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What have you been playing recently and what do you think about it?

By -
Last updated: 12 Oct 2019 at 6:30 pm UTC

It's reader question time here on GamingOnLinux, something we do infrequently to generate a bit of discussion.

Having seen a number of great Linux releases lately, it's getting tough opening Steam and actually picking something to play. The very new release of Pine has certainly sucked away a lot of my time, something about the world Twirlbound created has seriously pulled me in. It's not without issues though. While forcing my CPU to stay in Performance mode has made it smoother, it definitely needs improving.

Some of the quests in Pine don't seem like they've been thought through enough with the game mechanics. There's a time you need to get special tokens from different types of creatures like gatherers, traders and guards. So to help you're given blueprints for some traps. Something that should be a challenge but I decided to run around the nearest town and just place traps directly in front of every creature around and in the space of 2 minutes it was done. It was really dumb but it worked.

The world in Pine is certainly not as big as it initially seemed either, it doesn't actually take that long to see the entire area. It gives a good illusion of a lot to do but so far it seems a little basic. Don't let me put you off though, I'm thoroughly nitpicking. Still great fun, just not even close to as expansive as expected.

Meanwhile, I've also carried on my playthrough of the latest Factorio release. Maddeningly engrossing. Incredible game, with such a massive amount of depth to it. The complexity isn't even remotely hidden and yet, it feels so ridiculously approachable it's a real joy to play.

Anyway, enough about what I've been clicking on lately. Over to you, what have you been playing recently and what do you think about it? Help your fellow readers find another interesting game to pick up.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
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1xok 13 Oct 2019
  • Supporter Plus
Currently playing Nier : Automata with Proton / SteamPlay. So far, great game on every aspect except some backtracking during optional quest.
What hardware do you use?

I'm using a 3570K @ 4.3, 8 Gb, a GTX 970 and the game is installed on an SSD. Every options on max, 1080p, I've got between 30 and 40 fps with the latest version of Proton. Not bad and not great, just playable. Waiting for my new 5700XT I've ordered and then around january, I'm changing the rest of the computer.

Thank you. I also have a GTX 970 and I'm about 40 fps. Last I had the impression that the camera sometimes jumps. Hard to describe. Could also be related to the Steam Controller. Nier: Automata stutters a little bit in some areas. But still playable. Must try it again.
Xpander 13 Oct 2019
World of Warcraft Classic - with DXVK/Wine - works amazingly. This is the game i played a lot also when i started using Linux in 2007 fulltime. Nostalgia. Addiction is real.


Last edited by Xpander on 13 Oct 2019 at 9:40 am UTC
WorMzy 13 Oct 2019
I've been working towards getting my aristrocrat papers in Graveyard Keeper, it's a bit of a slog, but I'm starting to speed things up with better zombies.
voyageur 13 Oct 2019
Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator: driving pink trucks (and trailers) around to help with that community charity event - also to finally visit some of the DLC recently bought
Verdun: installed on my HDD for ages, but I finally started playing it. Different FPS style, go go go tirailleurs sénégalais!
tmtvl 13 Oct 2019
Still stuck on Overwatch.
Please, help me !!!

Just say something disparaging about China's use of force in taking over Hong Kong and Blizzard'll ban you. Then you don't have to worry about that addiction any more.
ziabice 13 Oct 2019
Just started to play [Moonlighter](https://store.steampowered.com/app/606150/Moonlighter/): hope it's not only a grind fest as is seems after 5 hours of playing...
Nagezahn 13 Oct 2019
Wanted to test out old Etherlords II with wine, but can't find the CDs anymore.

Have been trying Legend of Keepers prologue thanks to Liam's article about it, and while there are a few rough edges when getting into it and I totally sucked during my first tries, it was entertaining enough while it lasted. Though it has (yet) not enough legacy elements in it to feel some kind of progression throughout the single sessions and too much "let's start fresh from the beginning" for my taste. Wish it was more like Rogue Legacy in this aspect.

Also I keep coming back time and again to Creeper World 3 to check out some more user made maps, many of them who add additional and sometimes quite different game play. At least regarding to Steam it's the game I have with the most hours played.
Nanobang 13 Oct 2019
  • Supporter
I've been trying to get into something new for the last few months, but to no avail. On the plus side, I have been (very, very) slowly winnowing down my backlog of games. In the last month or so I have played:

  • Ostrich Island: I was enjoying this well enough in the beginning, but became bored when the action moved off of the titular island and into a series of poorly illuminated dungeon hallways. I left after 6 hours.

  • Payday 2: For a few hours with a friend, but after 2K hours on Steam and about as many on the X360 before that, I'm pretty played out with this.

  • King Oddball: A super chill physics game where you play as the aforementioned monarch---a giant, floating orb with a face and Gene Simmons' tongue---conquering your enemies by flinging boulders onto them. I play it often, if never for very long.

