LyLo's Super Splendiferous Free Games!

[lylo]

It's amazing that how over the last few years, free software has become much more open to every computer user and in the most part, most free software can actually take over as full replacements for the commercial stuff that you buy. It's now possible and VERY easy to get a system up and running for any user imaginable using free software, and recently, more and more free games have been coming into full attention that aren't simple little crappy flash things you find on the internet but full on 3D games with rich experiences just like those you that you would normally be expected to pay a full price for down in your local games store.

I'm not even going to scrape the barrel here but I'm gonna put up a list of some of the free games I know of so that you can all check em out. Some of em are full on serious titles with dedicated development teams, others are much smaller scale for simple fun blasts. Who knows, this could become a sticky if it gets enough

Albatross 18, Download Size - Roughly 170MB, My Rating out of 5 - **** , Genre - Golf, Online? - Yes

I know you might be thinking its strange I post a golf game up, but this is a surprisingly fun game that takes the mad gameplay of Mario Golf and mixes it in with the oh so cutesy anime style visuals that you'd expect from most Korean games. It's very easy to learn, the opening tutorial basically puts you on your way with what you need to know to play the game, and then from there its up to you to learn the 3 (I think theres 3 anyway) individual courses, all with their own 18 holes. Some of them are easy, some of them will have you pulling your hair out. Easy game to play, VERY tough to master, especially with all of the special skills and shots you can learn.

Blockland, Download Size - 9MB, My Rating - *** Genre - LEGO!!!, Online? - Yes

I recommend this one if you're a parent with young children or if you're simply a big kid yourself. This quite simply, is online lego! It's a non competetive game where you and other people can build basically whatever you want or at least what your imagination limits you too. It's a quirky and fun little title that you can easily play in moments of boredom, but don't count on playing this game seriously, it's not THAT deep lol.

Grand Theft Auto 1 & 2, Download Size - 330MB & 345MB respectively, My Rating - ***** , Genre - Top Down Shoot Em Up, Driving, Free Roam, Online? - Only by Direct IP connections, I also remember though of 3rd party mods to take the games online too.

Come on, you all know these two. The GTA games are arguably the most controversial of all time, and the series as a whole is definitely one of the most famous and well known. Spawning god knows how many imitators and clones, none have ever come close to capturing the same ammount of fun and pure carnage that ANY of the GTA games has allowed you to commit to. These 2 classic originals hold the same gameplay that has made 3, Vice City and San Andreas some of the biggest games of all time. The obvious change is in the perspective and technology. Visually, yeah these games are p*** poor by any standards, well... GTA1 at least, 2 is sweet heh. But they both still hold classic gameplay that's still just as fun to play today as it was a few years ago on the PS1 or on old PC's heh. What I love so much is that I never dedicated myself to the 2 GTA's that much, I always would simply drive around killing and causing hell. But when 3 came out, and I played the whole thing through to 100% completion, I went back to the older games and realised just how much depth was in these too, with missions, hidden extras and all of the little things to find in such huge cities, barely a thing has changed, and GTA 1 & 2 are definite thumbs up from me

Gunz Online - The Duel, Download Size - Roughly 130MB, My Rating - **** , Genre - 3rd Person Shooter, Online? - Yes

Take any deathmatch based game you can think of, take it into the 3rd person, add in some swords and a touch of the Matrix, you have Gunz. Despite it's flaws in it's english translation, it's bugs and lag, this game has a pretty huge online following and only grows more popular. It's a **** fun game to play too, at heart, its a deathmatch based game, where you're running around all sorts of locations killing opponents either with your guns or your swords/knifes. Each kill gets you XP to level you up, affecting your HP, Strength, and other RPG like stats. Each match earns you money as well to spend on new weapons and accessories for stat upgrades. While being a very fun game, the main problem here is that it is a fairly repetetive game and if you play it to say, Level 15 or so, you'll begin to realise what I mean as it slowly becomes something of a grinding game. But it's still good to come back to every now and then.

GunBound, Download Size - 110MB, My Rating - **** , Genre - Turn Based Shoot Em Up, Online? - Yes

This was the first free game I discovered, and one of the first games ever to get me so hooked so quickly. Before I knew it, my X-Fire profile was loaded with hours clocked for this addictive game. It kinda captures the same level of fun that you got from games such as Worms, but its certainly not entirely the same kind of game. Before you go into a match against your opponents, you pick a vehicle of your choice from a pretty decent selection. Each vehicle has it's own unique attributes, ie: Shot types, Strengths, Weaknesses, Special Shots, and it's up to you to decide what vehicle suits you best, and to learn how to use it. There are vehicles aimed at beginners and of course, those for the real dedicated players to learn so the learning curve is pretty good. And the level based system makes sure that you won't end up in a completely uneven match. Like Gunz, this game too can become something of a repetetive grind fest as I soon found out heh, but enjoy it in short bursts and I think you will keep it installed on your computers for some time

Silkroad Online, Download Size - 515MB, My Rating - ***** , Genre - MMORPG, Online? - Duh, yes!

