High Hopes
Awesome Bro
I have now posted this here, and the NMZ. So if you see it elsewhere, tell me so I can baw at them.
LAST UPDATED: October 05, 2009 at 2:21 PM.
This is a topic about freeware games, or commercial games that have been turned into freeware. Post here if you have a comment on a game, or if you have a game to add. This isn't a all-encompassing list of all freeware games independent of quality, but a list of the good freeware games.
Warzone 2100
A terrific RTS game, if there ever was one. During the beginning of the campaign, you start with fuck-all for units. You get a few basic constructors, a few machine gun tanks, and are sent to start your base. As you start your base, you acquire more resource farms(Oil Wells), and must defend them as you go around the map collecting artifacts. Artifacts, in this case, are parts you research to build your units. When I say "build", I mean "build", as you mix and match a multitude of bodies, propulsion systems, and weapons system to create the best unit possible.
Any style of play or plan of attack works here, and is only hampered by your skill, as the multitude of air weapons, long and short range artillery, and the massive amount of weapons and base defenses will keep you and your enemies on the edge.
Link: http://worldforceclan.com/warzone2100/downloads.html
MechCommander 2
A good RTT game based on the BattleTech universe. You assume command of a mercenary company which does missions for the houses in this universe. No base building here, except for instances where you capture bases as part of missions objectives or to have a safe place to retreat(if it's present). The main focus is managing your existing mechs, while occasionally using resource points to call in air strikes, a fixed artillery point, etc. At the end of each mission, your pilots may gain a rank and gain new abilities depending on what they accomplished during the last missions. After each mission, you may also sell captured mechs, buy new ones, customize existing ones, and change your pilot load order.
In addition, the cutscenes are beautifully executed, and definitely add to the atmosphere of the game.
Link: http://www.mechcommander.org/index.php?opt...nc=select&id=10
Facewound:
Facewound is a decent game to play if you're on a break, or are looking to kill an hour or two. It was originally conceived by the minds at Facepunch studios, the team that originally created Garry's mod, the popular mod for Half-Life 2. Originally, Facewound was to be released commercially, but Garry decided to release the latest version for free. It's 3-4 years old, and it's unfinished and unpolished, but I can safely say that I have encountered no errors thus far. It's fairly easy to mod, and the visual effects are tremendous.
Link: http://www.garry.tv/?p=512
Survival Crisis Z
SCZ is a sandboxey Zombie Action RPG that's as tasty as it looks. This is, quite possibly, one of the best Zombie games of all time. You create your character, and then you run around the city as you please, collecting stuff from abandoned stores, doing work for various factions across the city. It can be quite confusing from the beginning, but it's quite easy once you get the hang of it. There's no tutorial, so it's a good idea to read the read-me file at least once before playing.
Link: http://skasoftware.com/
Scorched 3D
Scorched 3D is a re-imagining of Scorched Earth, the original artillery game for DOS, in 3D. For those that don't know what an artillery game is, each side takes turns firing weapons at each other until only one is left standing. There is a vast array of weapons in this game, and they all satisfy.
Link: http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/
Blast Doors/Blast Doors 2
Blast Doors is a 3D artillery game, similar to Scorched 3D. However, it was released ten years ago, originally as retail. However, the networks were making fuck-all for profit, so they folded and these games were released for free. It has very aged graphics, and it doesn't have as many weapons as Scorched 3D, but I've found that it's a little easier to play and has that nostalgic feel to it.
Link: http://www.fiends.com/Index/Blast.jsp
The Ur-Quan Masters
The Ur-Quan Masters(AKA Star Control 2) is a Adventure-Action-RPG that many people, including me, consider to be the quintessence of video games. You are the Captain, who sees it fit to save the universe from an evil race of alien things called the Ur-Quan, a race which is split into two types: the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah and the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za. The tasks you must complete in order to accomplish this goal include talking to other alien species, collecting resources, fighting off evil enemies and those fucking Slylandro Probes, and finding artifacts. The backstory, personality, traits, and conversations are fleshed out greatly in this game. There is literally hours of interactive conversations in this game. If dialog isn't your thing, then maybe space combat is. There are approx. thirty ships in the game, and they all vary widely in terms of abilities and attributes. In addition, the game allows you to configure the layout of the player's ship. However, you don't have to play the campaign. You can play the SuperMelee mode, which allows you to use all ships in the game(Excluding the captain's ship), select which number of them you want on each side, and get to fighting. Play this game now, motherfucker.
