Jacob Lludkrab's Personal Weblog.

Sauerbraten(Cube 2) and Nexuiz

Sauerbraten — also known as Cube 2, because it uses the Cube game engine and it’s the newest version, or version 2 — is a game that has a gaming feel similar to Duke Nukem — which I like, but don’t love.

Sauerbraten’s engine is so well made that a flat wall can look bent, dented, sticking out or poking in, just using one texture — like Quake 4. And can render high quality textures and large maps in a matter of seconds.

Now, Nexuiz is a little better at lighting. And its engine is based on the Quake engine — Quake 4 hasn’t been “open-sourced” so — it is based on Quake 3 or “id Tech 3.” And it has graphics on par with id Tech 4, mainly because they more than likely rewrote what id Software did and made a engine very similar to id Tech 4 if not superior.

The problem I have with both of these games is this: The gameplay/gameplay-style. I mean I like Quake and Duke Nukem, but I prefer more tactical games, like war games, like UrbanTerror and True Combat. And I play these games despite their lower graphics. Although, I believe that keeping the game engine lower-end is a great idea — as it allows people with all types of computer hardware to join in and play the game, and playing the game for the concept of the game is the idea isn’t it? — and Sauerbraten is very good at this.

I feel that such great game engines are wasted on these types of games. Or to put it more appropriately; such great game engines are not used to the fullest potential and used sadly mainly by the developers for the developer’s games. The only other game using the Cube engine that I’ve seen is Blood Frontier.

That’s all I gotta say about that.