Oh good god where do I start. I discovered this game sometime in December, it was getting alot of attention on the X-Fire forums so I decided to download it and see what the fuss is about. I expected to end up with an MMO similar to Knight Online, and by that I mean crap... Wow, was I surprised! It's the kind of MMO where level grinding and skill building is more important than teamwork based games such as Guild Wars, but that does mean that people who like to play games alone (such as myself) can easily get involved and do well in it. Rather than most MMO's set in some old ancient european medieval setting or something, SRO takes the experience to the east, which is quite a selling point to me. In this game, your characters aren't defined by classes or jobs (well to some extent), but rather, you're given complete freedom in how to customise and build your character. Equip him/her with any kind of armour or weapon you want, and load them out with as many skills as possible, or focus on building a small but strong ammount of spells to use at your disposal.

I could go on about this game forever, I could also go on about the things I hate about it heh, don't get me wrong, while I love this game and AM hooked on it, there are some terrible bugs about it, when the servers get full the lag can be terrible and most likely will get you killed! And of course, being an asian game ported over to western audiences, the translation sucks, and this game, ESPECIALLY sucks in the 'Engrish' department. However, please download it and please check it out, its a Free to Play forever game so you've nothing to lose, and I think you will enjoy it.

Trackmania Nations, Download Size - 270MB, My Rating - Have yet to play, Genre - Racing, Online? - Yes

Now I can't say too much as I haven't installed and tried this yet, and it is a fairly new game. However I am a big fan of Trackmania Sunrise and so I was surprised to find that Nadeo went and released a free standalone Trackmania game. Apparently this offering is aimed solely at serious competetive (E-Sports kinda thing) play rather than anything else, but that hasn't stopped it from being snapped up by a big ammount of people anyway. I will come back later with more on this game when I try it out myself, but its Trackmania, so it's gotta be good.

Warning Forever, Download Size - 700KB, My Rating - ***, Genre - Old School Shoot Em Up, Online? - No

I posted about this in the gamer's hangout not too long ago raving about this game, and it's still great. It focuses on classic scrolling shooter style gameplay. Rather than putting you through levels full of waves of baddies though, this game takes you straight to a boss. Each level is a new boss, and each next level, is a bigger and badder boss. Take it down to advance. The game is ALL about high-scores and if you send this around to mates, I'm sure you'll end up getting competetive with it like I did. Take down the bosses quickly without losing lives for more points, but to do that you gotta take more risks to do so. For 700kb, how can you not?!

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Download Size - 250MB, My Rating - ***** , Genre - First Person Shooter, Online? - Yes

I've took a huge break from playing this game, and you'll see how dedicated I've been to this through my X-Fire profile, but this is quite possibly the game I've been most involved with in my time as a PC Gamer. It's a WW2 based FPS that puts you in Axis VS Allies objective based maps. The objectives can be simple, ranging from escorting vehicles to certain locations, stealing enemy documents/weapons, or blowing up certain locations. It's more indepth than a deathmatch type game and teamwork is certainly essential. Individual classes for each team mean theres something for everyone and you'll need to combine the advantages of all of the different classes to become victorious too. Soliders are experienced in handling heavy weaponry and explosives. Medics can heal and revive fallen allies in the heat of battle. Engineers use their building skills to repair vehicles, blow up locations or to build machine gun turrets where available as well as other building related things. Covert Ops can disguise themselves as the enemy to stealthily work their way into enemy lines. Field Ops can supply teammates with ammo, as well as calling in air strikes and artillery.

Its the 3rd most online played FPS alongside CS 1.6 and CS:S and has a HUGE following with a very dedicated fan base. New maps are always released so there's never any fear of repetetiveness and for the most part, the community is very friendly too and willing to help out new players. I'm taking a break myself from ET but I do love this game and will eventually get back into it and be as serious about it as I was once heh. If you like BF2 then you need to check this out because this is probably the main game in which BF2 ripped half of it's influence from.

That's it for now folks, I will work on updating this post with more games when I get around to playing and trying them out Have fun!

Edited January 29, 2006 by lylo

[dirtwarrior]

good list thanks

[tarquel]

Great stuff lylo...

Will be checking some of these out very soon :D

My g/f might like the lego one lmfao

Cheers

Nath.

[313361669]

Thanks for your list,I want to play games,and you come!