MrFlibble

A nice blog dedicated to free game soundtracks: http://farharbor.blogspot.com [Edit] Apparently Interplay used to have MP3 soundtracks from quite a few of their games available from their FTP back in mid-2000s: http://web.archive.org/web/20040212234647/www.interplay.com/interact/downloadlist.asp?Dltype=1

Well, to be fair, Megazell used to document one-time freebies in his list and keep them even when they were no longer available (he seems to have reworkid his list since though).

FilePlanet's download servers seem to be offline, here's an alternate download link: http://games.softpedia.com/progDownload/Stargunner-Soundtrack-Download-140360.html

Originally Syndicate Wars was released for DOS too so that shouldn't be a problem to run (the demo at least works okay), provided you can find a DOS version copy. In fact, the existence of DOSBox makes the DOS versions of mid-90s era games which had both DOS and Windows releases more easily compatible with modern systems than their Windows counterparts. The GOG.com people would do wise to procure DOS versions and just bundle them with DOSBox, rather than tweak the Windows versions.

Thank you for your effort. However, I was asking about the new GOG.com games that were mentioned in zocom7's first post. I missed the word "promotional" and incorrectly assumed that some new permanently free games have been added recently. So the answer to my question is Thanks, and sorry for the confusion.

That really depends on your criteria of rating the demos, but personally I've always liked those that have unique content in them (even made up a list - incomplete as usual - a while ago). Another criterion could be the demo size - that is, how much you're allowed to play. Most Scott Miller model shareware games of old qualify in this respect. Spiderweb Software is known for large demo versions of their games. Some other notable demo versions are: o A demo of the first Heroes of Might and Magic (DOS version) which was published on a Computer Gaming World Magazine CD. You can play on any of the numerous maps in custom game mode (IIRC all maps from the game are included), as any of the four Hero classes. The catch is that on each map, playing time is limited to about three months (in-game time that is ). Saving and loading is not disabled. The campaign mode is locked, but otherwise there are no limitations. Very cool, but I think I'd rather prefer one map, but playable without any limitations whatsoever (as in the HoMMII demo). o The so-called Betony demo of Daggerfall (also CD-exclusive). You can play on the small island of Betony (hence the name), which has a capital, a few towns and farmsteads, and several dungeons. There's a limit on your character level, some other features are disabled, and there are only a few random quests (a decent number of quests total but only about three for each quest-giving faction, so it gets repetitive soon). It also counts as a unique content demo as the same island in the full game only has one town, no capital at all, and (I think) different dungeons. You can get this demo here. o The C&C CD demo found by Nyerguds o The demo of Age of Kings gives you the entire tutorial campaign. o The WarCraft III demo has a nice unique campaign, albeit somewhat short. o Same goes for WarCraft II and StarCraft, but the full-length demo campaign for StarCraft was only available as the "StarCraft Shareware CD" (the downloadable version is shorter). o The levels in both Serious Sam: The First Encounter and The Second Encounter are pretty expansive. The first demo also comes with a somewhat unique level (it was heavily modified for a level late in the full game), and also the early "Test" versions have other differences (textures, monster modesl) as well. The third criterion that could be used is replay value. Some games (mostly strategies) give you the option to play skirmish battles, sometimes on randomly generated maps. Demo versions of Age of Kings and HoMMII have one skirmish map each (in AoK there's an additional limitation in that you only play as the Britons against Britons - or as Celts against Britons on a different map in the exclusive CGW demo). The demo of Tzar: The Burden of the Crown has two skirmish maps. The demo versions of Rise of Nations, Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots, Age of Mythology, Age of Mythology: The Titans, Ancient Conquest, Submarine Titans allow skirmish battles on random maps (there are some other limitations though like the tech tree being limited only to tier 3 in AoM, or a limited set of nations available in RoN).

Yeah, but most of those have been there for free for a long time (Stargunner and probably Ultima IV having been the most recent additions). I was asking if there were any more recent free games there that I missed.

You mention some GOG.com additions in the first post. I haven't followed closely, have there been any free games added recently there? I only remember Stargunner but it's been free for quite a while from 3D Realms' website.

Way to spoil a funny/awkward moment

What's the point of all these figures anyway? Self-promotion? If someone doesn't like a game, will the fact that millions of other players spend zounds of hours plying it change their opinion? All those big (spelled BIG) numbers are presented in such a manner as if they're trying to imply there's some real accomplishment behind them.

If by controlling thousands of units they mean the traditional RTS unit control scheme, I can't imagine how this can really be fun without getting frustrating or at least annoying. Commanding armies of this scale can be realistically accomplished by either having very sophisticated unit/unit group AI that would generally leave the player with giving orders on the strategic level and watching the show (which by the way is probably more realistic anyway), or the player will have to go down to the tactical level so to speak, and do the micromanagement personally. In the latter case you'll probably have to do that a lot if the army is huge, and there's a lot of potential for such a procedure to quickly get old.

