Full Circle Magazine FR

First off, if you haven’t heard the sad news a few months ago, LGP (Linux Gaming Publishers) lost the rights to sell Egosoft's X series of games (X2-The Threat and X3-Reunion); the good news is Egosoft is now actively developing its games for Linux—so, if anyone has purchased the X-series superbundle or X3-Reunion on Steam, you have access to the Linux version as well. Work continues on X-Beyond, X2 and X3-Terran Conflict, but is not yet available outside of closed beta. Next up, Unigine has finally released Oil Rush and its DLC on Steam for Linux this week, meaning if you purchased the game directly from them, it’s now available for installation via the Steam for Linux client. Now for the games that are coming soon. Most come from Steam's Project Greenlight and all are from Indie Developer Studios.

Tout d'abord, si vous n'avez pas entendu la triste nouvelle il y a quelques mois, LGP (Linux Gaming Publishers) a perdu les droits de vendre la X série de jeux d'Egosoft (X2-The Threat et X3-Reunion) ; la bonne nouvelle est que, maintenant, Egosoft développe activement ses jeux pour Linux, alors, si vous avez acheté le « superbundle » de la X série ou X3-Reunion sur Steam, vous avez accès à la version Linux également. Le travail continue sur X-Beyond, X2 et X3-Terran Conflict, mais ces jeux ne sont pas encore disponibles en dehors d'une bêta fermée.

Ensuite, Unigine a enfin sorti Oil Rush et son DLC (contenu téléchargeable) sur Steam pour Linux cette semaine, ce qui veut dire que, si vous avez acheté le jeux auprès d'eux directement, il est maintenant disponible à l'installation via le client Steam for Linux.

Et maintenant pour les jeux à venir prochainement. La plupart viennent du Project Greenlight de Steam et ils sont tous des studios Indie Developer.

First up is Starbound (www.playstarbound.com) from Chucklefish. This is a 2D sidescroller in the vein of Terrarria and Minecraft, except this time, along with an open sandbox world, you also get a single player storyline. The game is available now for pre-order, and those who do pre-order get beta access. Read more here http://playstarbound.com/about/, Next up we have Legends Of Aethereus from Three Gates Studios. This Action RPG was successfully funded last year via Kickstarter, has beta access for Kickstarter backers, and has now been Greenlit by the Steam Community. See more here http://www.aethereusgame.com/index.html. Finally, the developers are now taking pre-orders for the game. Third on the list is Hammerwatch from HipShot. In the developer's own words about the game: “A hack and slash action adventure, set in a fantasy pixel art environment. Solo or cooperate in this adventure from bottom to top of Castle Hammerwatch. Kill hordes of enemies with varied looks and features, through four unique environments with traps, hidden secrets and puzzles. The game is inspired by the old Gauntlet-series, but adds a lot with online support, character development, complex levels, bosses, and much more. Like gauntlet, the focus is fast paced action, but with elements that force you to think just a bit more!” A playable demo (unfortunately, for the Windows OS ) is available; another greenlit steam game; find out more here http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=122788084

Le premier est Starbound (www.playstarbound.com) de Chucklefish. C'est un jeu en 2D à défilement horizontal dans la même veine que Terrarria et Minecraft, sauf que, cette fois-ci, un monde bac à sable ouvert est accompagné d'une histoire à un joueur. Le jeu est actuellement disponible en pré-commande et ceux qui font une telle commande peuvent accéder à la bêta. Pour d'autres renseignements : http://playstarbound.com/about/

Ensuite, nous avons Legends of Aethereus des studios Three Gates. Cet Action RPG fut financé avec succès l'année dernière via Kickstarter, propose un accès à la bêta pour des gens ayant participé au financement sur Kickstarter, et vient de recevoir le Feuvert de la Communauté Steam. Pour plus d'informations : http://www.aethereusgame.com/index.html. Enfin, les développeurs acceptent actuellement des pré-commandes pour le jeu.

Troisisème sur la liste est Hammerwatch de HipShot. Dans les mots du développeur du jeu : « Il s'agit d'un jeu “hack and slash” d'aventure et d'action, dans un environnement fantaisie en pixel-art. Jouez seul ou coopérez dans cette aventure de la base au sommet du Castle Hammerwatch. Tuez des hordes d'ennemis qui ont des apparences et des fonctionnalités divers, en traversant quatre environnements uniques avec des pièges, des secrets cachés et des énigmes.

