Awesome FREE (legal) GAMES

[Einstein]

We need a place around here to share free non-C&C games! I'll start this thread off with a couple of my favorites from when I was a wee lad. Anyone can post here as long as the posted content follows the forum rules! That basically means nothing illegal, warez, etc. You know how to be good, so do it.

Also please do not upload what you are sharing to the forum itself. Please use some other external file host. For the time being, I'm just using either my OneDrive or Google Drive. You can easily do the same. Please limit discussion in this thread to avoid clutter, and please please please do not criticize my choice of free file hosts. I realize that some of you don't believe in "free" file hosts but please discuss that elsewhere.

Hasbro Interactive - Risk (1997)

Spoiler

 

So for starters, we have Hasbro Interactive's 1997 version of the classic board game Risk! If you've never played this board game until 4:00 in the morning, you're really missing out! Its a really good turn-based strategy "take over the world" type game. This version is my favorite because the "classic" mode is about 99% identical to the original board game, whereas modern versions can be vastly different. This one also contains other game modes and smaller "regional" maps that you can play.

This version works on everything from Windows 98 to Windows 10. The original 16-bit release in 1996 works on win95 to win10, but only on 32-bit systems (so not ideal for most of us). Contained in this package is the contents of the original disk, plus a custom installer that I threw together. All I've done is automatically select the proper compatibility settings for the game (Windows XP - SP2 works well), and give it the ability to run without the disk. No I haven't hacked anything and no this will not give your a virus or anything crazy like that. If you don't trust me then open the batch file and look inside Multiplayer does still function, even in windows 10, but it can be finicky at times.

Download here.

 

 

City Interactive - Demolition Champions (2003)

Spoiler

 

Next we have another childhood favorite of mine - Demolition Champions! Its a pretty simple game in concept. You select either "career" mode or "quick race" mode depending on what you're into, and then pick a car and a track/arena and go beat up your car and everyone else's There are race tracks as well as demolition arenas. Points are given based on the level of destruction you can deal to other vehicles, or otherwise what position you finish in a race. You can upgrade your vehicle with scored points, etc, etc just play it already

This one should work on anything from window XP to windows 10. Multiplayer still works in this one too, though it has some interesting issues much like our W3D games here, with lag warp and things of that nature. I have not changed anything in this game, I am providing the original installer.

Download here.

 

 

[OrangeP47]

Thanks again for the Risk!  Now that I think about it, even if my CD wasn't scratched, I'm pretty sure it was the 16 bit version.  I'm going to play me a few rounds of this and then maybe put it on a flashdrive for the next time I see my parents, they loved this game as well.

[Plokite_Wolf]

Raven Software - Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force (2000)

 

UFPlanets.com somehow managed to get the rights to freely and legally distribute the game.

For those who don't know, it's a first-person shooter in the id Tech 3 (Quake III) engine set in Star Trek: Voyager, and follows the Hazard Team, an elite force of security officers who are trained for higher-risk missions than standard away teams. Not sure yet if the singleplayer is included in this distribution, but the Holomatch definitely is (renamed multiplayer, they had to use the holodeck theme so as to follow the license and not have any official characters die). There's also the RPG-X mod, which enables roleplaying and expands the set of assets Elite Force comes with.

Elite Force is regarded as arguably the best Star Trek-licensed game of all time, by the way.

Download at UFPlanets.com (requires registration)

FASA Studio & Cyberlore - MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries (2002)

 

The second expansion to MechWarrior 4: Vengeance, and the only one that was standalone. It was freeware for a period of time when a team called MekTek released the game along with some added 'Mechs and features (widescreen etc.), until they inexplicably left it. While officially no longer downloadable, the community (or what's left of it) de facto still distributes the game.

Download from Google Drive

(source of download)

 

Monolith - No One Lives Forever (2000) & No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way (2002)

 

The lovable, humourous and intensively story-driven FPS series, No One Lives Forever puts you in the role of Cate Archer, a secret agent working for UNITY to defeat the typical spy-movie villain organization H.A.R.M. One of my personal favourite series of all time. It's currently in an ABSURD level of licensing hell (divided between Monolith, Warner Bros., Activision and 20th Century Fox, while poor Night Dive Studios made a futile attempt to resolve that and re-release the game). That's where the fans come in - NOLFRevival.tk offers the two games with a few tweaks (widescreen, multiplayer...) for free, and nobody has sued them yet.

