There have only been a few so-called “first person shooter” games which I have played extensively. Heretic, Doom and Quake II are certainly my favorites. Although I don’t play many games at all these days when I do I almost inevitably play one of these classics which I prefer to their more modern counterparts. Of course I was thrilled to learn that Quake II Evolved has continued the development of Quake II in an open source framework. QIIe has some sweet looking graphics that can take advantage of the leaps in video hardware made since Quake II first came out.

If you enjoy playing simulation games as mush as I do (yes, once upon a time I spent hours and hours playing SimCity 2000, SimFarm, SimIsle and more) you might enjoy OpenTTD. Once upon a time Microprose (of Civilization) fame published a game entitled Transport Tycoon and later came out with a Deluxe version. Apparently the game has rabid fans and that popularity led to an unofficial patch (TTDPatch) which fixed some of the bugs left by Microprose when the game was abandoned. Since that time much of the game has been reworked as OpenTTD. OpenTTD includes numerous feature and usability enhancements. Running OpenTTD requires the original graphics files from Transport Tycoon Deluxe, but they shouldn’t be too hard for you to locate on the internet if you are unable to obtain a copy of the original game. Being open source means that OpenTTD can and has been ported to almost any operating system so you should have no problem finding a machine to run it on.