Softpedia News - Linux software reviews

Cogs Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:31:01 GMT

Cogs is not your run of the mill puzzle and this will become immediately obvious to anyone who plays it. Puzzle games are now popping out on every corners of the Internet and it’s becoming harder and harder to find a proper one, but Cogs seems to fit comfortably in this overcrowded market.

Before reviewing Cogs we must notice a nice trend, but that is also kinda di... (read more)

DVDStyler 2.1 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:21:01 GMT

There was a time when people were preoccupied with DVD authoring, and I was one of them, trying to create more and more elaborated menus and covers. It became somehow a lot less important over the years, but after trying DVDStyler I feel the urge to start all over again.

Before going into details about DVDStyler, we must explain what DVD authoring actually is. It'... (read more)

Google Chrome 18 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Mon, 7 May 2012 14:11:00 GMT

Google Chrome is the new kid on the block, in regard to the other heavy hitters on the market, but it's the richest one. It's backed up by one of largest corporations on the planet and it became an important player in a very short time.

We can't question the Google's decision to develop its own browser, especially since it has the most popular search engine... (read more)

Mozilla Firefox 12.0 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:50:00 GMT

The world of Internet browsers is going crazy, and Mozilla is right up there holding the flag of craziness with Google. We reviewed Firefox 4.0 only one year ago and now it's already at version 12.0. Is it true that the higher the version number, the better the software? Or it's just a psychological maneuver?

A year ago the community was redding itself for the... (read more)

Stellarium 0.11.2 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 14:31:01 GMT

Stellarium is a one of a kind software that provides more than just a simple rendering of the night sky, as it can also illustrate our space dreams, and because we cannot yet go to the stars, we can make the stars come to us.

Stellarium was initially developed by Fabien Chéreaum, back in 2001, so it's safe to say it has quite a history. Over time, the projec... (read more)

Snuggle Truck Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Mon, 9 Apr 2012 14:31:01 GMT

Snuggle Truck is a game with quite a history and it’s interesting to watch indie games become controversial and funny at the same time.

Snuggle Truck is developed by Owlchemy Labs and so far it has managed to gather millions of downloads, on all available platforms, without mentioning the recent port to Linux.

Before reviewing the game... (read more)

Swords & Soldiers Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Mon, 2 Apr 2012 13:45:00 GMT

Swords & Soldiers is a tower defense game, mixed with some strategy and lots of humor. Its genre can’t be pinpointed precisely and at the same time it’s not any of the aforementioned ones.

The game has a convoluted history and I mention this because it has some bearings on why Swords & Soldiers turn out the way it did and why this is a gr... (read more)

Zen Bound 2 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 22:50:00 GMT

Zen Bound 2 is a game that is hard to explain to other people. You can’t really describe the gameplay mechanism without sounding a little sadistic. Nevertheless, Zen Bound 2 is one of the most interesting games to be found on the Linux platform and probably on any other platform, for that matter.

Zen Bound 2 is the very definition of an indie game. Sec... (read more)

qBittorrent 2.9.5 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 09:11:01 GMT

qBittorrent is a torrent client that aims to provide a real alternative to one of the most famous sharing applications, µTorrent. It's refreshing to see that the developers of qBittorrent don't hide behind words and admit that they are trying to build a software around a proven recipe.

qBittorrent is built based on the Qt4 toolkit and libtorrent-rasterbar; t... (read more)

Clementine 1.0.1 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Mon, 5 Mar 2012 11:11:02 GMT

Clementine is a free and open source music player built with one foot in the past and the other in the future. It represents what music players should be and not what they have become in the past years, with the advent of multimedia complete alternatives.

I have a confession to make. Ever since I switched to Ubuntu a few years ago, I tried to get rid of the music players Canonical selects for its operating system, first Rythmbox, then Banshee. I find them cumbersome and with a lot ... (read more)

VLC 2.0.0 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:48:00 GMT

VideoLAN Media Player, or just simply VLC, is a software designed to run all kinds of media files, ranging from simple DVDs, to video and audio files, and even online streams. It is a very popular choice for Linux users, and the new version just raised the bar.

VLC stands for VideoLan Client and its developers are gathered under the name of "The VideoLan Project". Most pe... (read more)

Desura 110.22 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:01:01 GMT

Desura is a name that is going to come up a lot more often in the future, mainly because it's practically the only digital distribution platform for Linux games that presents itself in a commercial, but friendly manner.

Sure, there are other options to buy games or to just download Linux games. Ubuntu Software Center is such a place, but that's a service focused on sof... (read more)

Oil Rush Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:55:00 GMT

Oil Rush is an interesting strategy game that has a twist in the gameplay, combining simple RTS action with a tower defense flavor. It’s not hard to like it and to admire what the developers have managed to accomplish with the engine.

The game was created by the Unigine Corp studio and it’s using the Unigine technology. Maybe these names are not too fam... (read more)

Vuze 4.7.0.2 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:55:00 GMT

Vuze is a BitTorrent client that can be used to download torrent files. It uses the Azureus engine and it's one of the most used applications of its type on the Linux platform.

We reviewed other BitTorrent clients, like Transmission, and when you get to the basic level, all the applications are basically identical. They offer the same type of options, the only ... (read more)

Gratuitous Space Battles Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:01:01 GMT

Gratuitous Space Battles is a game that refuses to fall in any given category. It's developed by Positech Games, a company from United Kingdom, that also did both Kudos games (1 and 2), Rock Legend (an RPG/life-sim/Tycoon game) and Democracy 2 (a political strategy game).

