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Great Games To Put On a Free PC?
Lumpy writes "I am giving several new PC's to a local charity that will be giving them to needy kids this Xmas. They are not powerful, basically baseline Dells that have Intel graphics and Celeron, but more than enough to do homework and other studies on. They are going out with XP on them, an Ubuntu CD, and a bunch of OSS software like OO.o and the others. I would like to include some games for the kids. Strategy, fun, etc. Great freeware games that are fun to play. What would be the best games that a 13-16 year old will like to play that are free and legal to give away, and will run on this lower-end hardware?"
http://www.wesnoth.org/
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
its a great choice and will run on almost anything.
The greatest game that's less than a meg. http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/game/144
Frozen Bubble
Great for all ages and skill level
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
FreeCiv is a freeware version of Civilization that I still play. They have linux and windows releases.
http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Download#Windows_Packages
OSSWin Games List
Take a look at the Platform and First Person Shooter games.
Ur-Quan Masters (Star Control II, but free)
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (great role-based strategic shooter, inexplicably free)
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Oops, somehow the link got messed up - http://armagetron.sourceforge.net/.
Free-as-in-beer, or free-as-in-speech?
If you know the kids, you can tailor the games to their interests... I'm not sure how much mileage you'll get out of installing nethack when the recipient of the PC is a typical 14-yo girl.
If they have a good internet connection, all they need are links to decent flash games sites. I'm fond of recommending Kongregate, since they also have great tools and tutorials for creating your own games, and I've yet to see malware there. (Doesn't mean it doesn't exist).
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Oolite - Elite clone. Aaaaa... the memories :)
"It would be wrong to refuse to face the fact that everything is fundamentally sick and sad."
Very worthwhile, for both the strategy and melee modes.
ICQ# : 30269588
"I used to be an idealist, but I got mugged by reality."
http://apcmag.com/top_5_best_free_open_source_games.htm
Urban Terror is basically counter strike. It is based on the Quake III engine. I was surprised that it was both free and very well done. Available for windows, mac, and Linux. Lots of servers hosting games with lots of players. Free download http://www.urbanterror.net/news.php
Great game with cute robots. Can't go wrong.
I seem to remember there being quite a number of older titles released as freeware. Older iD titles, some of the earlier GTA titles, Tribes 1/2. With the number of mods available just for Quake 3, there will be tons of playtime just in one title. Red Alert was also released free, if you want to include some variety (as opposed to endless FPS games).
There are also current (ish) titles that might run on them. IIRC, Enemy Territory has a Linux port as does America's Army.
There's also the free games usually available for Linux that have Windows ports, such as FreeCiv.
I traded all my mod points for these magic beans.
While a great idea, I'm sure "legal" is a requirement as well, so unless he's willing to buy licenses for these hundreds of games, forget it :-/
...in bed
I've wasted more than enough time with this recently: Java risk: http://domination.sf.net. The implementation seems to be pretty good, it has some basic AI players, and can be played over a network. Good, classic strategy game, without the overhead of sorting out all the little army pieces. -- Paul
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
I vote for X-Moto. It's a 2-D motocross simulator game. Lots of fun and challenge from easy to nigh-on impossible, and very addictive.
There is also a simplified version more suited to kids.
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
I suggest a couple multiplayer shooters. Warsow http://www.warsow.net/ and Urban Terror http://www.urbanterror.net/ They're both free and based on the open sourced Quake engine (2 and 3). The Intel cards in those Dells should be enough for them. Plus they both have Linux and Windows clients.
The original Red Alert is free now. http://www.ea.com/redalert/news-detail.jsp?id=62:.
Kilroy was here.
and then...
You are dreaming right? None of those are in public domain, not with copyright laws 90 years after death of the creator. They're abandonware at best, and that most certainly isn't legal.
I though of fl0w and Plasma Pong. However Plasma Pong seems to be down :-(
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Never mind willing to buy, no one is selling.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Angband http://rephial.org/ is all the kids will ever need. Just kidding, but it is an awesome game if kids get past the fast that it is ASCII character-based.
TripleA is free. The older kids may appreciate having a more complicated board game like A&A on there. It even goes beyond the classic maps
And bookmark a few good flash gaming sites while you're at it. Some of the best games are online
FreeCiv, a freeware implementation of the Civ and Civ II rules - http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
Dwarf Fortress is a fantastically complex game, like a cross between SimCity, NetHack, and Oregon Trail - http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Main_Page
NetHack is a classic dungeon crawler with ASCII graphics - http://www.nethack.org/
Command & Conquer is an old but awesome RTS, now available for free from EA - http://www.commandandconquer.com/intel/default.aspx?id=62#NewsMain
Abandonware is murky but you can find install files for many abandonware titles online as well.
As much as I love playing Freeciv, I worry that it's not quite ready for people who have never played either it or some other version of Civilization. It is not at all intuitive, and it's not engaging to somebody who isn't already a known quantity at the whole getting sucked into the game thing.