Link: http://sc2.sourceforge.net/
Transcendence
Transcendence is a top-down space trading adventure game, with terrific graphics. It's somewhat similar to Flatspace II. In this game, you pick which ship you want to start with, and you are plopped next to a church of the sisters of Domina. It is your goal to get to the galactic core and do something. I haven't gotten that far yet. The first thing you may notice is that each game is different. Yep, random generation is in effect. You may also notice that the game is quite difficult. The rest is what you'd expect. You go to different systems and explore, take up jobs, trade, and run into marauders who are read and willing to fuck your shit up. It's also easily modifiable, and a number of mods have been released. A game that's well done.
Link: http://www.neurohack.com/
GeneRally
GeneRally is a top-down racing game for 1 to 6 racers. It's a crazy good free racing game. You control one of six customizable cars, select tracks, and get to racing. Each can be anywhere from 1 to 100 laps, and there's a season for the six cars that keeps tracks of stats, points, etc. It's also got a pit system for repairing damage caused by your DUI's. Not much more, just a good racing game.
Link: http://generally.rscsites.org/index.shtml
Noctis
Noctis is a space exploring/space flight simulator whose current incarnation was released by an Italian game designer back in 2001. You play the role of an explorer sent to explore the truly massive galaxy in this game. Despite its small size, the galaxy in this game has been reported to be 45,000 light-years in diameter. You are a Felysian piloting a ship known as a Stardrifter, which is fueled by lithium found at S06 Gray Giant stars. As an explorer, you can land on every planet that it is physically possible. It is also possible to name your planets, and send your stats and names back to the GUIDE. These stats include things like biggest tree, most animals, etc. A well done game.
Link: http://anywherebb.com/bb/layout/html/frameset.html
Universal Combat
I think we all know who made this game. This is was made by the flamebait game developer Derek Smart. Some may know of him from his tendency to make rushed and buggy games, then viciously attack anyone who calls his games rushed and buggy. He doesn't like Coke machines either. Well, this game is not the case. It probably has the biggest learning curve of any game in existence, being more akin to a learning brick wall with spikes. Once you get past that, you are left with a massively deep game to play, with a ton of customization options, fleet controls, etc. available to you, the player. You can truly do anything you want to with your ship, with individual tracking for each crew member on your ship, massive weapons control, and fleet control. For instance, it's not enough to launch a fighter or two and have it happen instantly. You have to give your pilots an order to get in the ship, then wait as they leave the crew quarters, go down a few corridors, and enter their ship. In closing, this is not your Sunday project. Only try this game if you have a week or two to burn trying to learn from the 120+ page tutorial.
Link: http://www.3000ad.com/download/
Toribash
Another game with a big learning curve, Toribash is a very strange fighting game. There's not much of a story. Instead, there's either single player with a dummy, or multiplayer. In this game, in order to fight, you must compress or extend your characters limbs in order to attack the enemy. It is very difficult to get used to, but the gameplay is quite fun, as it has support for mods, weapons, different stages, and dismemberment. And when the fighting gets going, it looks damn cool, with flips, twists, kicks, rips, etc. Get it now.
Link: http://www.toribash.com/
Soldat
Soldat is a action-packed, 2D Shooting game somewhat similar to the previously mentioned Facewound. It's primarily a multiplayer game, but you can have a game with bots. You play as a small sprite with a gun, whose job is to get more points than everyone in play. There are 14 total weapons in the game, with multiple game modes, maps, and other things to do in it.
Link: http://www.soldat.pl/
Walaber's Trampoline
Walaber's Trampoline is a very interesting game. It can be likened to a Tony Hawk game, except instead of skateboarding, you are a gymnast who uses a trampoline for your shenanigans. You edit your character, then jump right into the game. The game is all physics based, so expect to hurt yourself doing things that normally wouldn't hurt you. There's an all-encompassing tutorial, and after you complete it, you get into the normal game. It's good fun.
Link: http://walaber.com/index.php?action=showitem&id=12
I Wanna Be the Guy
This game is quite a difficult one. It has a simple concept, being an old-school platformer, but it's implemented quite well. IWBtG is most known for its difficulty, as everything is designed to make you explode in a shower of blood and gore. In addition, there are a number of traps and hidden perils that aren't obvious until they kill you. If you die, you get a gameover, but you have unlimited attempts to try again, so no worries. It is a game that takes many elements from other popular platformers, such as Mega Man, Zelda, Metroid, etc. At the end of each level, there's a huge boss to face, which is also taken from popular platformers. Get it today.