Their pedigree couldn't be more varied. It's no wonder that when they've chosen ... (read more)

Jamestown: Legend Of The Lost Colony Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 03:31:02 GMT

Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony is a top down shooter game developed by Final Form Games which tries to emulate older games, from 20 years ago. In an era when all the games are about glamor and nice graphics, Jamestown is all about gameplay and fun.

The arcade games were practically a second home in my youth and shooters like... (read more)

Shank Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 08:31:02 GMT

Shank is 2D beat-em-up aimed at a mature audience. It was produced by Klei Entertainment and initially was only available on consoles, but eventually it made its way onto the PC, and now, with the help of Humble Indie Bundle, on Linux platforms.

There aren't many games like Shank available today. Once upon a time, titles like Final Fight and others before it u... (read more)

Gish 1.6.1 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:35:00 GMT

Gish it's a not so popular game released back in the 2004 by Chronic Logic studio and developed by Alex Austin, Edmund McMillen and Josiah Pisciotta. It can be considered that Gish is the hipster of the indie game universe, being probably one of the first games of its type to be developed with melancholy initiative in mind.

As most indie games, melancholy is very importa... (read more)

digiKam 2.4.1 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:11:00 GMT

An era of technology is upon us and now we take more pictures in one day then our parents took in 20 years. They had perhaps one picture album, maybe two, for their entire lives. Today, we take so many pictures in half a day, but they need sorting and this is were applications such as digiKam comes into play.

According to the developers, digiKam is a KDE applica... (read more)

Blocks that Matter 1.0.0.8 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Mon, 5 Dec 2011 08:01:00 GMT

Blocks that Matter is a puzzle adventure game that is built for people with lots of free time and have a huge brain that remains largely unused during the day. Gamers need to be relaxed and on top of their game, in oder to play Blocks that Matter.

It's not a really hard game, bu the nature of the puzzles means that there is a lot of trial and error... (read more)

Voxatron 0.1.6 Alpha Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:00:00 GMT

Voxatron is not like other games. It doesn't conform to what the market wants. It's like the cool kid who wares cool clothes before they become cool.

Voxatron is developed by Lexaloffle Games and it features no particular story. It's just a reson to have fun, although sometimes I wonder why are independent developers so determined to alienate users by impl... (read more)

The Binding of Isaac Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:00:00 GMT

The Binding of Isaac is a 2D action game which features generated levels. It takes its inspiration from a bunch of other games, released 15 years ago, but in the end it delivers an experience that surpasses the imagination of most gamers.

The game is developed by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl, the first one best known for Super Meat Boy, and the other... (read more)

Calibre 0.8.24 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Mon, 7 Nov 2011 11:01:02 GMT

Calibre is an eBook management software that is almost without equal, on any platform that runs it. A few years ago nobody could anticipate that eBooks will take our lives completely, but the rise of eBook readers and the fact that most books are cheaper in digital form, proves that it was inevitable for someone to take matters in his own hands and develop something that c... (read more)

Wine 1.3.31 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:30:00 GMT

Wine is a miraculous software that aims to provide Linux users the “luxury” of running Windows software. There are other ways to run this type of software, like in a virtual machine, but doing so requires a powerful computer and a genuine Windows copy.

The work that goes into Wine to make Windows developed applications run under Linux is immense. The develope... (read more)

Hedgewars 0.9.15 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Wed, 5 Oct 2011 10:01:02 GMT

Everybody remembers the games from our childhood with great pleasure. There was a time when the Internet was almost a luxury and few people actually had a subscription that allowed them to be permanently online.

That is the reason why Internet-cafe joints were so popular and why so many games we played there were actually single player titles, with multiplayer suppor... (read more)

PiTiVi 0.15 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:01:02 GMT

Non linear video editing on the Linux platform is a very difficult goal to achieve. Edward Hervey, the creator of PiTiVi, has said in the past that the lack of cohesion between the applications and the libraries is the reason why Linux is not the principal platform for multimedia editing.

Edward Hervey also worked on GStreamer, the multimedia engine behind a lot of... (read more)

Transmission 2.33 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:35:00 GMT

We live in an era when torrents have become a lot more mainstream. Just a few years back, people viewed trackers and torrent files with mistrust, but with the evolution of broadband Internet and with more an more people logging on every day, torrents have become a necessity.

It’s no wonder there are a lot of torrent clients available for the Linux platform, ... (read more)

Warzone 2100 2.3.8 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:40:00 GMT

Warzone 2100 is an open source real time strategy game, with a long history. There aren't many RTS games on the Linux platform and you might think that any title would fill this void. Unfortunately, just because this type of games are few and far between, it's not a guaranty that any of them will be any good, as will see with this rendition of Warzone.

The g... (read more)

Tab Mix Plus 0.3.8.6 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Thu, 8 Sep 2011 14:01:01 GMT

Mozilla develops one of the best and most annoying browsers in the world. We’re talking of course about Firefox. Even if now it has reached version 6.0, it still lacks some basic features. Some browser purists will say that Mozilla has left all the customizing in the hands of the third-party developers, but I think is just laziness on their part.

This is whe... (read more)

Battle for Wesnoth 1.8.6 Review

Softpedia News (Silviu Stahie) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 14:00:00 GMT

Immersive games are far and between on the Linux platform. Fortunately for us, Battle of Wesnoth is a jewel and not too many people know what a great game they could be playing right now. Maybe it's not the best looking game out there, but it is probably one of the most interesting and captivating games that can be installed in a Linux distribution.

Be... (read more)