Viewing articles by Hamish

Hamish Paul Wilson is a free software developer, game critic, amateur writer, cattle rancher, shepherd, and beekeeper living in rural Alberta, Canada. He is an advocate of both DRM free native Linux gaming and the free software movement alongside his other causes, and further information can be found at his icculus.org homepage where he lists everything he is currently involved in: http://icculus.org/~hamish

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Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 1: Dumpster Diving

By Hamish, Mar 1, 2021

Older computing hardware is getting harder and harder to find. What would have been given away just five or ten years ago can now often only be found for inflated prices. So when I noticed an interesting looking beige box ready to be recycled at my local dump, I did not hesitate to rescue it in order to see what was inside.

A look at the Penumbra Collection on Linux with Mesa in 2020

By Hamish, May 22, 2020

The Penumbra Collection is always going to hold a special place in my heart. It pains me to see, in spite of the still excellent support that Frictional Games gives to our platform, that the state of the Penumbra Collection for a number of Linux users has become such a mess.

The sad case of Unreal Engine 1 on Mesa and Linux in 2020

By Hamish, Feb 4, 2020

Community support for Unreal Tournament was able to breath some new life into the game, even with the limitations of the closed binary. By 2018 however the game was no longer launching for Mesa users. For an engine with such a pedigree on Linux this outcome is still disappointing.

Some thoughts on Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power

By Hamish, Nov 26, 2019

To say that I began playing Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power with low expectations would be an understatement. Immediately put off by the 3D viewpoint, the game acquired such a poor reputation that Frozenbyte went as far as to publicly apologize to quell a significant fan backlash. Four years on though, how does Trine 3 fare as a game?

The sad case of Trine on Mesa and Linux in 2019

By Hamish, Nov 19, 2019

Lacklustre Linux sales and internal restructuring appear to have taken Frozenbyte out of the Linux market for good, and with even their old games struggling to run well on the Mesa graphics stack, it marks a sad end to a series that once provided so much colour to our platform.

Playing Prey on Linux in 2018

By Hamish, Feb 14, 2018

Continuing on from my previous articles on how to get both Doom 3 and Quake 4 running on modern Linux systems, I felt the time was right to look at Prey, another id Tech 4 based game with a native Linux port. It did not take me long to discover that the main issue people were likely to run into with Prey had nothing to do with the game itself.

Playing Quake 4 on Linux in 2018

By Hamish, Jan 14, 2018

Having already gone to the trouble of getting the original Doom 3 binary working on my modern Arch Linux system a few months back, it made me wonder just how much effort it would take to get the closed source Quake 4 port up and running again as well.

Playing Doom 3 on Linux in 2017

By Hamish, Oct 31, 2017

With the release of the source code to both Doom 3 and the later BFG Edition, there now exists three options for Linux users wanting to play the game. Having gone through Doom 3 again, I decided it was time for me to compare them and give my thoughts on both the game and which of the three versions are best for Linux users in 2017.

Some thoughts on Ziggurat

By Hamish, Apr 10, 2017

Classic first-person shooters are without question my favourite video game genre, and it would be nice to be able to sit down and play more Indie games that can satisfy both my classic FPS craving while at the same time pushing the genre forward. Ziggurat attempts to do both, and it wins my respect for that.

Some thoughts on Hard West

By Hamish, Mar 17, 2017

Hard West is a hard game to recommend to anyone unwilling to subject themselves to a trial by fire. If it were a horse I would say that it tried to buck me at every possible opportunity. It almost succeeded too.

Some thoughts on The Original Strife: Veteran Edition

By Hamish, Mar 8, 2017

Strife: Quest for the Sigil was both a critical and commercial disappointment for Rogue Entertainment in 1996, and the source code to the game was mislaid by its developers. Years later work begin on reverse engineering Strife using the released Doom code. Night Dive Studios would later use this community project to craft The Original Strife: Veteran Edition.

Some thoughts on the Shadowrun series

By Hamish, Jan 23, 2017

Shadowrun was not only the first CRPG series I found compelling enough to play through all the way to the end, but one that I also found myself invested in enough to purchase additional instalments soon after playing the first.

Some thoughts on Age of Conquest IV

By Hamish, Dec 23, 2016

Age of Conquest IV by Noble Master Games is a strategy title that manages to go far beyond its roots in family tabletop gaming to become a lightning fast war game where you must do or die to succeed.

The Big Three Build Engine Games On GOG

By Hamish, Jun 23, 2015

Duke Nukem 3D. Shadow Warrior. Blood. All built on the Build engine, these three games when taken collectively are often referred to as the Big Three, and they are now all available for Linux from GOG. But just how well has GOG done in bringing these classic '90s shooters into the modern era?

Desura owner Bad JuJu Games files for bankruptcy

By Hamish, Jun 5, 2015

More bad news has emerged surrounding Desura, with its parent company Bad JuJu Games filing for bankruptcy only two weeks after it emerged that they were behind in paying developers and only seven months after it was announced that they had acquired Desura from Linden Lab.

The Chzo Mythos And Other Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw Games Updated For Linux

By Hamish, Jan 20, 2015

Several years ago I made a number of standalone Linux binaries for the Chzo Mythos using the then closed source Adventure Game Studio runtime as a base. Now that the source code to AGS has been released, I have updated the builds to use the superior free software engine.

GOG to remove archive protection from their Windows installers

By Hamish, Jan 7, 2015

After hearing plenty of heated feedback, GOG.com has now backtracked from their use of encrypted RAR files in their Windows installers, something which has raised concerns about the potential for encroaching DRM on their service as well as causing technical problems for some Linux users.

The Dark Descent of Frictional Games: Part Two

By Hamish, Nov 2, 2014

In the second of a two part opinion series, I will offer up my own personal conviction that the Amnesia games do not actually live up to the full potential demonstrated by their predecessors.

The Dark Descent of Frictional Games: Part One

By Hamish, Oct 21, 2014

In the first of a two part opinion series, we will explore how the Penumbra games through a process of gradual evolution created a solid design template for later Frictional Games titles to follow.

Yet Another Postal 2 DLC Is In The Works

By Hamish, Jun 12, 2014

While Linux, Mac, and non-Steam players are still waiting for the arrival of the already released free updates to Running With Scissors flagship title, the Tucson based developers are already working on their next project, one which promises to revitalize the already eleven year old game in new and surprising ways.

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