Link: http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/
LAST UPDATED: October 05, 2009 at 2:21 PM.
This is a topic about freeware games, or commercial games that have been turned into freeware. Post here if you have a comment on a game, or if you have a game to add. This isn't a all-encompassing list of all freeware games independent of quality, but a list of the good freeware games.
Warzone 2100
A terrific RTS game, if there ever was one. During the beginning of the campaign, you start with fuck-all for units. You get a few basic constructors, a few machine gun tanks, and are sent to start your base. As you start your base, you acquire more resource farms(Oil Wells), and must defend them as you go around the map collecting artifacts. Artifacts, in this case, are parts you research to build your units. When I say "build", I mean "build", as you mix and match a multitude of bodies, propulsion systems, and weapons system to create the best unit possible.
Any style of play or plan of attack works here, and is only hampered by your skill, as the multitude of air weapons, long and short range artillery, and the massive amount of weapons and base defenses will keep you and your enemies on the edge.
Link: http://worldforceclan.com/warzone2100/downloads.html
MechCommander 2
A good RTT game based on the BattleTech universe. You assume command of a mercenary company which does missions for the houses in this universe. No base building here, except for instances where you capture bases as part of missions objectives or to have a safe place to retreat(if it's present). The main focus is managing your existing mechs, while occasionally using resource points to call in air strikes, a fixed artillery point, etc. At the end of each mission, your pilots may gain a rank and gain new abilities depending on what they accomplished during the last missions. After each mission, you may also sell captured mechs, buy new ones, customize existing ones, and change your pilot load order.
In addition, the cutscenes are beautifully executed, and definitely add to the atmosphere of the game.
Link: http://www.mechcommander.org/index.php?opt...nc=select&id=10
Facewound:
Facewound is a decent game to play if you're on a break, or are looking to kill an hour or two. It was originally conceived by the minds at Facepunch studios, the team that originally created Garry's mod, the popular mod for Half-Life 2. Originally, Facewound was to be released commercially, but Garry decided to release the latest version for free. It's 3-4 years old, and it's unfinished and unpolished, but I can safely say that I have encountered no errors thus far. It's fairly easy to mod, and the visual effects are tremendous.
Link: http://www.garry.tv/?p=512
Survival Crisis Z
SCZ is a sandboxey Zombie Action RPG that's as tasty as it looks. This is, quite possibly, one of the best Zombie games of all time. You create your character, and then you run around the city as you please, collecting stuff from abandoned stores, doing work for various factions across the city. It can be quite confusing from the beginning, but it's quite easy once you get the hang of it. There's no tutorial, so it's a good idea to read the read-me file at least once before playing.
Link: http://skasoftware.com/
Scorched 3D
Scorched 3D is a re-imagining of Scorched Earth, the original artillery game for DOS, in 3D. For those that don't know what an artillery game is, each side takes turns firing weapons at each other until only one is left standing. There is a vast array of weapons in this game, and they all satisfy.
Link: http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/
Blast Doors/Blast Doors 2
Blast Doors is a 3D artillery game, similar to Scorched 3D. However, it was released ten years ago, originally as retail. However, the networks were making fuck-all for profit, so they folded and these games were released for free. It has very aged graphics, and it doesn't have as many weapons as Scorched 3D, but I've found that it's a little easier to play and has that nostalgic feel to it.
Link: http://www.fiends.com/Index/Blast.jsp
The Ur-Quan Masters
The Ur-Quan Masters(AKA Star Control 2) is a Adventure-Action-RPG that many people, including me, consider to be the quintessence of video games. You are the Captain, who sees it fit to save the universe from an evil race of alien things called the Ur-Quan, a race which is split into two types: the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah and the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za. The tasks you must complete in order to accomplish this goal include talking to other alien species, collecting resources, fighting off evil enemies and those fucking Slylandro Probes, and finding artifacts. The backstory, personality, traits, and conversations are fleshed out greatly in this game. There is literally hours of interactive conversations in this game. If dialog isn't your thing, then maybe space combat is. There are approx. thirty ships in the game, and they all vary widely in terms of abilities and attributes. In addition, the game allows you to configure the layout of the player's ship. However, you don't have to play the campaign. You can play the SuperMelee mode, which allows you to use all ships in the game(Excluding the captain's ship), select which number of them you want on each side, and get to fighting. Play this game now, motherfucker.
