it. Tapping the key at the right speed results in mostly-straight travel. The goal is to eat up smaller schools of fish while avoiding larger ones - if you don't do it fast enough you starve. The game is intensely simple, but it turns out to be much more than the sum of its parts.

The presentation definitely helps: the wonderfully drawn sprites, quirky music, and goofy sound effects all come together to give Fishie Fishie a lighthearted atmosphere and a definite charm. It's one of those games where kids would probably love it, but there's plenty of room for adults to enjoy it as well.

The only flaw isn't really a flaw at all, it just comes from being the type of game it is: games like this, for me at least, tend to get old fast. It's pure, undiluted fun, and a lot like pure sugar, I can't take too much of it at once. That goes for the entire genre for me though, so it's no fault against the game.

Being around a 3 meg download, it's definitely worth checking out for a quick burst of fun, whether you're a fan of the genre (arcade games, not fish-gobbling games) or not.

Linux Free MMO Roundup, Addendum: Auteria

It's easy to say that I just plain forgot about Auteria during the course of the roundup, but I have the feeling that subconsciously I might have been excluding it on purpose. Mentioning Dark Horizons Lore: Invasion a few weeks back got me to thinking "What was that other Torque engine based game I came across recently?" I remembered, then promptly wished I hadn't.

Auteria just feels so damn... weird. The control setup takes some getting used to: half the time the mouse is directly locked to the camera, almost like an FPS, until you hit a toggle key which puts the mouse into cursor mode, like most MMORPGs. This setup isn't particularly bad, it just takes a lot of getting used to. On the plus side, it does help with autorun, and believe me, you're going to be using autorun a lot.

When you start up Auteria, the tutorial sequence has you running around the town (which consists of three identical looking huts, nothing more) trying to find a specific building, which takes about one minute if you go to two wrong buildings before finding the correct one. You then repeat this, although the process of elimination ensures that it's shorter each time. At this point you may think to yourself "well, at least that's done with." If only it was.

You'll find yourself basically repeating the " go to this place/person, then return to me" task over and over - the only thing that changes is the distance you travel gets longer and longer. Each time you might think "this has to be the last one", and each time you'll probably be wrong.

Now I've got another problem with Auteria, but this one is probably much more exclusive to me: everyone is so damn outgoing. I couldn't go three feet without someone saying hello to me, or speaking a line of a language I don't understand with a question mark at the end, presumably asking me if I spoke their language.

Now, I understand, most people will probably like the friendly playerbase, but part of the appeal of an MMO to me is the ability to disappear in a vast ocean of similar looking characters, and the relative anonymity therein. I want people to know who I am when I want them to know who I am, and not a minute beforehand. With Auteria's currently super-small community, that's just not possible.

I can't say I recommend it, but if you think you can tolerate a molasses-slow start, it may be worth a look. Just bring a book to the computer so you can have something to do during all the autorunning.

First Apology Of The New Season

Sorry about last week's no-post, but I'm afraid it's going to be the same this week. I've started a new job and I'm still trying to figure out how to make time for A.Y.E, so please bear with me for a bit. We now return to your regularly scheduled lack of posts.

Penalty: Overuse Of Colons

I remember being intrigued by Dark Horizons: Lore, when it first came out. I also remember being somewhat intimidated. An mech-based FPS taking place in a sort of persistent world seemed like a good idea, but not being able to try out the gameplay mechanics against bots didn't. Long story short: I didn't buy the game. Now, the game has been renamed Dark Horizons: Lore: Invasion and made free-to-play. Plus, what do you know - now it has bots. These two things combined were enough for me to give it another look.

The first thing I noticed is that the Torque engine doesn't seem to have aged well since my days playing Legends. I mean, it still looks alright - it definitely doesn't look bad, but I can't believe I used to be so impressed by it. Anyway, most folks (like me) will happily play a slightly dated looking game if everything clicks in the gameplay department, so that leads us to the question: does it? Yeah, it does.

Dark Horizons uses a class system, like many other games out there, but it also allows some stats to be customized before you take your MAV (that's your mech-like thing) into the game. You can prioritize speed or armor, or go for a middle ground between the two if you like. Once you've adjusted your MAV to your liking, it's off into the game world.

I really like the way movement is implemented in Dark Horizons. Your mech feels as if you're kind of fighting it for control - you don't stop immediately after letting go instead of a movement key, instead your MAV slows to a stop - but it never feels like you're out of control altogether. They've gone a long way towards making you feel as if you're controlling a giant walking machine without overcomplicating the controls.

