GCP – Episode 96 - 07/20
Interview with Frictional Games - 07/14
GCP – Episode 95 - 07/13
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My Favorite Freeware: November 2009Posted November 5, 2009, Comments (12) |
Left 4 Dead 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Borderlands. There are several things in common between these three games; they’re PC games, they’re triple-A productions, and they cost money. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly readily flowing with cash to afford all of these games (and many, many more) this holiday season. Luckily for us PC gamers, we have a whole library of games that we can never completely peruse. I’m here today to point out some of my favorite games in the “Free” category in our beloved PC gaming library.
Imagine a cross between Shining Force and Heroes of Might & Magic, and you have Battle for Wesnoth. It is a turn-based strategy fantasy game with a surprisingly high production value. From the game’s site:
“…make your own custom units, compose your own maps, and write your own scenarios or even full-blown campaigns. You can also challenge up to 8 friends – or strangers – and fight in epic multi-player fantasy battles.”
The replayability for this game is enormous, and with a large community constantly looking for ways to improve the game, it’s definitely one to try out.
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Wing Commander is my favorite PC game series of all time. To me, no other franchise has achieved something so good as Wing Commander did. ASCII Sector takes the concept of one of that series’ entries (Privateer) and totally NetHacks it to the simplest graphics achievable. From the game’s site:
“A 100% free space combat/exploration/trading game for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. You start with a simple spaceship and can then accept missions or trade goods to earn enough money to upgrade your ship or buy a new one. The game offers a wide variety of missions, commodities and ships — a lot more than the original Wing Commander: Privateer, on which this game is based. “
While obviously it isn’t as “epic” as the official Wing games, ASCII Sector is a very unique approach to the space sim genre, and is a hell of a lot of fun to play. There are regular updates fixing bugs and adding new quests. Check it out.
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To be honest, I don’t know how to describe Judith. But what I can tell you is its incredibly unique story presentation makes it a game you have to play. The game is a short one; a journey lasting about a half-hour, but it’s one that will stand out in your gaming repertoire. It’s a first-person adventure game focused on telling you a story. A scary one, at that. I recommend playing it late at night with only the glimmering of your monitor lighting the room and headphones.
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Never forget: don’t let The Man put you down. You always will have games to play when you’re a PC gamer!
I can attest that Battle for Westnoth is quite fun
Nice, I’mma trying out that Privateer remake.
Privateer ASCII looks awesome — ironically, the ASCII graphics in space look better than Wing Commander does with sprites. Yikes. Definitely on my “Must Get” list.
I have to add Ur-Quan Masters, though. A free recoding of Star Control II by the original team plus the fan community. AWESOME. http://sc2.sourceforge.net
Are you crazy? The first two Wing Commanders are up there on my list of “most beautiful games.”
Judith freaked me the f*** out. I don’t even know what it was about it that was so goddamn creepy, but I’ve never felt that emotionally about a game. Definitely try it if only for the experience.
I’ve contemplated writing a piece dissecting the game itself. It’s crazy to think two guys made the game in one night.
What? No Beneath a Steel Sky? Free from GOG? The OUTRAGE!! But yeah: awesome free game. I actually played through quite a bit of it on my Linux partition of the PS3, until I realized I was playing through half the game on my PS3. Loaded onto PC instead.
Yeah, BASS was one of the first freeware games I had a love affair with.
But hey, nice list over all. Judith’s plot makes no sense to me, I’m toying with the idea that it may in fact be a load of bull. I get the interleaving narrative, but not the reason for it.
Not to spoil anything, but the ending seemed kinda rushed. It’s kinda one of those “meh” letdown moments (for me personally), but the actual presentation itself was superb.
Judith seems to experiment with narrative form like Modernist novels did in the early 20th century. Plot was hard to figure out and endings were anticlimactic, and that was part of the Modernist point to disillusion an all-encompassing metanarrative that can explain everything.
Hrm. Now that’s interesting. Off to Wikipedia!
I take your free ware and spit on it.
I don’t have time to play games I didn’t buy, I have to play the ones I did buy so I feel like I got my moneys worth.
XD