Link: http://sc2.sourceforge.net/
Transcendence
Transcendence is a top-down space trading adventure game, with terrific graphics. It's somewhat similar to Flatspace II. In this game, you pick which ship you want to start with, and you are plopped next to a church of the sisters of Domina. It is your goal to get to the galactic core and do something. I haven't gotten that far yet. The first thing you may notice is that each game is different. Yep, random generation is in effect. You may also notice that the game is quite difficult. The rest is what you'd expect. You go to different systems and explore, take up jobs, trade, and run into marauders who are read and willing to fuck your shit up. It's also easily modifiable, and a number of mods have been released. A game that's well done.
Link: http://www.neurohack.com/
GeneRally
GeneRally is a top-down racing game for 1 to 6 racers. It's a crazy good free racing game. You control one of six customizable cars, select tracks, and get to racing. Each can be anywhere from 1 to 100 laps, and there's a season for the six cars that keeps tracks of stats, points, etc. It's also got a pit system for repairing damage caused by your DUI's. Not much more, just a good racing game.
Link: http://generally.rscsites.org/index.shtml
Noctis
Noctis is a space exploring/space flight simulator whose current incarnation was released by an Italian game designer back in 2001. You play the role of an explorer sent to explore the truly massive galaxy in this game. Despite its small size, the galaxy in this game has been reported to be 45,000 light-years in diameter. You are a Felysian piloting a ship known as a Stardrifter, which is fueled by lithium found at S06 Gray Giant stars. As an explorer, you can land on every planet that it is physically possible. It is also possible to name your planets, and send your stats and names back to the GUIDE. These stats include things like biggest tree, most animals, etc. A well done game.
Link: http://anywherebb.com/bb/layout/html/frameset.html
Universal Combat
I think we all know who made this game. This is was made by the flamebait game developer Derek Smart. Some may know of him from his tendency to make rushed and buggy games, then viciously attack anyone who calls his games rushed and buggy. He doesn't like Coke machines either. Well, this game is not the case. It probably has the biggest learning curve of any game in existence, being more akin to a learning brick wall with spikes. Once you get past that, you are left with a massively deep game to play, with a ton of customization options, fleet controls, etc. available to you, the player. You can truly do anything you want to with your ship, with individual tracking for each crew member on your ship, massive weapons control, and fleet control. For instance, it's not enough to launch a fighter or two and have it happen instantly. You have to give your pilots an order to get in the ship, then wait as they leave the crew quarters, go down a few corridors, and enter their ship. In closing, this is not your Sunday project. Only try this game if you have a week or two to burn trying to learn from the 120+ page tutorial.
Link: http://www.3000ad.com/download/
Toribash
Another game with a big learning curve, Toribash is a very strange fighting game. There's not much of a story. Instead, there's either single player with a dummy, or multiplayer. In this game, in order to fight, you must compress or extend your characters limbs in order to attack the enemy. It is very difficult to get used to, but the gameplay is quite fun, as it has support for mods, weapons, different stages, and dismemberment. And when the fighting gets going, it looks damn cool, with flips, twists, kicks, rips, etc. Get it now.
Link: http://www.toribash.com/
Soldat
Soldat is a action-packed, 2D Shooting game somewhat similar to the previously mentioned Facewound. It's primarily a multiplayer game, but you can have a game with bots. You play as a small sprite with a gun, whose job is to get more points than everyone in play. There are 14 total weapons in the game, with multiple game modes, maps, and other things to do in it.
Link: http://www.soldat.pl/
Walaber's Trampoline
Walaber's Trampoline is a very interesting game. It can be likened to a Tony Hawk game, except instead of skateboarding, you are a gymnast who uses a trampoline for your shenanigans. You edit your character, then jump right into the game. The game is all physics based, so expect to hurt yourself doing things that normally wouldn't hurt you. There's an all-encompassing tutorial, and after you complete it, you get into the normal game. It's good fun.
Link: http://walaber.com/index.php?action=showitem&id=12
I Wanna Be the Guy
This game is quite a difficult one. It has a simple concept, being an old-school platformer, but it's implemented quite well. IWBtG is most known for its difficulty, as everything is designed to make you explode in a shower of blood and gore. In addition, there are a number of traps and hidden perils that aren't obvious until they kill you. If you die, you get a gameover, but you have unlimited attempts to try again, so no worries. It is a game that takes many elements from other popular platformers, such as Mega Man, Zelda, Metroid, etc. At the end of each level, there's a huge boss to face, which is also taken from popular platformers. Get it today.
Link: http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/
