Thanks to the magic of DOSBox, Earthworm Jim 1 & 2 are now available for Linux direct from game store GOG. They come as part of a bundle "Earthworm Jim 1+2: The Whole Can 'O Worms".
As usual, our friendly GOG contacts sent over a copy for me to test out. They come as seperate downloads, but each has the GOG installer powered by MojoSetup. Naturally, they come with DOSBox pre-configured so playing these classics is easy on Linux.
I actually played the original on the Sega Megadrive at a friends house when I was younger, I remember being mesmerised by it at the time. This sure brought back some memories! For those that never played it, it's a run and gun action platformer that was originally released in 1994, with the sequel releasing in 1995.
After testing both, I couldn't find any issues. They worked perfectly, super smooth as expected from a classic title.
I still love the fact that GOG keep classic games alive like this, it's vitally important we don't lose access to some true classics.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Cyba.Cowboy Nov 25, 2017
If you are holding off in the hope that you can make your purchase count as a Linux sale that is fair enough, but if all you want to do is actually play Doom or Wolfenstein 3D on Linux you would be far better off using any number of source ports than a DOSBox wrapper.
It's both - to count as a "Linux" sale and to simply play these games.
As for those source ports, I have two issues with these - Wikipedia implies that these are inferior in comparison to the original versions, and I haven't been able to actually find them for download anywhere... Besides, I would much rather my money go towards the developers, even if it's only in part.
I think the best idea would be if GoG (or even Steam) could get permission to sell the Linux native versions of these. There are many different source ports, but I think a good many of them (especially Doom 3) had a proper port released by id.
I don't understand why they haven't.
We're not talking about any old games here, we're talking about the Wolfenstein/Doom franchise - a collection of some of the most iconic games ever released for computers (and eventually, just about everything else!)... It would be worth trying to get native versions of these games even if it was for no other reason than the fact that they are so iconic; though I would be surprised if GOG.com didn't at least break-even (make what they spent back) on the costs associated with the effort.
Last edited by Cyba.Cowboy on 25 November 2017 at 1:58 am UTC
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solar_dome Nov 26, 2017
Could your friendly GOG contacts tell us when they plan to release Galaxy client for Linux? I have hundreds of games on GOG (Earthworm Jims included) and it's a real hassle to manage them, and that's ignoring all the extra content that comes with them (soundtracks, manuals, codewheels etc.).For downloading many GOG games and their extra content, quicker than downloading through your GOG account on a web browser, I recommend
gogrepo.
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Wow, a whole lot of misconceptions posted in this thread. Let's do our best to correct them.
Wanting your purchase to count as a Linux sale is a perfectly valid reason not to buy them from GOG.com right now, I will not argue with that, but you have a severe lack of knowledge when it comes to source ports. The link you posted only mentions the limitations of the original unofficial Linux release of Doom by Dave Taylor, which was used as the basis for all the later source ports, but never in its original form. Almost all source ports will offer the same or better features than the original proprietary binaries of the game on any platform, and source ports such as Chocolate Doom will even give you an experience as close as possible to the original DOS release on modern hardware. It is using the original DOS binaries through DOSBox that is guaranteed to give you an inferior experience.
Check your package manager for Chocolate Doom. I know for a fact Ubuntu has it. You will need to purchase a legitimate version of the game to supply the game data, but since you want your money to go the original developers (or in this case the recognized license holder since none of the original Doom developers are a part of id Software anymore, and only a few of the original Quake developers are) that should not be a problem for you. Using a source port is not the same thing as getting some kind of dodgy piracy link and defrauding the company.
That "proper port" of Doom 3 slaapliedje mentioned is again a far inferior experience to what something like dhewm3 will give you. Read my article from last month if you do not believe me:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/playing-doom-3-on-linux-in-2017.10561
The main problem with both of your arguments though is that id Software themselves have NEVER provided official Linux binaries for ANY of their games. There were a few put out by other developers and porting houses (Quake III Arena through Loki Software and both Quake and Quake II through Macmillan Digital Publishing) but the rest of their games only had strictly unofficial Linux binaries put out by id Software employees in their spare time. These were not commercial ports of the games that GOG.com can today license for reselling, especially not from Zenimax since as far as they are concerned these ports never even existed, and are at best internal source ports released by past employees which never would have been allowed the same freedom to release them if they were working for the company today.
