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Atlantica Online is a free-to-play MMORPG from Ndoors Interactive that features a time-limited turn based combat system which in some ways is similar to Final Fantasy. The game is supported through microtransactions from the game’s Item Mall, but the items are fairly expensive in my opinion. I have played several other free-to-play games that seem to serve only as an advertisement to spend real money without actually allowing you to have fun for free, but luckily this is not the case with Atlantica Online.
You start out by picking the weapon (class), sex, and appearance options of your main character. Your main character will be the commander of a band of up to eight other mercenaries, for a total of nine characters. While running around in the world, you only see your main character. In combat, you will see all of your characters in a formation of your choosing. You have a limited amount of time (less than 30 seconds, depending on your level) to tell your characters to attack, guard (go into a defensive stance), or use some sort of magic. Combat does not have to be a solo endeavor as you can join a party with up to three other players.
The game is set in a fairly realistic map of the world, where you can go to countries like India and Italy, towns like Baghdad and Berlin. Towns are safe havens that feature markets, banks, guild offices, and travel agencies that allow you to teleport to towns you have previously visited at a cost. One of my favorite features in Atlantica Online is auto-run, which will take you to a specific town, NPC, or quest destination while leaving you free to manage your inventory, chat with friends, etc. Be careful, if you run over a monster while auto-running you will be sucked into a battle, and since battles are timed you may get killed if you are AFK.
Quests are one area of MMORPGs that I usually dislike due to the lack of variety, mainly consisting of “kill 10 of this animal” and “take this note to this character”. The bulk of the quests in Atlantica Online are just like this with some notable exceptions. There are quests that force you to use the in-game help system to find information and type the answer. Other quests force you to be social by sending an in-game mail, join a party, and add a friend.
PvP consists of several different types of combat: duels where you fight one other person, tournaments (Free League) where you take turns fighting against players of the same skill (Division), weekly tournaments that are held three times on both Saturday and Sunday, and wars. A war is fought between two nations, each nation consisting of multiple guilds. Wars are the only type of PvP that are not 1-on-1. If you lose in war, you end up dropping some of your equipment.
Atlantica Online has a depth to it that is rare in other free-to-play games. The crafting system is pretty expansive, you can join a guild, guilds can take control of towns and set tax rates at the banks and markets, and you can PvP. The game features a built-in mail system, in-game forums, and by far the best in-game help guides I have ever seen. Ndoors must have learned from their previous MMORPG games because they included things such as fixed prices in the market to control inflation and players can become artisans and teach crafting skills to others which encourages player interaction.
Being free, there only downside to trying this game is the fact that the download is a fairly massive 2GB.
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Regnum Online is a free to play MMORPG that is developed in Argentina. The world is divided into three separate realms (kingdoms) that are at war with each other. The game has both PvE and PvP, many quests, and decent 3D graphics that are on par with many other commercial MMORPGs. You can choose to be a Human, Elf, Dark Elf, Half-Elf, Morlock, or Utghar. You can be a Warrior, Mage, or Archer, and each one has two subclasses that become available in later levels - Knight, Barbarian, Warlock, Conjurer, Marksman, or Hunter. The game does have a slight commercial side to it as they sell premium content, such as renting horse health and mana regeneration potions, and an experience boosting scroll.
PvP consists of each a large area or War Zone in the middle of the world where all three kingdoms fight for control of forts and castles. Each kingdom has two forts and a castle that they must defend while trying to capture the structures of the other kingdoms. Players earn “Regnum Points” for kills and assists in battle and the rankings can be found on the official War Status page. Also be sure to check out the official forums - your username and password are automatically created and will be the same as your game account.
All in all, I think this is one of the best games currently available for Linux and is one of the best free games for Windows. It is very fun to play and looks great. See the screenshot gallery to see what I mean. Better yet, download it now.
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Warsow is a FPS built upon a modified Quake 2 engine that uses cellshading combined with fast paced action and acrobatics (trick jumps, dodging, etc) to create a hell of a game. Warsow has an unusual take on CTF where you have to touch the enemy flag spawn every ten seconds while your team has the flag or it will return to the enemy base. Warsow also has bots so you can practice by yourself.
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America's Army is a FPS developed by the United States Army (hence the name). I think it is probably the coolest recruiting tool that the army has ever developed. It is multi-player with single-player training missions, slow paced compared to Quake-style games, and very realistic (one shot, one kill happens often). Play this game, especially if you're an American, because you paid for it with taxes. America's Army is one of the most popular online games in existence. It comes with a mission editor and a drivable vehicle.
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Enemy Territory is a FPS that was going to be an add-on to Return to Castle Wolfenstein but was released as a standalone freeware game. Join either the Axis or Allies, choose your profession, and work with your team to capture enemy objectives. It is multi-player only, fast paced, team based, and loads of fun. ***Because it's OK to kill Nazis.***
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Wormux is a clone of the game Worms, where up to four teams of characters try to murder each other with a variety of weapons (some of them bizzare) in a two dimentional deformable landscape. Players take turns controlling one member of their team and have a limited amount of time to move, aim, and try to kill the other teams.
