Extreme Tux Racer, Smokin Guns, etc

The somewhat stop-start development of the various Tux Racer projects continues, but it looks hopeful that the latest incarnation of the iconic downhill penguin racer will not disappear like its predecessors. Extreme Tux Racer has finally released an updated 0.5 beta (Windows, Ubuntu, source for other Linuxi) after several months of inactivity. It's getting a bit of optimization love after I (yes, me, important mega me) unleashed my wrath helped a new developer by putting him in his place realise that ETR is not too detailed, as he incorrectly surmised, but ratyher suffers from some poorly implemented features that could be done a lot more quickly. Amazingly, I was right. :-)

I'm always right and I will rule the universe soon! At least, once I've been to the doctor about this over-active procrastination gland of mine.

Smokin' Guns, a total conversion of Quake 3 to recreate the feel of the Wild West is probably undermentioned here, although the graphics are starting to look very dated. Features:

• A full arsenal of weapons with historically correct design. Check the weapons page for more information.

• A variety of western styled maps and player models.

• A realistic damage system with different locations (head, chest, neck, etc) and height-dependant falling damage.

• New western styled gametypes for more fun: Bank Robbery and Duel Modes.

• A money system allowing for equipment purchase with money from rewards & pickups.

• Easy to use graphical user interface and HUD.

• Other small improvements for better gameplay and enhanced fun.

Lemming Ball Z

Another undermentioned and very cool project is Lemming Ball Z. Features include:

• Destructable 3d terrain

• Ability to add your own levels/characters/moves to the game

• Multiplayer with 2-4 players online or local

• Good old-fashion HotSeat play

• Slowmotion, like in "The Matrix"

• Fancy graphics, like cellshading and stuff

• Netplay, without configuring or hamachi

• Stupid AI to practice with

• Blood! lots of it! :)

I used to wonder where the FreeCol project got some of its fancy artwork - now I know, you can grab CC licensed (by-nc-sa) from David Rumsey's collection of ye olde maps.

VDrift

VDrift gets closer to a new release after a massive refactoring and lots of enhancements. Starting to look really, really cool. Still, not as playable as TORCS so if you want a quick fix I recommend you go the TORCS route for now, but VDrift looks set to eclipse TORCS as a spectacle in the course of 2009.

Scourge gets nicer towns, with houses created by combining sections to create more intricate villages. See the latest Scourge Weekly (volume 17, on the website frontpage) for more details and a humorous explanation of why developers should work rather than work on open source, should the choice be forced upon them. :-)

Hrm, other new releases like Teeworlds (0.5.1), Battle for Wesnoth (1.6 beta1) bleh too much blog stuff must go KTHXBYE.