OStatic

Five Really Fun Open Source Video Games

Life can't be all work, all the time. You need to make room for some fun and games. When you're ready to kick back, kill some aliens, or riff on a guitar, here are some really fun open source video games to check out.

Hedgewars - In this game, you control an army of hedgehogs bent on destroying all the other hedgehogs in your opponent's army. They get around via parachutes, ropes, or UFOs and have a huge trove of weapons at their disposal to off the enemy. Each play is timed so you don't overthink your next move, so just get out there and blow 'em up.

UFO: Alien Invasion - Your mission in this game is to defend the earth from marauding aliens bent on taking over the Earth. You'll need precision military skills and all your wits about you as you manage squads of armed troops, secure your bases and shoot down UFOs. You'll also have a cache of money to build, buy or produce anything your budget allows.

Frets On Fire - This fun guitar skill game kicked our own Kristin Shoemaker's butt earlier this year. The goal is to play the onscreen guitar as accurately as possible, using your keyboard. The game comes with a few songs included and you can also add your own. There are also four different challenge levels from basic to all the way up to "Kick Kristin's Butt."

The Battle for Wesnoth - This game is really popular with gamers who like fantasy-based themes. To regain the throne of Wesnoth that's rightfully yours, you must recruit and train a band of warriors to help you. There are more than 200 unit types in six factions, each with their own unique spells and fighting abilities. There are several multi-player options to choose from, including Internet play, so it's a great game for as many as eight players at a time.

Liquid War - This simple war game is unlike anything you've probably seen before and it's best described by the Web site itself: "Your army is a blob of liquid and you have to try and eat your opponents." Although you can play Liquid War alone, it was designed as a multi-player game to use with friends across a LAN or on the Internet.

• linux
• music
• video games
• aliens

by an anonymous user on Oct. 02, 2009

I'm having great *great* times with Urban Terror, an opensource first-person-shooter.

There are more than 1000 servers on the net, lots of player. The game is fast and furious.

You should give it a try, really.

http://www.urbanterror.net/

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by an anonymous user on Oct. 02, 2009

wesnoth is really cool & frets on fire rocks... will try the others... thx

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by an anonymous user on Oct. 03, 2009

You left out AlienArena, runs on several OSes and works very well on Linux and you can get the source.

http://red.planetarena.org

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by Lysdestic on Oct. 03, 2009

Considering the mention of Frets on Fire, I want to take time to point out the fork, FoFiX.

http://code.google.com/p/fofix/

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by David on Oct. 04, 2009

The most fun (and competitive) free game online right now for me is Quake Live http://www.quakelive.com . It is essentially Quake 3 with some enhanced graphics. I had forgotten how much fun Quake 3 was (is). The only thing to be aware of is that the majority of the players have been playing for many years and are very experienced, making it frustrating for new players sometimes. However, servers do have a skill ranking label to help you find games suited to your skill level, but, there is nothing keeping more skilled players to join lower ranked servers. But the game takes about 5 minutes to learn, with a lot of practice to become very good. When I first started playing, I thought everyone else was hacking, but now I'm becoming good enough to be accused of hacking. If you like fast, quake-style action, this is the best thing out there. Runs on about any computer with even an old 3d card. One other thing to be aware of - it is VERY addicting, so be careful :)

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by an anonymous user on Oct. 05, 2009

David:

Quake Live is not open source.

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by an anonymous user on Mar. 28, 2010

suk a dik

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by Edwin on Aug. 02, 2010

If its open source its got to be good. The games above look really fun. I might check out a few later.

www.gameadrenaline.blogspot.com

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