Extra games on Steam?

[MonkeyBoy]

I have been using steam to run Half Life, CS, DoD, etc for a while now but I have often wondered which other games available from steam actually work on Ubuntu.

I'm more interested in the stuff that has free demos downloadable as my hardware is a bit dated so I need to test games before buying, just to make sure my system can take it.

Are any of you using steam for anything beyond HL/HL2?

[gwoodard]

What is Steam

[MonkeyBoy]

Steam is a windows app from Valve that is a sort of game download manager. My reason for using it is that I have an old copy of HalfLife and if I install Steam, then type in the serial key from my HalfLife disk it will download HalfLife and a load of other games which the serial key allows me to have.

My question is based on the fact that there are lots of games which you can buy and download through Steam but I don't know which other ones actually work. I suppose I could just download a bunch of demos but that would take ages so I hoped some forum guys could suggest working games.

[gwoodard]

Okay... if you go to the valve/steam website and click support (if you haven't did this yet) there is a list of game compatible with steam (boatload of games... trust me):D

[mancxvi]

He's not asking whether other games are supported in Steam, he's asking whether they have any issues in Wine. The Steam client runs in Wine without a hitch, as do all the Half-Life games through Steam. The question is which games offered through the Steam client that aren't Half-Life will actually run.

For example (this is what brought me to this thread in the first place): Vampire Bloodlines is offered through Steam, but the only version tested on WineHQ failed because of a cd check that would not be present in the Steam version. Nobody there has tested the Steam version, so I have no idea whether or not it would work and my purchasing decision hinges on whether or not it would run.

[gwoodard]

oops... thanks for the tip (misunderstood the question)

[FoolsGold_MKII]

It varies. Since I had a lot of Steam games before moving to Linux, I can tell you my experiences:

The games made by Valve, being as popular as they are, have very good support in WINE, so anything using the GoldSrc engine (i.e. original Half-Life, Counter Strike 1.6, TFC, Day of Defeat, etc) work pretty much the same. Source engine games have gotten a lot of attention, and while the newer stuff like HL2: Episode 1 won't allow HDR effects in WINE, it should still run if HL2 runs.

Now, games from Introversion (i.e. Darwinia/Uplink/Defcon) all have Linux native versions now, so it's a bettter idea to get these games direct from Introversion's site than off Steam. Red Orchestra can be made to run with OpenGL, which works rather well in Linux.

The rest of the games vary. Keep in mind that very few of the games in Steam are Steam-exclusive, and you'll probably be able to find a demo either on Steam or a regular download elsewhere, so there are plenty of ways to test if the game will work in WINE without having to waste your money needlessly. If the demos work, the Steam version should work as well.