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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."
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
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...
Great game with cute robots. Can't go wrong.
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.
It is not illegal to download shareware. It has been shareware since 1991.