Download from NOLFRevival.tk (note - site has audio playing)

(good read on the subject)

Blizzard - StarCraft (1998) & StarCraft: Brood War (1998)

 

For completion's sake

As of this year, StarCraft and its Brood War expansion are completely free. One of the best gaming storylines ever combined with the multiplayer that essentially started the so-called "eSports" craze (particularly in South Korea) is pretty much all the introduction it needs. Problems with rendering on Windows 8.x/10 have been resolved, anti-cheat on Battle.net has been re-enabled, and the Remastered version (coming 14 August) will be compatible with the freeware release online.

Download from Blizzard

Edited July 27, 2017 by Plokite_Wolf
finally fixed

[Plokite_Wolf]

BTW, fuck IPSv4 and its lack of code view.

[OrangeP47]

I can recommend both Elite force and Mechwarriors too. I already have functioning installs of both of those, but I'll thank ye for finding those on behalf of everyone nonetheless.

Off topic kinda, but if any of you have the old CDs for any Star Trek games, they can sell even used for triple digits, because they can be kinda rare.

Edited July 28, 2017 by OrangeP47

[Einstein]

4 hours ago, Plokite_Wolf said:

BTW, fuck IPSv4 and its lack of code view.

We don't like that bit either. The feature exists but IPB4 dumped BB-code in favor of raw HTML, so having that enabled for all users creates some obvious concerns. If you need help with formatting though, any admin or staff-mod can fix it in the code.

---

Here are a few more I meant to add. A couple simple flash games and a 16-bit game from windows 95, great for killing time at work

Feed the Reddit Alien

Super Fill Up

Jezzball - You'll need an older OS in a VM or otherwise a 32-bit OS to run this. It's 16-bit, nothing I can do.

[Plokite_Wolf]

7 hours ago, OrangeP47 said:

Off topic kinda, but if any of you have the old CDs for any Star Trek games, they can sell even used for triple digits, because they can be kinda rare.

I can imagine. Bridge Commander and Elite Force II sold the worst, not because of quality, but because they were made at the end of Activision's hold of the license. In 2003, after Elite Force II was released, Activision allegedly sued Paramount for poor handling of the franchise, which could have affected sales - this did make sense, since all Paramount did at the time was Nemesis (ugh) and Enterprise, so Star Trek dipped in the eyes of the public. Not sure how that went for them, but they immediately lost the rights to selling Star Trek games (but I think you could ask for replacement discs by ~2008).

Too bad, since apart from Starfleet Command 1/2/Orion Pirates and 25th Anniversary/Judgement Rites, Activision published the only good Star Trek games.

[Plokite_Wolf]

EA Los Angeles - The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth series (2004-2006)

 

 

The Battle for Middle-earth series was developed in the interim between C&C Generals: Zero Hour and C&C 3 Tiberium Wars, and used the same SAGE engine (only gradually upgraded). EA dropped their LotR license in 2010, so these games could no longer be sold or supported, and that's even when the official GameSpy servers were shut down, long before they virtually imploded for all other games.

These games still have small multiplayer and mod communities.

Download links and instructions at Revora

T3A:Online multiplayer server (from which C&C:Online was born!)

[Testament]

GRAND THEFT AUTO 2

http://www.myabandonware.com/game/grand-theft-auto-2-3w7

Grand Theft Auto 2 has been free off of the Rockstar Social Club Classics for as long as I can remember but that site has since been taken down. It's a really fun top down open world shooter. Great music and original radio stations with very few licensed songs. There is also a fart and a burp button.

BATTLEFIELD 2 & 2142 + Expansions
https://battlelog.co/
We should really get a W3DHub clan going on this, seen a lot of players in the middle of the night in  North America.

[Plokite_Wolf]

Bethesda - The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994) & The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (1996)

 

 

The earliest RPGs in the famed Elder Scrolls series, released for free by Bethesda themselves. They are also bundled with pretty much all purchases of Bethesda-owned games on GOG. They're strictly DOS games, so make sure you run them in DOSbox.

