Category Archives: Games

Wasteland 2 Director’s Cut

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I’m playing Wasteland 2 Director’s Cut (WL2DC) on Arch Linux these days and enjoying it immensely. Wasteland 2 is a classic RPG with a strong story and loads of character customization. The new and improved graphics in the DC version are quite appealing and for the most the interface changes are beneficial with the notable exception of the trading screen.

One issue I was having though is with the game crashing or locking up. After checking the WL2 forums, it looks the issue may be related to the soft and hard ulimits. By default, in Arch Linux these are set to 1024 for the soft limit and 4096 for the hard limit. Unfortunately it looks like WL2 is reading a lot of files and requires a higher limit. I ended up setting the soft limit to 4096 and the hard limit to 8092 and the game seems much more stable.

Interestingly setting the limits in /etc/security/limits.conf had no effect at all, after exercising some google-foo I found bug #46490 in Arch open for this with the workaround to set the default nofile limit in the /etc/system/system.conf which worked for me but is mighty annoying.

Victor Vran on Linux

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victorvranI’ve been playing Victor Vran lately on Arch Linux, it’s an excellent action RPG that works great on Linux. I’m playing it on my laptop using the discrete Nivdia GPU (860m) via Bumblebee with no issues at all. Visually the game is impressive with plenty of effects. Controller support is top notch, using my PS3 controller with bluetooth and no issues as all.

I like the way the game plays and character development is quite interesting, there are no skills rather the type of build you have is determined by what outfits, weapons, destiny cards and powers you have equipped. If you want to try a different build type then just swap items around, no worrying about making a mistake choosing the wrong skill.

Highly recommended, get it on Steam, currently 10% off.

 

 

PS4 Controller and PC

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I do a lot of traveling for my job and one thing I enjoy doing on the road is gaming on my laptop. While the keyboard and mouse works great for many games sometimes nothing beats a controller. I also prefer a wireless controller so that I can connect the laptop to the hotel TV if so desired for some bigger screen gaming. So the question is, what is the best wireless controller out there for the road warrior who wants to do some PC gaming?

In my opinion the answer is the PS4 controller. It has a number of advantages over other controllers including that it is wireless (bluetooth) and uses the same standard micro USB connector as an Android phone thereby cutting down on cables. It has all the same buttons as the 360 controller and can mimic it flawlessly on Windows and Linux with third party help.

I previously tried the Logitech F710 wireless controller but it has batteries that needed constant replacing plus requires a dongle. The wireless 360 controller is excellent, but it has a non-standard charging connector and also requires a dongle.

On Windows, I use DS4Tool to get the PS4 controller to mimic the 360 controller. On Linux, I’m using the ds4drv for the odd time a game requires a 360 controller (looking at you Dead Island).

In short, I highly recommend the PS4 controller, give it a try and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown on Arch

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Just a quick mention of the fact that XCOM: Enemy Unknown is now available on Linux. While the developers say only Ubuntu is officially supported it works great on Arch as well. Picked this up during the Steam summer sale and have to say this is an excellent native port unlike the disaster that is Witcher 2, great job Feral, take a bow!