The 10 Best Games Playable on Linux through Wine

1. Battlefield 2142: is a first person shooter designed by DICE and is the fourth game in the Battlefield series. Titan mode gameplay is extremely fun and gives plenty of meaning to the mindless shoot em up style game.

BF 2142 is playable only after a somewhat complicated installation and configuration.

2. Counter-Strike: Source This game needs no introduction. It has been kicking ass and taking names since 2004. With so many modifications to CS:S, you will never get bored. I’ve been having a blast playing Zombie Mod which pits both Terrorists and CTs alike against Zombies with knives… get knived, turn into a zombie.

CS:S is playable after moderate configuration.

3. Day of Defeat: Source This is just one of those games that just seems to have tons of players on at any time of day or night. Very popular, extremely playable using Wine.

Not much is needed here to get things working properly.

4. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars iD software is releasing a linux native version of this game. I’ve played the beta for several hours and came away impressed. I’d venture to say the game is a Battlefield-style shooter with plenty of vehicles and being able to play as a Strogg is definitely refreshing for a change.

Although it’s not quite 100% true to form, it would be best to get the linux native client.

5. Garry’s Mod Who? Garry. This game runs very well with a few quirks (intermittent slowdowns), installs right from Steam with no issues. Very playable. Mods even work just fine!

6. Guild Wars: Ahh, finally an MMO with a “Buy the Box, Play for Free” model. The game has sold more than 4 MILLION copies. I played in the beta and enjoyed the idea of a low-level cap and only being able to use specific abilities when in an instance. This game already has two expansions out and would be great for a new player to get into.

Guild Wars does not have an official maintainer on the Wine AppDB webtsite, and I have yet to test it personally on Linux. Others have seen very good results using Wine with a couple of re-occuring bugs which seem pretty easy to take care of.

7. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory: The free, standalone sequel to Return to Castle Wolfenstein. This game although older, still has thousands of servers running, with quite a few players. Linux Client works great if Wine doesn’t.

8. World of Warcraft: This is the mother of all college dropouts since it’s release. Extremely addictive and the Gentoo community has a wikipedia page on how to install and update WoW. WoW runs VERY well with the right hardware and setup. It’s a pain in the neck to manually update the game on a regular basis, but well worth it if you’re paying a monthly subscription.

9. Unreal Tournament 2004: UT2k4 is a fun, fast paced game with plenty of gibs. Has a native linux client if you have issues running it under Wine.

10. Dishonorable Discharge: Americas Army: After having a linux native client for quite some time, this Unreal engine based game ceased linux support as of two versions ago. The word on the street is that the developer of the Linux and Mac versions was doing it for free, then nobody stepped up to the plate to continue development. Why the US Army did not recruit this fine civilian is beyond me. Quite possibly the biggest slap in the face to the Linux community is that the game doesn’t run worth a damn online due to Punkbuster incompatability.

So what’s stopping you now from trying out Linux? Don’t know where to get it? Try downloading Ubuntu here. Test out the LiveCD. Get hooked, and get gaming!

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