If there's one problem with Dark Horizons, it's that there just aren't enough people playing it. I'll be honest: small communities bother me - I'm afraid that people will actually get to know me. I much prefer the relative anonymity of a large community. If this isn't a problem for you, I'm sure you'll find much to enjoy with DH:L:I.

Linux Free MMO Roundup Week Five: Regnum Online

The last week of the round-up is one I've been fearing since the start of the whole process. I knew I'd have to mention Regnum Online, and really didn't want to have to play it again to do so. So, what the hell - I didn't. I know this is a cop-out, but I'm just going to direct you to the previous entry regarding Regnum, and leave it at that.

OK, that's not entirely true. I downloaded Regnum again a few weeks ago, shortly after the start of the roundup. I I figured, naively, that the game might have improved somewhat in the months since I'd last tried it. It hadn't, so I uninstalled it within minutes.

That I can only stand to play the game for minutes at a time (this is, of course, not taking into account the many initial minutes of loading) really says something about Regnum's lack of, well, any redeeming qualities. I'm seeing myself type these words and feel as if I'm being harsh, but in my heart I know that it would only take a few minutes of playing Regnum again before I start to wonder why I'm being so easy on the game.

If you absolutely must play a free-to-play MMO on Linux and for some reason can't play any of the others previously mentioned in the roundup, well, even then I have a hard time recommending Regnum. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Linux Free MMO Roundup Week Four: Eternal Lands

Anyone who's been reading Avert Your Eyes through it's entire run should be no stranger to this week's game. Eternal Lands has been the subject of a good number of posts, and has the honor of being the first MMO I ever really enjoyed. EL has just recently had a sound-related update, so I figured it was an appropriate time to mention it in the roundup.

I'll be honest, I can't really tell what's different in this update. Except for sound, which I never bothered to use before, I can't detect any major changes. I will say that trying to enable music made the game extremely buggy feeling - the inventory window wouldn't open, trying to get the options window open to turn off music took a few tries - and it stayed buggy after turning music off. A client restart fixed this.

I was able to turn the sound effects on with no problem. After watching my character go silently through all his actions for so long it's very strange to hear footsteps and other sounds. When you attack a creature, there is now strong audio evidence that these creatures aren't, in fact, very fond of being attacked. Who knew?

Eternal Lands is not for everyone. It takes a while to get used to the slow pace - combat is slow compared with other modern MMOs, your character walks everywhere. Of course, when I first played Eternal Lands I didn't notice these things because I didn't have enough experience with other MMOs to know the genre's conventions.

After spending a great deal of time with other MMOs, coming back to Eternal Lands felt awkward at first, but that feeling didn't last very long. I actually find the slower pace relaxing compared to a lot of the other free-to-play MMOs out there. I've got to say, there's still a certain charm there that keeps me playing, if only sporadically, after all these years.

Eternal Lands is only a 43 meg download, so if you've got broadband it's quick enough to try it out. The sound package is seperate, and another 40 meg download. If you enjoy the game I recommend it, but it's far from necessary.

Linux Free MMO Roundup Week Three: Planeshift

In honor of this being the third week of the roundup, we're taking a turn towards the third dimension. This week's game, Planeshift, is fully 3D, and open source to boot.

I first looked at Planeshift quite a while back, and while I was impressed with the ambition of the project, there just wasn't enough actual game there to keep me interested. It's been long enough since I promised myself I'd take another look, so that's just what I did. Let me say: Planeshift has come a long way from the stuttering crash-fest it was when I first encountered it.

After loading up Planeshift and going through the obligatory character creation stage, I was greeted with a lengthy tutorial. Some of Planeshift's gameplay elements differ from a lot of it's genre brethren, so the tutorial was quite welcome. While I worked through the tutorial, one of the first things I noticed was that Planeshift was running at quite a respectable framerate, something it didn't do in the past.

Now, Stendhal got a lot of heat from me last week for the way it handled NPCs, yes? Yes. Planeshift uses a similar method, but it's implemented in a far superior fashion. Like Stendhal, you talk to NPCs by, well, actually talking to them. Unlike Stendhal, this happens in a seperate chat tab, and it's entirely private. This turns out to be a good thing, because you're going to be talking with them a lot, and you're not always going to be saying nice things.

