Best free (and open-source) FPS games

Whilst first person shooters are mainly confined to the console, several good FPS games are available for PC. I’m nothing more than a casual gamer but I enjoy shooters and I was surprised by the sheer number available. I use a Mac, so this article will primarily focus on cross-platform shooters.

AssaultCube

AssaultCube is a quite simple 3D FPS available for Linux, OS X and Windows, which just reached version 1.0 about a week ago. The graphics are not very advanced, but a benefit of this is that it’s easier to run a server and that it can run on nearly any machine.

The best aspect of AssaultCube is the online play; there’s always a few busy servers available where one can play capture the flag, deathmatches or variations on those modes. AssaultCube is limited to seven weapons: sniper rifle, assault rifle, handgun, grenades, knives, shotgun and submachine guns.

Maps can be created for AssaultCube quite easily.

Sauerbraten

Sauerbraten is an FPS built on the same engine on which AssaultCube is built but has much more sophisticated graphics and is built in a fantasy world as opposed to a real one.

In Sauerbraten, weapons include crossbows, guns and rocketlaunchers. This is definitely a more interesting variety than AssaultCube! Once again, CTF and deathmatch are popular game modes.

The game notably lacks a crouch mechanism and struggles to run at higher resolutions on my MacBook Pro. However, it is an amazing open-source game with many fantastic maps.

Once again, Sauerbraten is orientated towards online pay but the CPU games are much better than AssaultCube’s.

Interestingly, the game can also be played as a 3rd person shooter!

Nexuiz

Nexuiz is an FPS with quite fictional weapons, like electricity guns etc. The game clearly belongs in the realms of fantasy, being set on a space station where one must shoot aliens.

I find the game difficult to play. Movement is far too fast compared to Cube engine games and it really does require quick reflexives.

The game isn’t smooth either. Before a game starts, there’s a text-only screen telling me what is loading etc. and the menu at the start looks terrible, especially at my screen resolution.

It’s still a fantastic game to play, however.

AssaultCube

Sauerbraten

Nexuiz

Needless to say there’s scores of other good games, these are just my favourite free (as in beer and freedom) shooters.

Best free (and open-source) FPS games

Tags: assaultcube, computer games, first person shooter, fps, free-games, freeware, Games, linux games, mac games, nexuiz, Open Source, sauerbraten, shooter, video-games, windows games

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That’s What I Call Shiny: A Chrome Bugatti

In zomg

We’ve seen chromed cars in the past, but quite frankly (can I call you Frankly?), those just were’nt as shiny as this Bugatti Veyron. Maybe they went for the economy chrome job, but whatever the case, they lacked the mirror-like sheen of this summabitch. I mean, you could snort drugs off the hood of this thing. You know, or a CD case. But if you are doing your drugs off the back of a cracked CD case, chances are you probably don’t have the money to be doing drugs. And your connection probably sucks. I guess what I’m getting at is this: you’re snorting laxatives. Hit the jump for four more of the shiny-shiny.

Lunascape Is Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer Rolled Into One [Featured Windows Early Adopter Download]

Windows only: Free application Lunascape is a web browser capable of running any of the three major web rendering engines—Gecko (Firefox), WebKit (Safari/Chrome), and Trident (Internet Explorer). That means that each time you open a new tab or follow a link, you can tell Lunascape which engine you want to use to render the page. The idea, in theory, is that Lunascape gives you the benefits of each popular browser in one. For example, Lunascape gives you IE support for the few IE-only sites still out there and no-nonsense speed from WebKit or Gecko.

You can switch which engine is rendering the current tab at any time by right-clicking the tab and selecting the engine you want. The browser itself supports plug-ins, but from what I can tell it doesn’t support just any Firefox extension, which is unfortunate. Despite the indisputably cool feature set (namely the whole three-browsers-in-one hook), Lunascape is a little unwieldy and very cluttered. To be fair, though, it’s currently an alpha release, which means you should expect a lot of rough edges.

If you’re a web developer and you want to quickly check how a site will look in each engine Lunascape might be a winner, but I can’t picture very broad adoption of this kitchen sink browser as is. Lunascape is a free download, Windows only. If you give it a try, let’s hear what you think in the comments.

Foxit Reader 3.0 Released

By Ryan on Performance

Windows only
Adobe has struggled with the performance of Acrobat Reader for quite some time, and that’s the main reason I’ve always found myself using the free Foxit Reader. Plus the fact that they’ve always offered the PDF reader as a standalone executable has meant that I can carry around the application on my USB drive. In the end, however, it all comes down to the fact that I can start Foxit in under 2 seconds.

The best part is that they keep making the software better and better. The latest release, Foxit Reader 3.0, includes Firefox support, an improved selection tool, a thumbnail panel, and more. You can find a full list of what’s new here, but these are the ones I wanted to highlight:

• Enticing Multimedia Design
  Now users can not only play multimedia in Foxit Reader, but also are empowered to add, edit or delete multimedia files with the incredible Movie Tool and Sound Tool.
• Thumbnail Panel
  Shows thumbnail images for each PDF page and allows users to quickly view relevant portions of a PDF file. Now users can navigate through PDFs with page thumbnails.
• Layout Panel
  Lists PDF layers in the document, allows users to control the display of some certain content areas.
• Awe-Inspiring Foxit OnDemand Content Management
  This new add-on enables users to organize, share and collaborate on documents and forms online. Users can upload from Foxit Reader or send documents with ease. Advanced features include workflow driven document sharing, revisions of documents, CollabRoom for group collaboration.
• Firefox Support
  With Firefox Plugin, users can view and work with PDF files loaded in Foxit Reader with Firefox web browser.
• Improved Select Text Tool
  Not only used for selecting text, but also enables users to add most types of annotations, including highlight, strikeout, underline, squiggly, replacement, etc.
• Better Annotation Control
  Allows users to align and center multiple annotations on PDF pages, including Notes, Drawing Markups and Typewriter Comments.
• Advanced Toolbar Control
  Completely rearranges the toolbar layout and allows users to easily customize the tools that appear in Foxit Reader.
• Transferrable preferencesSettings
  Foxit Reader creates an INI file to save user’s preferences settings so that it can be easily kept and transferred. Users can keep their own settings and don’t have to configure them when Foxit Reader is updated or moved.

Get Foxit Reader 3.0 for Windows

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Foxit Reader 3.0 Released

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