Spring

Spring is a 3D real-time strategy game based on the game Total Annihilation (TA). The game is open-source and has several maps/mods available for download. Unfortunately, to use the mods based on the original TA, you must own a copy of TA itself. In this case, Spring is not free.

The game has great graphics. The effects are marvelous and the unit detail is quite good. Most of all however, the explosions are cool. This is a vital aspect in any game and a game with good explosions is a good game indeed. It allows different overlays of the map, highlighting terrain or resources. There's even a follow mode to put the camera right behind a unit while it's moving along. Finally, game allows for "doodles" to be made, letting players draw strategies on the map that their allies can see (or you can draw happy faces, like we did).

There are a few drawbacks to the game. The first problem was with installation, to install you need to separately download at least one map and at least one mod (these don't come with the game) and if you want to have the TA content you'll need to get that too. We'd think that the game would come with several maps, however this was not the case.
The second problem came when we tried to play the game. At the start you choose a script to run and when you pick the right one (Commander) you can play, otherwise a lot of them are tests. Eventually we figured out how to play, hopefully this will be something that becomes easier with time.

Main Page: http://spring.clan-sy.com/
Download: Download Page
Ubuntu: Available through Synaptic.