Any native Linux version of an id Software game appearing on GOG.com would constitute an entirely new release of the game not unlike the Enhanced Edition of Neverwinter Nights being put out by Beamdog. The existence of past unofficial binaries of these games is irrelevant to to the arrival of any official Linux versions of these titles today.
Last edited by Hamish on 28 November 2017 at 7:31 am UTC
It's both - to count as a "Linux" sale and to simply play these games ... As for those source ports, I have two issues with these - Wikipedia implies that these are inferior in comparison to the original versions, and I haven't been able to actually find them for download anywhere... Besides, I would much rather my money go towards the developers, even if it's only in part.
Wanting your purchase to count as a Linux sale is a perfectly valid reason not to buy them from GOG.com right now, I will not argue with that, but you have a severe lack of knowledge when it comes to source ports. The link you posted only mentions the limitations of the original unofficial Linux release of Doom by Dave Taylor, which was used as the basis for all the later source ports, but never in its original form. Almost all source ports will offer the same or better features than the original proprietary binaries of the game on any platform, and source ports such as Chocolate Doom will even give you an experience as close as possible to the original DOS release on modern hardware. It is using the original DOS binaries through DOSBox that is guaranteed to give you an inferior experience.
Check your package manager for Chocolate Doom. I know for a fact Ubuntu has it. You will need to purchase a legitimate version of the game to supply the game data, but since you want your money to go the original developers (or in this case the recognized license holder since none of the original Doom developers are a part of id Software anymore, and only a few of the original Quake developers are) that should not be a problem for you. Using a source port is not the same thing as getting some kind of dodgy piracy link and defrauding the company.
I think the best idea would be if GoG (or even Steam) could get permission to sell the Linux native versions of these. There are many different source ports, but I think a good many of them (especially Doom 3) had a proper port released by id.I don't understand why they haven't.
We're not talking about any old games here, we're talking about the Wolfenstein/Doom franchise - a collection of some of the most iconic games ever released for computers (and eventually, just about everything else!)... It would be worth trying to get native versions of these games even if it was for no other reason than the fact that they are so iconic; though I would be surprised if GOG.com didn't at least break-even (make what they spent back) on the costs associated with the effort.
That "proper port" of Doom 3 slaapliedje mentioned is again a far inferior experience to what something like dhewm3 will give you. Read my article from last month if you do not believe me:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/playing-doom-3-on-linux-in-2017.10561
The main problem with both of your arguments though is that id Software themselves have NEVER provided official Linux binaries for ANY of their games. There were a few put out by other developers and porting houses (Quake III Arena through Loki Software and both Quake and Quake II through Macmillan Digital Publishing) but the rest of their games only had strictly unofficial Linux binaries put out by id Software employees in their spare time. These were not commercial ports of the games that GOG.com can today license for reselling, especially not from Zenimax since as far as they are concerned these ports never even existed, and are at best internal source ports released by past employees which never would have been allowed the same freedom to release them if they were working for the company today.
Any native Linux version of an id Software game appearing on GOG.com would constitute an entirely new release of the game not unlike the Enhanced Edition of Neverwinter Nights being put out by Beamdog. The existence of past unofficial binaries of these games is irrelevant to to the arrival of any official Linux versions of these titles today.
Last edited by Hamish on 28 November 2017 at 7:31 am UTC
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Cyba.Cowboy Dec 3, 2017
This is great and all, but I'm still waiting for the "Wolfenstein" and "Doom" sagas to be made available for Linux-based operating systems on GOG.com... All those wonderful games are sitting on my "wish" list, just waiting for purchase, GOG.com!
I will be picking-up this package (the Earthworm Jim package) as soon as I can though, because I'm old enough to remember when these games originally came out and Earthworm Jim is awesome.
*Facepalm*
So after all that, it turns out that not only do I already own both "Earthworm Jim" games from waaay back in my Windows days, but also all three "classic" Doom games... Earthworm Jim now obviously has a native Linux port and appears to work flawlessly, whilst the "Doom" games seem to work just fine via WINE, most of the time (occasionally they crash when I try to run them).
It's a shame that I wasn't able to make all these games count as "Linux" sales, but it did give me an excuse to buy the Jazz Jackrabbit Collection instead, and I'll probably pickup Tacoma a little later...
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