« L'inspiration du jeu vient de la vielle série Gauntlet, mais avec plein de choses ajoutées : une prise en charge en ligne, le développement des personnages, des niveaux complexes, des boss et beaucoup plus encore. Comme c'est le cas de Gauntlet, l'accent est mis sur l'action rapide, mais avec des éléments qui vous obligent à réfléchir un peu plus que d'habitude ! »

Une démo jouable (malheureusement sous Windows) est disponible ; un autre jeu avec le feu vert de Steam : en apprendre davantage ici : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=122788084

“Legend of Dungeon is part Beat'Em'Up, like those awesome old-school 4-player arcade games (it plays a little like TMNT and X-Men), and it's part RogueLike in its setting and content generation.” So states the introduction for the next Greenlit Game Legend of Dungeon from developer RobotLovesKitty. The game is set for a summer 2013 release, and is currently taking pre-orders that grant access to a playable version of the game. Read more here http://www.robotloveskitty.com/LoD/ and here http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=108895757 And that’s it for games that are projected for a 2013 summer release date. There are several other games on the horizon, but their release dates are either early next year or December 2013. So nothing much to talk about since the dates are so far out.

« Legend of Dungeon est, en partie, un beat-them-up, comme ces jeux d'arcade de la vieille école à quatre joueurs, qui étaient géniaux (il se joue un peu comme TMNT et X-Men) et c'est en partie rogue-like, quant à la génération de son lieu et son contenu. » Ce sont les paroles de la présentation du prochain GreenLit Game (jeu au feu vert), Legend of Dungeon du développeur RobotLovesKitty. Le jeu devra sortir en été 2013 et accepte actuellement des pré-commandes qui donnent accès à une version jouable du jeu. Vous pouvez en lire davantage ici : http://www.robotloveskitty.com/LoD/ et ici http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=108895757.

Et c'est tout pour les jeux qui devront sortir en cours de l'été 2013. Plusieurs autres jeux se pointent le bout du nez, mais la date de leur sortie est soit au début de l'année prochaine, soit décembre 2013. Ainsi, je n'ai pas grand chose à dire, puisque les dates sont si lointaines.

DEUXIÈME ARTICLE

When the opportunity to try out for the position of game reviewer at FCM came up, I jumped at it for three reasons. I am a huge fan of the Ubuntu operating system and its variants, I have had a love for gaming since I was about 10 years old and typed ‘open door’ in my first Sierra adventure, and, for a long time, I’ve been keen to somehow capture my thoughts on the topics of gaming and Ubuntu in one place. The chance to actually do this was too good to pass up. But what game would I review? FCM has been running for quite some time now. Do I take an older game, or find something new to review? Fortunately the gaming gods took pity on me, and, just over a week ago, Valve announced that they would be releasing their 2007 smash hit Portal on Steam for Linux. I was too busy with other FPS games at the time when Portal was initially released (sigh, I’m looking at you Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare), so this presented the perfect chance to complete and review a game that was freshly released to the Ubuntu world. At this point I am ashamed to admit that I missed out on the big launch of Steam on Ubuntu. Due to various factors in my life at the time, I wasn’t involved in Ubuntu gaming in any way over the course of 2010/2012. My memories of Ubuntu gaming were either open source games developed by the community, or porting Counter Strike over to Ubuntu using Wine for office lunch time frags. The launch of Portal on Steam in Ubuntu would be the perfect opportunity to get back into Ubuntu gaming and I grabbed it.

However, what I planned to be a review of a great Valve game on a different platform turned out to be an exploration into the world of gaming on Steam in Ubuntu. As soon as I booted up my Ubuntu partition on my gaming PC (with a fresh install of 12.10) and proceeded with the Steam installation, I found myself finding the process of installing Steam and the actual implementation of it on an Ubuntu system way more interesting than the game itself. Suddenly I found myself rewriting my first article – from a review of a game to a review of the gaming delivery platform itself. The first thing I found interesting was how Steam is listed in the Ubuntu software manager. I know that the product is free to download, but why the $0.00 price tag? As I had not installed software on Ubuntu for a few years, I assumed this was just the usual practice. I guess I just expected it to say ‘Free’ or similar. What I did find refreshing was that it was available in the Software manager and didn't require me to run any terminal commands. As a user of Steam on ‘that other OS,’ I was pleased to find myself on familiar ground once the install had completed. The login screen was an exact replica of what I was used to. In fact, once I was logged in, the actual client itself was unchanged, even the window buttons were the same, which made things a little tricky, as the default Ubuntu install I was running was utilising the new Unity interface which means other windows’ buttons were on the opposite side.

