For today's Sunday Section we're going over a few missed bits and pieces for Linux, open source and gaming topics while also asking you that all important question.
Firstly, Steam has a fresh Steam Client Beta up! Well, there's actually been a few recently but one in particular released on April 26 caught my eye. Valve has upgraded the video decoder on all platforms, with Linux now using VA-API 0.2 for optional hardware decode functionality. So those of you with an AMD GPU should see a nicer experience for Remote Play.
Audacity, the open source and powerful multi-track audio editor and recorder now has new owners as it's now part of the Muse Group. Confirming the move on the official blog, James Crook mentioned how they were "scared and excited". See the announcement video:
Direct Link
Krita, the fabulous open source painting program has a new Development Fund, which is based on the model used by the very successful Blender. This new system is more open to the public, showing what funding they're currently getting and allows you to easily adjust what you donate. They currently get €1,959 a month from donations on this system.
Remember the craziness that was the University of Minnesota's (UMN) getting effectively banned from contributing to the Linux Kernel, over some "research" being done to introduce malicious patches "Hypocrite Commits"? Well, the Linux Foundation's Technical Advisory Board (TAB) has issued their report on it. Thankfully, the vast majority were actual good commits. As a result of what's happened, the TAB will be working "with researchers (to be named soon) to develop a document describing a set of best practices for researchers to follow when working with the kernel community".
Star Citizen, the crowdfunded in-development multiplayer space trading and combat simulation game that's been in development for a long time now should still be coming to Linux. While you should take it with a pinch of salt, as Star Citizen is still in flux and a long way for being properly released, team member Silvan-CIG mentioned recently in reply to a request about Linux:
It's on our list! Chris Bolte is pushing for it the whole time. Once we have vulkan we will do a Linux Build one day
Do you love Total War Warhammer? Well Total War: WARHAMMER III from Creative Assembly and Feral Interactive is getting a first gameplay reveal on Thursday 13th May at 5 PM BST / 9 AM PT. Check out their teaser:
Direct Link
Finally: the party game Drawful 2 from Jackbox Games now has the free International Update out now! Adding in support for German, French, Italian, and Spanish translations for many more people to enjoy it.
As for the all important question: what have you been playing recently and is it any good? Let your fellow readers know your latest suggestions.
For me, I've been playing plenty of Half-Life: Alyx on our Twitch Channel and it's every bit as fantastic as I was hoping. Will have thoughts on VR coming this week! Plus plenty of Groove Gunner, which is a great VR rhythm-shooting game.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Fury Unleashed (from the latest Humble Choice) - I really like this style of rogue-lite twin-stick shooter-platformer. It plays well and does lots of things right, but for me I'm finding the game quite frustrating because I'm unable to complete the first chapter and access later levels. The reason that I'm failing - because the game has two settings - "Hard" which is aimed at Pro-gamers (using a gamepad) and "Easy" which is aimed at everyone else but doesn't give you Steam Achievements if you use it. I'm playing on Hard with a keyboard and mouse (I prefer keyboard and mouse rather than an easier-to-use gamepad) - Thus, I cannot progress. Still, I keep on coming back for more and more punishment.
A couple of years ago, I completed Broforce on default settings (using keyboard and mouse, not gamepad).. so I'm not completely useless in this genre.
I tried out card-battler game Iris and the Giant and it's okay. Worth returning to and trying some more.
I've played two native Windows titles on Linux using Proton: Lovecraft's Untold Stories - a twin-stick shooter, and Blazing Beaks - another rogue-lite twin-stick shooter. Both of those games worked fine with Proton and show promise.
I've installed Project Zomboid and gone through the tutorial - It looks like I'll appreciate this one, too. Noting that it is worth installing the Beta release of this which has more features added, rather than the regular stable release.
Got back into Jupiter Hell recently. It's a brilliant strategy game with cool weapons/upgrades and a variety of monsters. I'm rubbish at it but it's great fun :-)
I am very wrong. The remake is a lot of fun. For no smart reason I'm only playing ironman so, I'm on my third game. Hopefully all my dudes won't die... Again.
No Man's Sky. I finished the main quest and uninstalled. It was a good game, but the survival-craft thing doesn't seem to be a genre I enjoy. I think I still find games that rely on random generation exclusively rather unfulfilling.
Last edited by denyasis on 10 May 2021 at 12:56 am UTC
furaxhornyx May 10, 2021
Initially I wasn't too much attracted by the game and its poor graphics (pixel "art", but very far from Dead Cells and much more like Baba-is-You - Zoomed Out Edition...), but after watching a streamer playing it, the gameplay looked solid... and it is
Also, some friends made me discover TFT (through Lutris), but the action on the screen is quite a mess, and as an old League of Legend player, nothing makes much sense in it
vindicivuoto May 10, 2021
I play with Proton-6.4-GE-1. Aside from some rare freezes and crashing, as well as rather frequent FPS drops that occur when you save your progress and force you to relaunch the game, performance was fine, at least for someone as patient as I am. A proper Linux port would've been nice though. Oh well ...
Also played Shadowrun Returns. Nifty little game with an XCOM feel to combat and refreshingly solid writing. No need to fumble with Proton, no performance issues. I've read about some nasty bugs but never encountered any myself, or they were minor enough that I missed them.
Lastly, replayed Dreamfall: The Longest Journey after many years, and it evokes the same sense of wonder that it did back in the day. Beautiful story, but also unfinished, and I’m definitely biased anyway, so I'd hesitate to actually recommend it. It was just great to revisit it, especially after playing through the original game and being able to pick up on all those references that I'd missed as a kid.
On a more pragmatic note, has anyone here tried both the first Bioshock and its remastered version? Which one runs better on Linux? I don't care about visuals or quality of life improvements, only stability.
Last edited by vindicivuoto on 10 May 2021 at 11:41 am UTC
I've never had any problem with cynical toy marketing tie-in campaigns, but it was nice, growing up, to have a brand that seemed to stand against all that stuff. Remember when Lego only came in five colours? (Just me? Urgh, I'm getting old.) However it seems that simplicity and innocence are, like, so last century, so apparently now Lego has a line of wisecracking ninjas with their own Saturday-morning cartoon to sell the stuff. It's like seeing your maiden aunt twerking to K-pop. (Or whatever it is the young people do with their time these days.)
Still, it's a TT Lego game, which are always a fun way to pass a few hours, and doesn't deviate too much from the established formula while subtly tweaking the score multiplier into a (very) minimal beat-'em-up-style combo system, which is a nice touch. Plus, although I'm probably missing a ton of fan service, I have to admit that there are a few funny lines in there, too.
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