After a hard day at work, you decide to relax and play a nice game on your Linux system. As you don’t want anything too complex that could require a lot of attention, you decide to find a game that’s simple and fun to play. That’s when you decide to have some fun with Tux, sliding him down the mountains, catching fish, and performing tricks. Enter Extreme Tux Racer!
Genre: Racing / Adventure
Gameplay
I guess, after SuperTux, this would be the most popular game on the Linux platform. Tux Racer is simple and very entertaining to play. Here, you control Tux as it slides on the mountain, to catch as many herrings as possible. Also, you will have to finish the race in time, or you lose. Moreover, the game needs you to jump over glaciers, glide in the waters and also perform ‘tricks’.
As with any coin, this one has another side too. Changing video resolutions screwed up the alignments. The game was also a bit buggy since it got me stuck into the mountains thrice in a row (probably punishing me for racing Tux over everything I possibly could). Moreover, the model of Tux could be made a bit more realistic. It seemed very plasticky, in the game.
If you want to see who worked on Extreme Tux Racer, so you can enjoy the game, you should click on “Credits”. This will also show you what version of ETR you’re running and a short info about it. After you satisfy your curiosity about the persons behind ETR, you should go through “Configuration” and set the game to fit you. The menu is not so well organized, which I’m sure you’ll also notice. For example, we have “Graphics” and “Video”. It would have been nice if there was only one category for graphics. Another thing that seemed odd was the fact that the user had to select the language of the game from “Graphics”. From “Video” you can change your resolution as well as the color depth and you can enable FSAA (Full-Scene Anti-Aliasing). If you enable this option – and if your card supports it – you will enjoy a much smoother gameplay. Also, you will notice that everything looks much better after you select FSAA.
I think it’s somewhat hard to find which track is designed for a beginner and which one is for an expert. There’s nothing in the menu to select the difficulty level, but there’s a way to differentiate which of the tracks are harder: those that are not available from the start of the game seem to be for experienced users. For every track, you have a limited number of tries – or lives – to complete it and advance to the next one.
this isn't the best racing game around
try
supertuxkart
if you havent already
you'll love it