How about OpenArena (a.k.a. Quake III) or Extreme Tux Racer? TetriNET/Blocktrix, a good multi-player Tetris game, is also a winner. Finally, there's a really good list of "open source" games over on Wikipedia.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
This might be too "old and moldy" for a young teen but: http://www.scummvm.org/downloads.php Scroll down to "Extras, game downloads". Beneath a Steel Sky is entirely worth the time it takes to download and play. Definitely a staple of my childhood gaming. There are a couple other gems in the free downloads as well.
http://sauerbraten.org/
Free FPS that is easy to create maps for.
in Ubuntu as deb but oldish website has rc2 - quite fun.
openttd.com is fantastic. You need some of the original game files but they can be found legitimately (google for 'transport tycoon clive owen'). Suitable for all ages and it's really fun.
www.bzflag.org Free, Open-source, multi-player tank battle ala Battle-Zone.
Xmoto is great, available from Ubuntu repositories, and non-violent. Apart from when the bike falls on top of the character that is! hehe
You should check out Edubuntu, it was designed the sort of thing you want to do in mind.
Star Control: The Ur-Quan Masters. One of the absolute best games I've EVER played for ANY platform - ported from the 1990's as free software.
Seiklus. One of my all-time favorite action/adventures: simple, colorful, evocative.
Within a Deep Forest. Really fun and neat game where you play a bouncing ball.
Spheres of Chaos. INCREDIBLE trippy Asteroids clone with lots of power-ups.
flOw. Of course.
Overgod. Very fun 2D arena shooter with upgradable ships.
ROM CHECK FAIL. Old-school craziness. =)
Cave Story. Metroid-style old-school side-scroller.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
To be pedantic, the emulators are perfectly legal; the pirated ROMs are not (although there are a few good original distributed-as-free-software ROMs.)
Depends. Some of them require an illegal copy of the bios.
Many of the open source Linux games also have pretty good Windows ports:
Take a look for "Linux Game" sites and follow the links to the homepage of the games. Most times the Windows ports will be included. Here's a few good examples:
At getdeb.net you can get Super Methane Brothers. If you go to the homepage of Super Methane Brothers you find a Windows Exe.
You can take a look at LinuxGames, playubuntu.com and probably find more via Google.
Games that I would recommend specifically:
Tux Math Command
gridwars 2
OpenAlchemist
Hedgewars
Game Maker
Frets on Fire
Secret Maryo Chronicles
CAPS LOCK: ITS LIKE THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME
Unless you have the Kilrathi Saga pack, you'll need dosbox to make it work.
Wing Commander isn't free though, so I doubt it could be packaged with these computers. Maybe Vegastrike or one of it's mods would be a better option.
I wouldn't recommend giving a copy of Blob Wars to a charity unless you like giving them IP problems, unless there's a new version which doesn't include unlicensed artwork and music.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I personally never get sick of Chip's Challenge. Great old school puzzle game that fosters the development of problem solving skills.
No one has mentioned "Savage, Battle for Newerth". Has windows, Linux, and MAC downloadable binaries.
"BSD is about people pissing each other.." (Moid Vallat)
Install the GameTap client. While they have a pay service. They also have 150 free games. These are real commercial games including:
Tomb Raider Legend
Metal Slug 2
Bubble Bobble
Sensible Soccer 2006
King of Fighters '96
Robotron 2084
Elevator Action
Burger Time
Commandos 3
Warlords Battlecry III
Cannon Fodder
Hitman
More...
While the pay part of the service is worth the money, the free part has a suprisingly high number and quality of available games.
BZFlag is a fun multiplayer tank game that you can jump right into and have fun but also has a lot of potential for skill growth. It works well on even crappy video cards.
For fans of the board game Settlers of Catan, there is a similar online version which is quite nice:
Sea3D (here are some screenshots)
That one is a bit old, but stable (it is similar to Settlers plus the seafarer expansion), and the S3D Connector website can match up players.
The newer version in devel is Cities Online (similar to cities and knights expansion).
Those are pretty good board games.
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/
'Net' is my favorite puzzle in the set, but there are 27 different puzzle games total including Mastermind, Minesweeper, a number sliding puzzle, and Sudoku.
Available for PC, Mac, Linux, and Palm.
Micropolis is the official SimCity for Linux I do believe, but Lincity-NG is an even better clone more akin to SimCity 2000.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
And here is a list of FPS and MMOs. While you didn't list what kind of Intel graphics chip it shouldn't take you very long to pick a few out of these lists that will work. Basically anything pre 2003 should work with a 915. I haven't tried the newer GMA chips but I heard they are even better. Personally I like any of the free FPSs based on the Quake engine myself. You just can't go wrong with a little Quake style blasting to help relieve that schoolwork stress ;-)
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
DXball (MegaBall based breakout game) runs OK on basic machines, you can still get the free version on cnet:
http://www.download.com/DX-Ball/3000-2099_4-10155579.html
Also, NoNags has a lot of games, all free. I would think anything saying it is Win9x and XP compatable would not be too demanding. At Nonags you want the 6/6 rated software, though some of the 5/6 stuff is OK too.
http://www.nonags.com/
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Also Pioneers.
It's in the Debian and Ubuntu repos.
..don't go for Crack Attack or Tetrinet.