Artificial Cheese

Yeah, games! I love video games, I would play them all day if I could. Sometimes I can. Sometimes I run out of games to play and I ravage the internet for anything and everything that could be considered a game. I even downloaded a spreadsheet manager once because it had good graphics.

I’ve come across more full free games on the internet than you could fit in John Travolta’s chin-canyon.  I figured, if I spend time looking for games to download on the internet then others probably do too. So I will compile my information related to downloadable games here for anyone who wants to get their kicks for free.

Abandonware

Do you ever wonder what happens to all of those great games that fly under the radar and wither away?  They’re called abandonware, and as much as companies want to stop people from distributing them, there is no good reason to do so.  It would cost more to stop them than to let the distribution of abandonware continue.

Thereforth befit websites like Home of the Underdogs, Abandonia, and XTC Abandonware.  These sites offer many of the old classics that have been forgotten and left for dead.  Not all of these games are good, and not all of them will be run easily (ie DOS games).  Some of them will require console emulators and most will require a lot of patience.  If you’re willing to throw away your demands for high-tech graphics and cutting edge technological advances in gaming, then give these sites a quick run-through.

Trackmania Nations

There is nothing to hate about this game.  It looks good, runs smooth, and cuts right down to the core of whats fun about racing games.  There is a gigantic, world-wide fanbase to make multiplayer worthwhile, and hundreds of tracks running on hundreds of servers.  The best part is that it’s free. 

Go to the Trackmania Nations site to download (the download link is a part of the header image, a little hard to spot).  You won’t regret it.

Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto 2

By this point, everyone and their reluctant mothers have played Grand Theft Auto 3; its the grand-daddy of open ended action games that spawned off a bunch of copies.  But who’s the grand-daddy daddy?  The GREAT grand daddy?

If you’ve never played the original GTA or slightly nicer GTA2, then here is your chance.  Rockstar Games has politely surrendered these games to the public for free as a part of their Rockstar Classics program.  Head over to the Rockstar Classics page and you can snag Wild Metal Country for free while you’re there.

America’s Army

Technically, your tax dollars already paid for this game, so it is your responsibility as an American to download this game and play it at least once.  The US Army decided that the group most worth targetting as recruits were out-of-shape greasy teenage boys that play video games all day.  So they hired a developer to make a free video game to simulate real life army combat.

After playing this game for 10 minutes online you’ll realize that it does a poor job of capturing real-life in any sense.  It might be that you can die a hundred times and come back to life.  Regardless of purpose, this is the highest quality game that is available for free online…legally.  Go to the official America’s Army site to download the game.  The download is huge (2.5GB) but worthwhile if you’ve got a few hours to kill.

F.E.A.R. Combat

If you even remotely follow the world of video games (which, oddly enough, is under a rock), you surely have heard of F.E.A.R., one of the most graphically intesive games ever released.  Its a pleasure to look at if you’ve got a computer that can handle it at high quality.  Its also fun to play when the graphics settings are turned down.

The people that released the game thought that it might be a good idea to release a multiplayer version of the game online for free.  While this may have been a questionable business decision, it is great for those of us who want to play a game but don’t want to drive to the store to get one.  The procedure to get this running is a bit complicated because even if the game downloaded, you need a CD-Key to idenify yourself before you can play.  You can grab both the download (1.75GB) and the CD-Key from the F.E.A.R. Combat site.

Best of the Rest

Here’s a quick rundown of the games that I wanted to list but I’m too tired to type out lengthy descriptions and find screenshots:

• Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory - Developed by Splash Damage.  This was supposed to be an expansion pack but ended up being released as a free stand-alone multiplayer game.
• Hidden and Dangerous Deluxe: Hidden and Dangerous was released in 1999.  World War II, third person action.  Pretty hard, and it was a very buggy release in 1999.  Since then it has been cleaned up a bit.  Pick it up if you’ve tried everything else.
• Starsiege: Tribes - This game is well past its heyday, but still an enjoyable experience.  When it was released it was groundbreaking in terms of multiplayer dynamics.  It can still teach newer games a thing or two about smooth gameplay.
• S.W.I.N.E. - Another one of those cleverly planned acronym names, this one is a real time strategy game that puts the emphasis on stragegy.  Still pretty good looking, but it can be frustrating to control at times.  Still, you get more than you pay for.

The Big List

There are a lot of games that didn’t make this list because I’ve either not played them or found them too bad to even try.  If you want to form your own opinions on these, check out this very useful Wikipedia entry.