Oh great, another addiction: OpenRA

I’ve said before I’m not a huge gamer, but this is really great stuff.

I was never a giant Red Alert fan; I played it enough times to have a few fond memories, but not anything that would cause a crying fit.

On the other hand, OpenRA is a fantastic rendition. Sound effects, graphics and game play are all subtle mimics of what I remember from the original game.

It is, however, obviously a work in progress. Some of the sophisticated units, for example, are labeled “TODO,” and here and there debug messages pop up. And I don’t remember attack dogs chewing up concrete walls.

And it needs a few embellishments that seem lacking, given RTS games in the current day and age. Just to illustrate, it would be nice to have some patrol commands, or grouping functions. I can’t seem to find those.

But none of that impedes an otherwise exceptional game, even in this early state. And Arch users in particular can rejoice: For once, a downloadable package specific to the distro.