Quests are obtained easily enough by telling an NPC "give me a quest." Anything besides this simple exchange turns into a frustrating exercise in trial and error. Early after leaving the tutorial area, I encountered a quest in which a woman wanted me to deliver a drink to a nearby NPC named Aleena. I was told that there was some coin in it for me if I returned and told her how the Aleena liked the drink. I tried every variation of "Aleena liked the drink" I could think of, and was invariably met with "I'm just a bartender, I don't understand what you're saying."

Looking past that, the game is enjoyable. Combat is of the typical MMO "click and wait" variety, so if that's not your cup of tea, you'll probably want to look elsewhere. There is a large variety of other tings to do, some implemented, some yet-to-be-implemented, but this is definitely more than a simple grindfest.

Your milage may vary, but overall I'd like to say kudos to the Planeshift team on how far the game has come. I'll be keeping up with it with far more regularity than I have in the past.

Linux Free MMO Roundup Week Two: Stendhal

Continuing onward with the theme established last week, this week's game is another open source 2D MMO that draws inspiration from the console RPGs of yesteryear. I present to you: Stendhal.

I'll say it right off the bat: I can't get into this one at all. Everything about it just plain feels awkward. You talk to NPCs by, well, actually talking. For example, you type "Hi" and they say a bunch in return. Do you want me to continue talking? Yes?

"Yes."

This can get annoying pretty fast can't it? Yes?

"Yes."

I'm sorry, but something about that just feels wrong. It's just as monotonous as clicking a button labeled "more", but now you have to type three letters to achieve the same effect. And that's not all: most of Stendhal has this feeling. Is it a novel approach? Sure, but it also leads to less-than-fun gameplay.

Instead of the tried and true MMO combat, i.e. you click on the enemy then watch the combat play out until one of you dies, Stendhal makes you right click, then select "attack". Can't that just be the default? I mean, what else am I going to do? Pet them? Offer them food? Invite them for a night out on the town filled with drinking and dancing? No. I'm going to attack them. That's why they're there.

So now you've finally downed an enemy. How do you pick up any loot it might have dropped? Well it's certainly not done by simply clicking on the corpse. No, instead you have to right click on the corpse and select "look". Again, what else was I going to do?

Everything about Stendhal feels like this: drawn out for no particular reason. Hell that may appeal to you, and if you think it might, it's only a 16mb download for the client without sound. Give it a try. Me, I'll stay far, far away. Yes?

"Yes."

Linux Free MMO Roundup Week One: The Mana World

It's literally been years since I've done a roundup of any kind, and a lot has happened in said years. As you might have guessed from the title, the next handful of weeks are going to focus on free (mostly as in beer, but some, such as today's, are also free as in speech) games of the massively multiplayer variety, all of which are available for our favorite operating system. The round-up kicks off with The Mana World.

If you've ever found yourself thinking "I sure wish there was a free to play MMORPG that looked like the SNES RPGs of years past" (and honestly, who hasn't), then boy have I got a game for you. If you don't believe me, take a look at a screenshot or two, I'll wait. See? By the way, that's about as populated as the gameworld has been every time I've logged in.

So, yeah, The Mana World looks nice, if you're into the whole old-school look (which I am). The problem is, there isn't yet a whole lot there under the surface. No character classes (are though there are plenty of customizable stats), no real skill system, and fairly uninteresting combat mean you're probably going to tire of this one easily, unless you're a sucker for grindfests.

The Mana World does have one feature I love: a casino. That's right. Sick of grinding mob after mob for loot to sell? Trade in some of your hard earned gold for casino coins and try your luck. It's not much, but it's a feature I love and one that gives me hope that The Mana World will eventually turn into something great. Seriously, I love me some minigames, so much so that I'll grind for days if I find out there are more minigames available at higher levels.

I'll definitely keep an eye on this one. Even though there isn't a lot to do now, it's got promise. Plus, hey, it's open source. You can't go wrong there. Kudos to The Mana World team, keep it up.

Level 5

So last week marked the fourth full year of Avert Your Eyes. Honestly, it doesn't seem to me like I've been doing this for that long. Usually when this time of the year rolls around, I do a sort of recap post, touching on various posts from the previous year, but this year I'm going to do something a little different. Instead of looking back, I'm looking forward.

