MrFlibble

Nice, the authors seem to have modelled this after Populous. Apparently, this was originally a browser-based game BTW. That's a source port of Tyrian, which itself is a free game (formerly shareware).

Atlantis Atlantis Puzzle Bobble Bobble Puzzle BurgerTime Burgerland Dogfight Dogfight: Battle in the Skies OutRun RunOut Oxyd Enigma Paratrooper Dragon Fire Planet Defender Planetary Defense R-Type GazerStar Rampart Cannon Conflict Kajaani Kombat Sentinel Sentry SimCity Mobility [shareware] Solar Fox Solar Wolf Space Spartans Space Spartans Star Strike Star Strike Starion Starion 2010 Telengard Telengard Lode Runner Turbo Lode Wing Commander Flight Commander

Driller Driller (remake) Elasto Mania X-Moto M.U.L.E. Planet M.U.L.E. NetWars NetWarsGL Stunts Ultimate Stunts X-COM: Enemy Unknown Project Xenocide X-Force: Fight for Destiny

Well, there are FTP sites/mirrors of some of these companies in one of the lists above, not sure if you meant that. I certainly don't know about any freeware games from Blizzard, I think there are none. Same with EA, unless you count the C&C titles. Heheh, thanks!

Risk JavaRisk NetRisk OpenFracas yura.net Domination

Okay, I've put the Astral Entertainment website on this list instead, and also added some more titles here: A-Train FreeTrain Carrier Command Thunder&Lightning Duke Nukem Dave Gnukem [download] Escape Velocity NAEV Half-Life: Counterstrike Assault Cube Reloaded Quake III: Arena, Unreal Tournament Arena of Honour Red Eclipse Star Wars: TIE Fighter, Descent: Freespace Space Combat Super Monkey Ball Neverball Also added another section to the list, with the liberated games that have both the source code and all assets released for free, thus making it possible to create new builds of the entire game.

Okay, I checked the original Astral Entertainment website, and apparently their games have been initially commercial (shareware), having been released as freeware sometime later - thus being liberated games in fact. There's also this story about potential copyright infringement issues that's a bit confusing. On another note, what are the differences between all those games? It's kind of hard to tell from screenshots.

Uhh, I'm sorry, I didn't have the time to check them out properly yet, I'll do that ASAP. Which one's the official C&C forums?

Is there a full version of this pic? I'm intrigued by the identity of the female on the right.

Following some constructive criticism in another forum, I've decided to drop the liberated games part from the list altogether. I've come to realize that thinking of liberated games as some kind of Ersatz for other titles is counter-productive, and this topic should be addressed elsewhere. Further on, I've separated the list into three sub-lists: 1. More or less straightforward remakes or clones of well-known games. In many cases the authors will openly point to the game that they are trying to remake, and if not, the similarity is often quite obvious anyway. 2. Shareware clones of popular titles, mostly from the DOS era. These are generally of historical interest. 3. Games that are definitely inspired by famous titles, but the authors have added enough ideas of their own to make these games something more than direct recreations. As usual, this is the grey area as YMMV what makes for a simple clone and what constitutes an "inspired by" game. Also, the following titles were added: Crayon Physics Numpty Physics Dungeon Keeper OpenDungeons Elite Galaxias Lemmings Lix Natural Selection Tremulous Unvanquished RPGMaker EasyRPG SimCity Lincity X-COM: Enemy Unknown UFO2000 Bos Wars, Command & Conquer: Red Alert Commander Stalin Diablo FreedroidRPG Empire Deluxe GEMpire Frontier: Elite II Pioneer Puzzle Bobble Frozen Bubble Hex Bubbles Zorx Ultima series Nazghul Wizardry VII LostHero - story of Gilgamesh

In fact, the way the M.A.D. Tank is depicted on that cover suggests that the cylindrical thing is in the front of the vehicle, while in the actual game it's located in the rear both on the icon and on the sprite.