At the time of this writing, the artificial intelligence is still in development but can be tested by naming the player "AI-stupid" (without the quotes).
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Legends - The Game is a free open source game extremely similar to Starsiege - Tribes. It has beautiful 3D graphics and supports online play with 30+ players in a match. The engine used in this game is called the Torque Game Engine and is created by some of the original authors of Tribes.
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Nexuiz is a 3D FPS based off of the Quake 1 source code. They have added realtime lighting and shadowing, new particle effects, and an advanced menu system, among other things. It currently has several different game modes: deathmatch, CTF, Teamplay, Runematch, and Domination.
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PokerTH is a Texas Hold'em game where you can play online against other people (for free, no betting real money) or by yourself against up to six computer controlled opponents. The artificial intelligence is pretty good and has improved with the last few releases, but it rarely trys to bluff and is not easily bluffed by you. I think PokerTH is probably one of the best computer card game I have played. Check out Linux.com's review.
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Frets on Fire is a Guitar Hero style game where you hold your keyboard like a guitar and play. It also support guitar controllers and songs from Guitar Hero 1 and 2. The game has great graphics that feel highly polished like a commercial game. More songs can be downloaded from Keyboards on Fire and FretsOnFire.net.
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Alien Arena is yet another multiplayer FPS based off of the Quake 2 / Quake 3 GPL'ed source code. Alien Arena 2007 has many graphical effects and features include AI bots, alternate fire modes for weapons, a grappling hook, a built-in server browser, game mutators like vampire and regen, and multiple game types including CTF and Deathball. The game has a sort of 50's era sci-fi look, but it plays just like every other Quake based shooter out there.
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Knight Online is a MMORPG that is fully 3D and has outstanding graphics for a freeware game. You can form a party with other players and fight monsters to level your character or complete quests. You can choose to be either an Orc or Human, and they occasionally have wars between the two species.
There seems to be different versions of this game. The one I listed is USKO, the United States version. Others exist and for the most part are the same, with slight differences in prices of items and experience from killing beasts. Play whatever one you want, because it is the same game, but know that your character will not port to another server.
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Celestia is a space simulation program. You can zoom in on planets and asteroids to see incredibly accurate detail and zoom out to see the entire galaxy. Until space travel becomes a reality, this is the best way to explore. Also try the Nasa's Celestia Exploration Activity.
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Starsiege - Tribes is a online FPS was huge back in the day. Now it has dated graphics, but it still fun to play. This game really kicked off the online capture the flag syndrome that almost every other online FPS has imitated ever since.
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Warzone 2100 is a real-time strategy game released by Eidos Interactive under the open source GPL license in 2004. It has nice pseudo-3D graphics, a multiplayer mode, and is quite fun to play. The game is similar to Earth2150.
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TripleA is an open source clone of the Axis and Allies board game. It is written in Java and has fully functional AI. I have been watching this game for quite a while and I am very impressed with the progress the developers have made. I am finally able to enjoy a game that I remember fondly from my childhood.
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Dink Smallwood is probably one of the funniest adventure games I have ever played. It is an adventure game where you play the sarcastic hero. They used to sell this game but now they give it away as freeware.
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Dungeon Runners is a free to play, fast paced point and click MMORPG with premium content from NCSoft, the makers of Guild Wars. They have done a fairly good job of putting humor into the game, which shows up in the NPC dialog and even the names of items (such as cardboard sword). The graphics and movement of the game remind me of World of Warcraft but the combat is much more like Diablo.
You can be a fighter, ranger, or mage. You start in towns full of other players and then go solo or as a party into a instanced dungeon (meaning it only exists for you and your party, you will not run into other players) just like Guild Wars. The problem with this game is that the game seemed like just an advertisement for a premium membership. I don't mind free-to-play games offering premium content for a price, but I just don't like how NCSoft always puts it in your face in this game.
Please note: You must activate this game at the NCSoft store.
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Cube is a FPS that is similar to Quake. It features OpenGL, single/multiplayer, a physics engine, lighting, built in map editor, etc. The map editor can even have multiple people in a multiplayer game editing the map at once.
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XaoS is not a game but an incredibly fun waste of time. It is a real-time fractal viewer. What does that mean? It means you can explore colorful mathematical equations with interactive zooming, color cycling, a 3D filter, and more. Trippy.
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SWINE is an RTS game where the pigs and rabbits fight it out in the World War 2 era. Good graphics and level design make this game well worth the download.
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Grand Theft Auto is the game that put Rockstar on the map, spawned several sequels, and sparked a lot of controversy. You are a gangster who steals cars and kills people for points. As you can tell, not much has changed from the newer games (which is a good thing). The game is played from a top-down perspective while you run through Liberty City, Vice City, and San Andreas (sound familiar?) causing mayham and destruction for points.
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