First person shooters. We've had enough of them. Sauerbraten rules (hell, Cube still rules), so does Warsow, so does OpenArena. Nexuiz, you still suck. My point is this: there are plenty of good open source FPS games out there. If you're starting a game project this year, please, do something else.

The same goes for roguelikes (hey, I guess I am looking back). Not only are there more than enough roguelikes, there are more than enough roguelikes for several civilizations spanning several planets. We also don't need any more ports of old DOS games (DOSBox exists for a reason), barely functional MMOs, solitaire games, or ASCII versions of tic-tac-toe (yes, multiple versions exist).

Here's a thought: why not try something new? Can't think of something totally new, why not mash two ideas together and see what you get? How about a sort of mix between Risk and Final Fantasy Tactics? What about Civilization type game where you can also control single characters in an RPG fashion? Crazy ideas? Maybe, but they've also never been done before (and if they have I'd love to know so I can track them down and play them).

My point is that it took me about a minute of thinking to come up with the above two ideas. Would they be tough to implement? Sure, but they'd also probably attract quite a few people interested in working on such a unique project. They'd also probably be more rewarding when they became playable, at least more so than generic FPS #24003.

At this point, you're probably asking: well, if you're going to bitch so much, why don't you just do it yourself?

Hell, I might.

We've Got More Coming

Hey folks, it's the four year anniversary of Avert Your Eyes, and usually I use this opportunity to do a retrospective of the last year. I'm still planning on doing that, but at the moment it actually hurts to sit at my desk, so unless I miraculously start feeling better later on today, I'm going to have to put this off until next week. See you then.

So The Battles Cost Nothing? Or Are There No Battles At All?

I meant to do this last week, but I was a little busy on the Thursday of last week, so here it is this week. Fuck, that's a week heavy sentence. Anyway, this week's game is another entry into the free-to-play FPS field: Battle Free.

Saying an FPS is battle-free comes off sounding a tad boring. Bad joke, I know. I just had to put that out there. On to business.

Battle Free has been catching an awful amount of flak over at Happy Penguin, and I'm really not sure why. OK, that's not entirely true: the guy who created it responds to several posts acknowledging that he created the game, then in a new post writes "Great game, cant wait to see the next release!" C'mon man, that's just adding fuel to the fire.

That aside, most of the hate thrown at the game is unjustified. So it's not open source. Neither are most of the games listed on the Tome. Go fucking play NetHack and get over yourself. Some people said it's not playable on Linux - not true - that's the platform I tested it on. It uses the Torque engine... so what?

Now onto the game itself. Well, there's not a whole lot there. Four maps, none of the particularly thrilling. Ditto for the weapons, they just don't feel right. Mix those two together and you've got a recipe for... well, I don't know what the hell that's a recipe for but it's definitely not for me.

The guy says he's mainly developing Battle Free to teach his son about game programming. Hey, that's cool, and I'm certainly not going to jump on the bandwagon of relentlessly bashing the guy simply for making a free game available to the public. On the other hand, in it's current state, the game doesn't have much to offer, and I can't really say I recommend it.

Of Course The Name Doesn't Make Any Sense

Well, in the spirit of never doing what I said I was going to do, this week's post has absolutely nothing to do with Secret of the Solstice. Instead, I took a look at another free to play MMO called Dream Of Mirror Online, or DOMO for short.

After trying out so many different MMOs lately, DOMO is a nice change of pace. Sure, you grind your mobs, loot them, sell things, get better equipment, level up, etc... but DOMO has got more than a few things you don't see every day, and a whole lot of quirk to go along with them.

First: instead of restricting you to one class or job, DOMO lets you change jobs and level said jobs' skills in order to mix and match abilities for your character. Of course, it's not as easy as it sounds, but these things never are, are they? Since in essence this job system requires you to re-level your character, DOMO bucks another recent MMO trend and lowers the level cap to 50 (at least for now). That might sound low, but you don't level quite as fast as you might in recent MMOs boasting a level cap of 200 or so.

Item gathering and crafting, two elements virtually non-existent in the free-to-play MMO world, play a part in DOMO as well. There's a wide range of "everyday skills", as they're called, from fishing to logging to alchemy. Sure, most of them involve moving to a specific location (fishing area, logging area), opening a window, then sitting back as your character slowly gathers whatever it is your gathering, but it's still always nice to have more to do than run around killing mobs.