Chip's ChallengeTile World Lode RunnerSDL Scavenger

Well, it's certainly up to you to decide but genre classifications are generally a lot easier to navigate. I know it's a huge amount of work but people will be the more grateful to you for that Also, I don't remember if I mentioned it here before but you do know of Megazell's list don't you?

While you're at it, maybe you'd reorganize the list from alphabetical order to genre groups too?

Nice list! However, I've always thought that "free-to-play" is not entirely the same thing as "free game" (in that a) "free-to-play" is actually a free version of some commercial game and b) this term applies first and foremost to online multiplayer games, or games that require and Internet connection to some server). For example, some of the games on your list require a Steam account, while others can be just downloaded without any registration and played on a PC that doesn't have an Internet connection at all. I fancy that the Steam ones are more in line with the "free-to-play" term. To the best of my knowledge, the open source release of Blades of Exile includes not only the engine but also all game assets: But even if that were not the case, the original registered game is available for free from Spiderweb's site (the source port is still preferable for modern Windows user because the original one is a Win16 game). May I also suggest Seven Kingdoms: Ancient Adversaries as a free, open source strategy game. On a side note, some of your links (e.g. the entire S section) are not displayed correctly for some inexplicable reason.

This is certainly an impressive array of data, however may I ask where the magazine authors obtained such detailed info? Did they have access to some development diaries? Did they interview Westwood people?

I'd like to draw the attention to the ongoing crisis at MobyGames, one of the largest, oldest and most popular video game databases currently in existence. Some of you may have already noticed that since last week, the site was updated with a new design. This was a corporate decision imposed by the company that currently owns MobyGames, GameFly Media. Many users have already expressed a negative opinion about the new look of the website, which was supposedly optimized for viewing on tablet devices, saying that it now looks bland and generic. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg. In reality, the redesign has resulted in broken functionality of many of the site's key features. The new interface is far from user-friendly, the layout forces the users to do a lot of unnecessary scrolling (whereas previously all crucial information and options were available on a single screen), and the overall site performance had also decreased drastically with a huge reduction in loading speed of almost all pages. MobyGames had always been a community-driven website, with both the contributors and the approvers being volunteers, many of whom have spent years of work to expand and improve the game database. The redesign that effectively crippled MobyGames' functionality was imposed on the community without their consent or knowledge. According to the core members/staff of MobyGames, GameFly was kind enough to provide a preview of the new design some time ago, but community feedback on its state was ignored, and the new design got implemented without any significant changes. This has put off the majority of the core members, who are now expressing their wish to leave the site for good, in spite of all the efforts they had put into its development over the years. Their pleas to fix the most glaring deficiencies have remained unattended by the people in charge, who seem to have adopted the strategy of keeping the community in an information vacuum. The protesting members are calling to revert to the pre-redesign state, however prospects of this happening are rather dim to say the least. Currently all work on updating the site has ceased, as the members see no reason in continuing their efforts in this time of uncertainty. Quite possibly, many are appalled with this treatment from GameFly managers to such a degree that they will leave the website for good. This, in turn, means that either MobyGames will no longer be updated at all, or the staff will be replaced with people hired by GameFly to promote the company's interests. GameFly is a game renting service, so it would make sense for them to update the database with only those games that they have on offer, thus destroying the independent research potential of the website. While there is little indication that the situation will improve in favour of the community, drawing the attention of the general public to the issue might help a bit.

It's not the visual design that put off the community, it's the completely broken functionality (people were unable to communicate via the IM system, the interface for content contributions disappeared entirely, the layout was horrible etc. etc.). This might not be noticeable for the end user but for a site that is 100% user-contributed content such "redesign" pretty much meant the end of all activity.

In a completely unexpected turn of events, the old design is back thanks to the effort of Mr. Jeremiah "Reed" Freyholtz: http://www.mobygames.com/forums/dga,2/dgb,4/dgm,182637/

I wonder what Linus Torvalds has to say about this. In fact, a bit Googling brings up an article about him welcoming the idea. I for one am very cautious about this, I don't like it how Valve effectively tries to expand into every area of PC gaming, it seems like a bid for monopolizing the entire industry.

CodeRED: Battle for Earth and its sequel, CodeRED: The Martian Chronicles, are single-player precursors to Alien Arena. CodeRED: Battle for Earth: CodeREDBFE.exe CodeRED: The Martian Chronicles: CodeREDMC.exe As far as I can tell, these are the final versions of both games (v4.0).

Following suggestions in another forum, I have updated the list with these titles: Total Annihilation Zero-K (Spring RTS Engine) Minecraft Manic Digger Minetest Half-Life: CounterstrikeUrban Terror Warcraft III: Reign of ChaosMegaGlest

Frankly I have no idea what kind of game Plants vs. Zombies is. You can look up free tower defence games (e.g. here or here) and find out if there are any that are like it.

Not much of an update but still: Hexen: Beyond Heretic Zauberer (Doom engine) Quake III: Arena World of Padman (Quake III engine)