[NBLUG/talk] Gamers Question

[Bill Kendrick]

On Tue, May 06, 2003 at 02:22:17PM -0700, Edward Mendoza wrote:
> 
> Is it possible to play computer games,

The term "computer games" is kind of vague. :^)

The Linux Game Tome lists over 1,100 entries.
Freshmeat has over 1,700 projects in the "Games/Entertainment" category.

Most Linux distributions come with dozens of games of various types
(from simple card games and puzzles to full-on 3D multiplayer titles).


> such as Age of Empires, in a Linux environment?

Ah, that's a little less vague. :^)  There's a few different ways one needs
to answer this:

  1. Yes, there are commercial titles developed for Linux.
     Often, they are games which are available for Windows and Mac, as well.

     Quake, Tux Racer, Hopkins FBI, Marble Blast, Neverwinter Nights,
     Uplink, and a number of others, are examples of commercial games that
     were devloped specifically for Linux.


  2. Yes, some Windows games have been ported to Linux.
     Companies like the now defunct Loki Entertainment and the younger
     (and still-in-business) Linux Game Publishing, made licensing deals
     with software houses and/or publishers to get access to the source code
     to existing Windows titles and port them to Linux.

     Mindrover, Majesty, Heavy Gear II, Heros of Might and Magic 3,
     Railroad Tycoon II, Rune, SimCity 3000, Unreal Tournament,
     Creatures and Mindrover are some examples of ported games.


  3. Yes, you can play Windows games right on Linux.
     With software like Win4Lin, Wine and WineX, and others, you can
     run Windows games directly under Linux.  (ie, you're running the Windows
     binaries; the games were not ported to Linux at the software level)

     [ I'm sure people here can name things for you; I can't, off the top
       of my head ]
     

and finally, similar to #3...

  4. Some Windows games have been packaged for Linux.

     The Sims, for example, is available for Linux as part of the
     recent "Gaming Edition" release of Mandrake's distribution of Linux.
     It's simply "The Sims" for Windows, combined with the WineX libraries,
     all wrapped up in nice packages.  I used 'alien' to convert it from
     Mandrake RPM packages to Debian DEB packages to install it on my wife's
     Linux box. :^)

     Kohan is another example of a Windows game packaged with WineX.



Now, to answer your question more specifically than you even asked it...
"Can I run Age of Empires under Linux?"

Well... probably.  See #3 above. ;^)


Good luck!

-bill!

-- 
bill at newbreedsoftware.com                                            Hire me!
http://newbreedsoftware.com/bill/    http://newbreedsoftware.com/bill/resume/