The thing is, there are people only want to do just that, run around killing mobs. And it's this that powers the economy of DOMO. If they don't want to spend hours gathering wood, they can run to a player shop (or stall, as DOMO calls them) and buy it instead. As players become aware of this as a money making tactic, I suspect it's effectiveness will drop, but luckily you can still make enough money in DOMO using the old MMO standby of selling everything you loot.

One last element of DOMO that seems so out of place in a free to play MMO is the plot, ie. it has one beyond a couple of paragraphs on the website. Quite frequently you'll actually encounter cutscenes while playing, and even embark on story-related quests. Sure the cutscenes themselves are basically a three dimensional version of the type of thing you might see in an SNES RPG, and the story missions aren't that different from your basic quests, but it still takes away from the monotony of your typical MMO.

As with Secret of the Solstice, if you're going to be turned off by DOMO, there's a large chance that it'll be due to the anime-inspired, extremely "cute" look of the game. You start off killing things that would make a toddler squeak in delight, and honestly the only not-so-cute enemies I've seen so far are some very nonthreatening zombies. If you can get past the look though, there's more depth to the gameplay side of DOMO than most of its free-to-play brethren.

What Measurment System Is "Freaking Heavy" A Part Of?

First things first: last week's no-post was due to it being sort of a holiday (at least it was close enough for me to figure a no-post was justified). Anyway, let's get back on track. This week I decided to take a look at Secret of the Solstice, a free-to-play MMORPG currently in the open beta phase.

The look of the game is basically top-down 2.5D, with 3D backgrounds and sprites for characters, enemies etc... The anime influenced art style is nice, nothing we've never seen before, but it's definitely got a charm factor. Actually, I've found myself admiring it's look more than some full 3D MMO's I've tried.

Like quite a few similar games, every starts out the same class type. After levelling to 16 (why 16?) there's a little quest to complete and then you can pick your "guild", which is your job/class/whatever you want to call it. The game seems to assume you've looked around the forums a bit, because the class names (squire, apprentice, neophyte, acolyte) aren't as descriptive as they could be.

Gameplay wise, it's your typical MMO (ie. it's going to be a real grindfest at later levels). It's nice to see that every once in a while, you'll run into an odd quest or two that tries to mix things up a little bit. For example, my level 16 neophyte just completed a quest that consisted of carrying a "freaking heavy letter" (yes, that's what it's called) across the city, only to find that another letter which was "also freaking heavy" needed to be returned to the starter of the quest. Sure, it was a little on the boring side, but the reward wasn't bad and it adds a nice quirk factor to the game.

It's likely that whether or not the game will appeal to you will depend mostly on whether or not you're into MMOs that aren't full 3D, as well as the general look of the game. Me? I'm going to keep playing some more, as there's something about it I like that I haven't yet been able to put my finger on. If I find out what that certain something is, I might tell you next week.

Well, Forget It Then

Well, I was going to try out Hero Of Allacrost today, but I couldn't get the damn thing to run. See, I used the Windows binary, and it just wouldn't work. I know, I know. This site mainly focuses on the Linux side of things, and Hero Of Allacrost runs on Linux, so why didn't I try it on Linux?

Two reasons. One, I'm sick of compiling things. Two, I'm sick of going through the process of adding repositories to my sources.list (I use Ubuntu). Just provide a damn compiled binary in the source download. It may work, it may not, but at least it's there, at least I know you tried.

Now the rest of this rant has nothing to do with Hero Of Allacrost. You're off the hook (except for the Windows binary not working thing, that's a pain in the ass). But shouldn't this be easier? I mean it's not 1998 anymore, more and more users are coming to Linux, and thanks to Ubuntu and other distros with similar goals, they aren't used to having to compile anything. And even though it's slightly easier, they aren't used to adding repositories to their package managers either.

I know how to compile things, and have been doing so for quite a while, but I'm sick of it. I just don't want to have to do it just to use a new piece of software. In this day and age it's not right to give every other system a simple downloadable binary package, and just provide the source for Linux users.

Hell, you've already made a .deb file to stick in your repository, why not just offer the damned thing for download? If the answer has anything to do with additional libraries only available from your repository, then you're doing something seriously wrong. It's a game, package the whole thing together.

C'mon folks. This isn't rocket science. If it was, various pieces of the rocket would be scattered all over the world, with directions where to find the other pieces in an entirely different location altogether.

So Long

So it turns out two things I love are going away forever, and both in the same month. First I hear that the Monster Hunter servers are shutting down at the end of the month. Then I hear the same thing is happening to Space Cowboy Online.