Once I logged in I realised the reason for this. Valve had merely ported the Steam client directly to Ubuntu, without making any major changes to the interface (none at all as far as I can see). Some small part of me was hoping it would be all shiny and new and specific to Ubuntu, but I understand why this is not the case. That doesn’t mean to say I am happy about it… I was interested to find out that due to the direct port of the Steam software, it meant that all the games I had purchased via Steam over the years where listed as part of my library on Ubuntu. Obviously all these games weren’t going to run (I’m too scared to try in case something explodes), but it would have been nice if Valve had made it so that Steam detects what OS you are running on and then filters the games you can play. As it is, I had to select ‘Linux Games’ from the ‘Library’ menu before I could filter the games I was actually going to be able to play. Sure enough, right there between Half Life : Opposing Force and Ricochet was the Portal (Beta) game. It must be noted that I had already purchased Portal previously, and I was pleased to see I wasn't going to have to repurchase it to be able to play it on Ubuntu.

At this point, after the Ubuntu OS reinstall, installing the third party graphics drivers for my nVidia card, and installing and logging into Steam, it was just too late to start playing Portal on Ubuntu with enough time to complete the game and write a review. So I poked around a bit more to see what else I could find. What I did come across is the fact that there are, at the time of this article, 180 Steam games that can be installed and played on your copy of Ubuntu. I take this as a serious step in the right direction. As a gamer I am tired of having to own a copy of Windows just to play my favourite titles. I really, truly hope that Gabe and the boys over at Valve are successful in turning game developers on to the idea of selling/porting their products to Linux through Steam. Part of me wants to jump up and run to the highest hilltop and scream and shout for joy. But for now, I have some Portal to play. Apparently there’s cake!

TROISIÈME ARTICLE

Strategy games are known for their steep learning curves and long play times. Aeon Command, however, is a casual strategy game that is easy to learn and fun to play. It combines casual arcade gaming with resource management, research, and ship production to produce an unique gaming experience. The main goal of the player is to defend his or her mothership and to destroy the enemy’s mothership. There is a brief tutorial to teach you how to manage resources. From there one can either play in campaign, skirmish or multiplayer mode. Campaign mode unlocks more ships, more technology, and more abilities as you play through each mission. There are three factions: the Alliance, the Exiles and the Cyborgs. Each faction has its own ships and abilities. The factions are fighting over the resources contained in a particularly resource-rich nebula. In the beginning of campaign mode, the player cannot do research until given charge of the fleet by defeating the current commander. As Campaign mode unfolds, the player is given access to new abilities such as an EMP, and the ability to heal ships in combat. These abilities depend on energy taken from enemy ships, which appears after they are destroyed. A player needs to click on the leftover energy before it disappears, similar to bonuses in arcade games.

In order to build ships and conduct research, the player must collect mineral resources from asteroids. A player is allowed only 10 mining ships so resource collection in later stages of the game must be supplemented by capturing enemy vessels with tow ships. It is imperative to protect tow ships as they bring back their cargo. There are shield ships that can project a field around tow ships and other vessels to protect them from enemy fire for a short time. The graphics in the game are nothing special, but they get the job done. It can sometimes be difficult to tell which ships are of which type, especially when fighting the cyborgs. This a problem, because in order to adequately defend your mothership, you need to know which ships to build to engage certain enemy vessels. The audio is fitting to the genre, and of fairly high quality. The sound effects are traditional space battle sounds. The music is neither repetitive nor boring. The game is currently $2.99 at Desura. If you like strategy games, or if you’d like an interesting casual game, I highly recommend Aeon Command, both for its value and its playability. If you’re curious about strategy games, Aeon Command is a great and simple introduction to the genre. Pros: Low price, good sound, fun, and easy to learn. Cons: Graphics that make it difficult to distinguish ship types.