Fine Wine

Games that age like a fine wine — a museum for the last days of man-made games.

Why this section exists

Many people install Linux these days for one big reason: local AI. Linux is simply better than Windows for Python and AI work — the installations are cleaner, the tools are native, and the whole ecosystem assumes you. But here is the thing nobody tells you: local AI work means waiting. A picture render takes hours. A model download takes an evening. The machine is busy being brilliant, and you are sitting there with nothing to do. You need a game.

And there the road gets bumpy: Windows is still far more popular for games than Linux. The answer is Wine, the compatibility layer that lets Windows games run on Linux — and when it works, it works beautifully. But which games work? How well? What combination of settings, graphics drivers and patience does each one need? That is what this section tests, one game at a time, each for a few days of real play.

Why "Fine Wine"

In English, something that ages like a fine wine keeps its value as the years pass — it gets better, not worse. That is exactly the kind of game we test here: AAA games — the high-production-cost, high-quality titles — that even a few years old still look and play beautifully. Red Dead Redemption 2 is from 2018, and it still outclasses most of what came after it. Good work does not expire.

The museum, and the Holodeck that is coming

This section is also something bigger than game reviews. It is a memorial.

I am sure that very soon we will have something like the Holodeck from Star Trek: people hooked on making their own fantasies with BIG AI, on the fly, in real time — simulations of real life, built as you watch, totally customized for you personally, probably in VR with special glasses, the whole experience streamed to you. Think of 3-D YouTube, but you create the video on the fly — kind of vibe-coding a game during the same time that you play it. The technology is already here, and I am sure it will become affordable too. And instead of people today getting addicted to alcohol, they will be addicted to the Holodeck.

So this is a museum for the innocent era that is in its last days: games made by human hands — by artists, writers, musicians and engineers who spent years crafting every detail for everyone, not generated in seconds for one person. Every game reviewed here is a exhibit in that museum. Play them while they are still the present.

The collection: each entry is one popular AAA game, tested for real on Linux through Wine, with the exact recipe that made it run — so you can do the same on your machine while your local AI works. The first entry is below. New entries will be added as games are tested.

Entry 1 — Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)

First tested: 2026-09-10 · Release tested: jc141 offline dump · Machine: Linux Mint 22, NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti, 64 GB RAM

Installed and running. Full review after a few days of play.

What this is: Rockstar's open-world western from 2018 — a game widely considered one of the most detailed human-made worlds ever built. Even years after release it looks and plays beautifully, which is exactly the "fine wine" idea.

The recipe that made it run (Linux Mint 22, from a clean machine):

The one-time slow start: the very first launch spends a long while building the game's shader cache (a black screen or no window for many minutes is normal — do not panic and do not kill it). Every later launch is fast. If a Wine Mono question pops up, click Install.

Notes so far: the game starts while the machine is also running a local AI image render on the same GPU — they share it peacefully, which is the whole point of this section: the AI works, you play. Gameplay impressions will be added here after a few days in the saddle.