  • *Rombie: Phroot's latest open world robot joint. Similar to his excellent XX89 trilogy, but dingy, monotonous, and unrewarding. I gave it 4 hours before uninstalling it with a sigh.

  • 3089 and 4089: The first two games of Phroot's delightful XX89 series, neither of which would run from their initial launcher.

  • Runic Rampage: Played it all the way through and (finally) beat the end-boss, which was the real victory here. Not because it was particularly hard, but because I tend to find boss battles immensely tedious, frustrating excercises in pattern recognition. Nevertheless, a fun enough hack-n-slash-lite game spoilt only by the 'Dash' button being a common button used in attack combos. Instead of 'dashing' at or away from enemies, I often found myself walloping the ground with a bloody huge axe for no rhyme or reason.

  • Jettomero: This is one of the most unique looking games I've ever played. Unfortunately, the game has a number of issues centered on controls which render using a Steampad as anything but an Xbox controller simply moot. I may get back to it at somepoint.

  • Everything: A delightful experience peppered with mind-blowing sound bites of Alan Watts lectures. After 2 hours, though I hadn't seen everything, I'd seen enough. I stopped playing and began downloading Alan Watts lectures from Youtube.

  • Insignificant: I bought it and returned it all within a few hours. I've no idea how good the game is or isn't. It appears to be one of the most imaginatively conceived games ever, but it sees the Steam Controller as a gamepad. Full stop. I use a Steam Controller mapped with keyboard + mouse for all FPS games and the inability to get Insignificant to accept this meant asking for and getting a refund.

  • Bard's Tale: I downloaded it last night but haven't played it yet. Here's hoping.



Last edited by Nanobang on 13 Oct 2019 at 2:05 pm UTC
rafagars 13 Oct 2019
Batman Arkham Knight: I couldn't resit epic giveaway either. It runs better than expected and it's really fun.

Also Among the Sleep thanks to Celphy giveaway, short game but I like it.
axredneck 13 Oct 2019
Stalker: Shadows of Chernobyl with "Тайные Тропы 2" mod. Very long mod, longer than original game.
jumbles83 13 Oct 2019
Recently completed Sundered which was a fantastic platformer from Thunder Lotus (who also made the brilliant and beautiful Jotun). Periods of exploration interspersed with manic intense combat in a cleverly crafted world, with unlockable combat skills to make your escape from the Eldritch abyss that little bit easier. Some great boss fights too that really show off the games mechanics.

Also love Pillars Of Eternity II, recently went to try the new(ish) turn-based mod the devs released but couldn't get into it with my Wizard (and I absolutely love turn-based games), would be interested to hear anyone's thoughts about the turn-based gameplay. Shame Obsidian were bought by Microsoft too, I also wonder if this will impact in any way their support for Linux...
a0kami 13 Oct 2019
Hi there!

I usually don't think my gaming experience is relevant, though I'm quite proud about my latest doings.

First of all I finally finished all achievements of Portal 2 including the co-op ones, and for which I'd like to thank Valve for their transparent cross-platform system (can't be perfect, my friend was on windows). Yet Valve really have been involved in developing native Linux versions, shootout to them!

Then I finished XCom: enemy unknown, great game, a bit stressful as you play against the clock while trying to keep tour base afloat. Great port, nothing more to say, and I'd like to thank Feral Interactive for that!

Then I could finally come back on my favourite mmorpg, Guild Wars 2, thanks to a custom installer found on the forums, as the Lutris install script didn't perform that well, though it's only some tweaking steps away to actually make it into an install script. Shootout to the gw2 community and the D9VK developers!

Ultimately I managed to have a massive laugh out of a Star Citizen mining expedition with the LUG organization/community on the latest 3.7.0 updatw. The game is promising and its performance on Linux are quite decent. I kept crashing for a couple of hours but once all my shaders were compiled them game was stable and ran smoothly (I have a 7 years old AMD FX8350). Anyway, the LUG community recently managed to figured out the black texture issue people were experiencing from the RC patches (called PTU). Shootout to the community and everyone that's making possible, from the wine developers to dxvk and but also Lutris!

Thank you guys!

PS: this signs my Solus treason to the profit of Manjaro adoption.
ghiuma 13 Oct 2019
For now I play with (almost only Steam play) Pine, Resident evil 2, Greedfall and Fallout 4 ... Beautiful!
kokoko3k 13 Oct 2019
Last day of June!
Yep, Epic gave it for free, and epic game store runs on lutris.
Protondb say it is borked, buy it is sufficient to install media foundation libraries (i used this: https://github.com/z0z0z/mf-install) inside the wine prefix to make it work.
Caveat: Mouse/camera does not work if you start the game from epic game launcher.
So i imported it into steam and set latest proton as the tool to launch it (you've to install media foundation libs into the proton prefix).
Performances are not stellar, but i've read that under windows is the same, and it also froze one time, but not in a subsequent run.
Nice :)
Valck 13 Oct 2019
X4:Foundations, after a previous abortive start when it came out on GOG (was pressed for time, and the tutorial wasn't exactly helpful). So far, I'm some 120 hours in and enjoying it greatly.