I've just realized that Alien Carnage bears a lot of similarities to the Amiga/Genesis version of Alien 3: the levels are timed missions during which you need to rescue captives and reach the exit, and one of the weapons is a flamethrower; not to mention several direct references to the Alien franchise.

I've seen this, as well as other concept art scans, in the C&C Source Gallery some time ago. Whwre do they come from anyway? Some bonus DVD EA released? Back to the scrapped Megan concept, am I right that in TS, they followed a more or less similar idea with Muntant Commandos: Umagon is a classic sniper much like the original Commando, while the Ghostalker has the C4 capability along with a more powerful, but slow firing weapon? Also the the Ghostalker/Ghost Stalker (whichever is right I forgot) unit name might suggest that he was supposed to have some stealth capability - any real info on that?

Hmm, the M.A.D. Tank seems to have some sort of a radar dish on its back side, I don't remember it on the in-game sprite or the sidebar icon.

Hmm, I was pretty certain that this shot was available from some official source, and indeed it is: ftp://ftp.games.skynet.be/spool1/games/ftp.westwood.com/redalert/previews/scrnshot/game06.gif What I failed to notice is that the version from the Next Generation site doesn't have the label underneath. BTW, I just figured out that the redhead Tanya shot is indeed (partially) featured on some game covers, like this one or this one. Another thing I just noticed, it seems that the Weapons Factory half-damaged frame is different from the final version too.

BTW guys, I just realized that the SAM sites have C&C sprites for the base, instead of the ones used in the final version of the game. But that shouldn't be surprising I guess. I didn't know this shot was a rarity. Unfortunately, the other shots that come with the article aren't as interesting. As a matter of fact, I decided to dig the Next Generation archived site a bit because of the StarCraft early shots in their previews: StarCraft Preview (21/01/1997) StarCraft Preview (10/04/1997) StarCraft Preview (22/05/1997)

zocom7, nice findings! I'm sorry I didn't reply until now, I kind of forgot about this thread for a while Oh yes, the Pac-Man clones, just like many other "hardcore classic" games, are indeed an interesting field of research. There's a selection of Pac-Man clones at RGB Classic Games and dosgames.com. Nice, but these seem to use copyrighted graphics from the original Nintendo games (at least to some extent) - something I would like to avoid in the "freeware counterparts" section. The only exceptions to this rule so far are Giant Sisters and T2002, and only because the respective copyright holders gave permission to use original assets in the remakes.

Not the entire soundtrack, but some tracks from Divine Divinity: http://www.larian.com/Site/english/divinity/music.html

Maybe it was all a well-calculated scheme to make sure the game would end up being released for free?

After some confusion with a promotional Facebook/Steam giveaway, 3D Realms' Shadow Warrior has become permanently free on Steam.

Well, the developer who are currently working on a remake of Shadow Warrior intended a limited giveaway initially but when some wiseguys circumvented their security and acquired all 50,000 keys intended for the promotion, they just decided to make the game free for everyone. [source]

You never heard of Shadow Warrior? I thought it was widely known... Anyway, it was 3D Realms' second Build engine game after Duke Nukem 3D, and attempted to repeat its success with an Asian theme and a ninja main character. Personally I prefer Duke3D, but Shadow Warrior is still quite a nice game, so give it a try. If you don't have a Steam account, you can get the shareware version (a four-level episode) either from 3D Realms or from RGB Classic Games.

Another site with remastered soundtracks from id Tech 1 games: http://sycraft.org/content/audio/index.shtml And some more YouTube channels/videos: Various original tracks recorded on Roland SC-88 Various original tracks recorded on real Sound Blaster hardware

Interesting! I only wonder why the article you linked to says that Greg Gree lost the case?

Here's some high-quality remastered soundtracks of games that run on id Tech 1 and Build engines: http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=97 And here's a YouTube channel with some neat rearrangements of music from several games, including Rise of the Triad: http://www.youtube.com/user/Lancastersilk