I realize that neither of these games have ever been as popular as a lot of games out there, but this is an end of a somewhat golden age of gaming for me. Both Monster Hunter and Space Cowboy Online have been invaluable forms of entertainment for me for the past few years, games I never tired of no matter how many times I'd go back to them.

Strangely enough (or not, really, if you've been reading AYE long enough), it's Monster Hunter that's got me down the most, even though I'll still have the offline component available, while SCO is just plain going away. I've literally had dreams about Monster Hunter before. Yeah, I know, that's weird.

I feel even worse for the poor souls who've just recently bought Monster Hunter. I've met a few people online over the past week or so who had only just purchased the game and were blissfully unaware of the impending server doom. Makes me glad I bought the game the day it came out, but I sure do feel for those folks.

Well, there's really nothing to do now. All the online petitions, letter/email campaigns in the world aren't going to get either game back online. So, all that's left to do is to enjoy the hell out of them while they're still around to enjoy.

Visiting An Old Friend

Anyone wondering about last week's no post, will be glad to know that it was due to an injury (well, you'll be glad to know if you're sadistic). The week before that was postless as well, but it was Thanksgiving's fault.

This week I decided to continue with the free FPS theme and take another look at Warsow, a game I've played and enjoyed in the past. While it's only moved up to version 0.32 since the last time I looked at it, it's definitely continued to improve on what was already a solid base.

Mainly, there's more of everything. Especially maps. Last time I played Warsow, I think there were four or five maps, and maybe two gametypes. My memory could be fuzzy, but I don't remember much more than that. This update is the equivalent of taking one of those little (but tasty) hor d'oeuvre sandwiches and turning it into an actual sized sandwich. Same great flavor, and lots more of it.

I'm glad to see more people online. Warsow has got a lot of gameplay niceties to back up its stylish presentation, and it's nice to see some people agree. Still, momentum seems to be gathering more slowly than I'd like, so if you enjoy the game make sure to tell your friends.

In my opinion, Warsow is simply one of the best free Quake based shooters out there.

Urban? Yes. Terror? No.

Continuing the theme of Quake 3 mods gone standalone, this week I decided to take a look at Urban Terror.

First things first, Urban Terror is my kind of game, so I'm much more predisposed to liking it than I was with Tremulous. For me, in the shooter world it just doesn't get much better than a good tactical shooter, although the Urban Terror team calls it a "hollywood tactical shooter", and rightfully so.

Installation on Linux may be tricky for some, since there's not really any installation information included in the README (at least that I could find). But, it's easy enough: extract the ioUrbanTerror archive (if playing standalone, like I am), extract Urban Terror itself, then place the q3ut4 folder in the Linux-i386 subdirectory of wherever you extracted ioUrbanTerror.

Even if the gameplay is good, a mod can be ruined for me if the maps aren't up to par. Luckily with Urban Terror, this is not the case. Every map I've played so far has looked great, and was balanced extremely well. Everything looks about as good as a Quake 3 mod possibly can.

Gameplay follows suit, weapons feel well tuned, and you certainly don't get the "cheap deaths" feeling you can get in other, similar mods. One thing I really like is that once hit with a weapon, even if you aren't killed right away, you'll bleed. And yes, eventually, that will take you down.

Urban Terror definitely does not tall into the "play it enough to write about it, then throw it away" category. I get the feeling I'll be playing it on and off for some time.

Boon Spelled Backwards

I finally got around to trying Tremulous, a former Quake 3 mod gone standalone. Wow, I can not understand why this is so popular.

First off, a major strike in my opinion, there is no way to change options from the main menu, as far as I could tell. I had to connect to a game, in 640x480 resolution, to be able to change any options at all. I don't think I've ever encountered such a perplexing setup. I'll admit right off the bat, maybe I missed something, but on the main screen I saw three options: "Play", "Mods" and "Quit." No options to be found.

Secondly, I've got to assume that the people raving about this game are playing clan matches. The foundation for some great gameplay is there: buildable fortifications, widely differing character classes for each side, I could see this being a lot of fun. But on public servers all I encountered was a bunch of people calling each other "noobs".

I understand that in any online game there are going to be stupid people who call each other stupid names, but the volume of name calling was fucking unbearable. I quit the game and promptly uninstalled.

Hey, Tremulous is popular, it doesn't need my help. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm never going near the game again.