A few sour grapes though: It seems you can't get achievements with the GOG Linux version (might work on Steam, idk). Not that I care at all about achievements, but apparently they are a requirement for playing as one of the races, which sucks.

And "ventures" are a joke, I mean come on, "your" ships can "appear" in other players' universes, what does that have to do with multiplayer? All Egosoft has to do is grab their list of player names, seed a random number generator with it, and everybody can play "multiplayer". Would even work offline... just update the list with each patch... Hey, they could even use that as a selling point – "massive offline multiplayer"!
Not that I'd be interested in them, either; I have played the X games from the very beginning and have never felt that multiplayer was the one thing that was missing. I'd like to paint my ships in rainbow colours though, and apart from a mere handful, guess what - paint mods require you to participate in "multiplayer". Cue "it's just COSMETIC" in a Jim Sterling voice; I feel your pain, Jim, I really do.

So far i haven't felt the need to install mods, but those juicy paint schemes, man...


Last edited by Valck on 13 Oct 2019 at 6:09 pm UTC
Mezron 13 Oct 2019
  • Supporter
  • We. The Revolution via GOG

    Just ended this one. It's the last of the single player games I bought recently to see if SP games are for me. I liked it a lot and it had me hankering for some more reading material around the french revolution.

    I can not put into words whether the game was fun for me or not. I tend to associate video gaming fun with excitement and the rush of adrenaline. This game by it's nature had me pausing and reflecting more on the characters and their plights.

    Overall I enjoyed it but it was very different experience than what I am use to.

  • Splody via itch.io

    This is an excellent Bomberman Clone. My wife and I love this game and play a few rounds before bed. Co-op or VS is a lot of fun.

  • Mother Russia Bleeds via GOG

    This game is just becoming a staple of the family gaming experience. Currently, we are unlocking all of the drugs via of Arena.

  • Fatal Fury Special via Humble Bundle/MAME/Mednafen

    There are a few locals coming up for retro-fighters and this is THE FIGHTING GAME, I loved growing up as a kid. It's still lots of fun and the linux release via Humble Bundle and GOG are compatible with MAME. Two of the locals are on original Sega Genesis hardware so I am learning that version also since I never messed with consoles growing up very much.




Last edited by Mezron on 13 Oct 2019 at 6:31 pm UTC
OneSubtractOne 13 Oct 2019
I've been playing Rise to Ruins a bit lately. I recently played a really long game of Factorio that I enjoyed immensely, but i got to the rocket launching and the only thing left to do was to optimize.. I realize optimization is sort of the point of the game, but I'm less an engineer and more a dude with a hammer... So.
Rise to Ruins is great though. I played for the first time, and died 'cos I forgot to feed anyone. Then I played my second game, and it so far seems to be doing alright except you know, the corruption is coming in fast now and I might be in trouble.
Otherwise, it's just Dead Cells over and over. I suck horribly, I die on like the second zone, whichever it may be... But it's just so much fun.
Nevertheless 13 Oct 2019
I decided to give Pathfinder Kingmaker a pause after >150 hours, because it's so incredibly big that there is no chance to finish it anytime soon. It has very bright sides and some questionable design decisions, but was totally worth playing!
I'm now playing The long journey home on Proton. It really reminds me of one of my all time favourite games: Starflight from 1986, that I played on Amiga around 1991..
Edit: typo
Please convince me to like this game (Pathfinder Kingmaker), expand your impressions. I want to like it but so far I've seen some gameplays and it seemed boring, with lots and lots of windows and inventory and skills management, and very few environments, all very much alike, and generic fights. I want to be proven wrong, you can insult me if it helps.

Also I took a glance at The long journey home. Look amazing, although it does not have a good rating on Steam but I have learned to be skeptical about this rating anyway. Can you tell more?

I don't know if I can convince you to like PK, but I'll tell you what I think of it so far. This game is a bit complicated to judge, so I might need some time to write it down, but I will!
I'm not very far in Tljh at the moment. I'll let you know when I know enough to talk about the game!
appetrosyan 13 Oct 2019
Surviving Mars. Just like every game from Paradox interactive, this is an absolute time sink! Its gameplay is weird in that there is a clear strategic goal, very slow progression and a lot of places to shoot yourself in the foot. On the other hand this is the only game where I can proudly say I've come up with a system. Multiple systems in fact. Just, where can I get the 40-odd hours I've spent on terraforming Mars back? Oh well, at least I learned about project Mohole among other things.
Avehicle7887 13 Oct 2019
I dove back into Legend of Grimrock 2, which I've put away for sometime due to the unbearable audio issues in Wine. Over the course of this week though I've recompiled Wine with FAudio support and now the game works flawlessly.

I thought about picking up Pine too, but the performance issues aren't very encouraging, I'm keeping an eye on it though as it sounds like a game I'd enjoy very much.
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