First impressions of the GamesKnoppix games
I spent a few hours trying out many of the games on the 2004-11-12
edition of the Games
Knoppix Distribution.
Here are my first impressions, totally subjective, and of course
severely constrained by having only a few minutes for each game, not
wanting to read any documentation, wanting to play only single-player
games etc.
Games I really liked
- Neverball
- Steer a ball to collect coins and finish at a goal.
Cool gameplay, nice graphics, but the chase view and how it interacts
with the steering makes it hard to use.
- Xboing
- Breakout, nice.
- gltron
- Tron game, first person view (plus map), nice graphics, bad AI (but multiplayer possible)
- lbreakout
- Breakout, nice.
- Battle for Wesnoth
- Turn-based strategy, 2D graphics, nice intro, fantasy setting
- Crimson fields
- Turn-based strategy, 2D graphics, looks somewhat like Battle Isle 2
- Pingus
- Nice Lemmings-style game
Games I would also play
- Falcon's eye
- Nethack version with nice-looking isometric
graphics. Unfortunately the graphics sometimes obscures important
objects (e.g., attackers).
- ClanBomber
- 2D-game, somewhat Digger-like; might be interesting.
- Galaga
- A classic (third generation of Space invader type games), pretty ok
- TuxRacer
- Ski-racing style game.
- TuxCart
- Car-race game. Quite funny, but the adaptive bots are a problem.
- Globulation
- Looks like a real-time strategy game with nice graphcis; apparently only french interaction and instructions.
- Freeciv
- Did not look at it now; does it have AI in the meantime?
- Xbattle
- Classic abstract Unix strategy game
- Enigma
- Steer a ball to solve various problems (2D).
Not so interesting
- imaze
- The prototype of all first-person shooters. The bots
are pretty dumb. Multi-player might be more interesting.
- Hatman
- Pacman, looks ok.
- Kasteroids
- Another classic, with a new look
- Kobo Deluxe
- Strange game in a small window.
- Mini Racer
- Car race against AI, very bad physics, graphics ok
- Neverputt
- Minigolf
- Orbital Eunuchs Sniper
- Kill baddies from above before they
reach a VIP. I did not figure out how to kill them reliably.
- Snake
- Terminal game (pseudo-graphical).
- Star Trek
- Terminal game.
- Supertux
- Jump'n'run
- Worm
- Terminal game (pseudo-graphical).
- bzflag
- Multiplayer only, server included, graphics ok
- Air Traffic Controller
- Terminal game (pseudo-graphics)
- castle-combat
- 2D game of building and destroying castles,
apparently no AI; didn't get the controls completely
- empire
- Turn-based strategy, terminal game (pseudo graphics)
- netpanzer
- real-time strategy, 3D graphics, multiplayer only
- Katomic
- Chemistry puzzle
- Kbattleship
- computerized classic
- Ksokoban
- Another puzzle, graphics ok.
- Konquest
- Galactic conquest game, 2D graphics, not exciting
Broken
- Rafkill
- Makes system unusable (no screen output).
- Robots
- Doesn't work
- Xpilot
- Requires server (apparently not on CD).
- mangoquest/mangopeeler
- doesn't work
- foobillard
- looks good, but we did not find out how to play
- LGeneral
- Looks like a WW2 game, but there were no scenarios or campaigns available for loading.
- Sail
- Ship combat, turn-based terminal game, crashes
- Boson
- real-time strategy, 3D graphics, multiplayer only,
severe interface problems
Anton Ertl