Download TES Arena

Download TES II: Daggerfall

Edited July 28, 2017 by Plokite_Wolf

[OrangeP47]

10 hours ago, Plokite_Wolf said:

I can imagine. Bridge Commander and Elite Force II sold the worst, not because of quality, but because they were made at the end of Activision's hold of the license. In 2003, after Elite Force II was released, Activision allegedly sued Paramount for poor handling of the franchise, which could have affected sales - this did make sense, since all Paramount did at the time was Nemesis (ugh) and Enterprise, so Star Trek dipped in the eyes of the public. Not sure how that went for them, but they immediately lost the rights to selling Star Trek games (but I think you could ask for replacement discs by ~2008).

Too bad, since apart from Starfleet Command 1/2/Orion Pirates and 25th Anniversary/Judgement Rites, Activision published the only good Star Trek games.

While I'd say Bridge Commander is probably the best game, the one I've seen with highest demand is Armada II. It's specifically the one I remember going for a boatload. When I saw that I immediately went to find my CDs, not because I wanted to sell them, but to give the campaign another go for nostalgia. It's unfortunate that a lot of the activision titles don't work (well) on modern OS though.

[Plokite_Wolf]

13 minutes ago, OrangeP47 said:

While I'd say Bridge Commander is probably the best game, the one I've seen with highest demand is Armada II. It's specifically the one I remember going for a boatload. When I saw that I immediately went to find my CDs, not because I wanted to sell them, but to give the campaign another go for nostalgia. It's unfortunate that a lot of the activision titles don't work (well) on modern OS though.

Bridge Commander had a good campaign (except for that bitch of a first officer), but the multiplayer really lacked a ship selection.

Armada II is pretty mod-friendly, and it had a sick FileFront community back in the day. Armada 1 campaign > Armada 2 campaign, though

The only Activision games that I find difficult to run on Win10 are Armada 1 and SFC3. Armada 1 can be forced to work, but very sluggishly. SFC1/2/OP only need an INI edit to fix incompatibility, but I didn't get to the bottom of SFC3 yet.

[OrangeP47]

36 minutes ago, Plokite_Wolf said:

Bridge Commander had a good campaign (except for that bitch of a first officer), but the multiplayer really lacked a ship selection.

Armada II is pretty mod-friendly, and it had a sick FileFront community back in the day. Armada 1 campaign > Armada 2 campaign, though

The only Activision games that I find difficult to run on Win10 are Armada 1 and SFC3. Armada 1 can be forced to work, but very sluggishly. SFC1/2/OP only need an INI edit to fix incompatibility, but I didn't get to the bottom of SFC3 yet.

I got Armada 2 running on 7, but the music was so distorted and glitchy it made me want to rip my ears off basically.

[Plokite_Wolf]

1 hour ago, OrangeP47 said:

I got Armada 2 running on 7, but the music was so distorted and glitchy it made me want to rip my ears off basically.

I'd expect that from Armada 1, not 2. Armada 1 disliked audio acceleration. Your issue may be isolated, but I'd ask people on FleetOps.net forums if I were you.

[delta]

I believe World in Conflict is freeware now. Download link here, as well as a third party patch to play online.

[Plokite_Wolf]

Sports Interactive - Championship Manager: Season 2001/02 (2001)

 

In 2009, prior to making the last "real" game in the series on their own, Eidos released Championship Manager: Season 2001/02 for free. This was the last seasonal game to come out of the Championship Manager 3 (1999) engine, and has all leagues up to date prior to the said season, and has the most leagues to choose from. It's considered the best football management game ever made by experienced players, and still gets fan-made patches and roster updates. In 2004, Sports Interactive would split from Eidos, retaining the technology and developers, and would go on to make the Football Manager series, the true successor to the Championship Manager games that gets yearly sequels to this day, while Eidos only kept the name and made a few unsuccessful sequels before abandoning all work on the IP.

Download from Eidos' file server

Download from ChampMan0102.co.uk

Download from FMScout

Edited August 13, 2017 by Plokite_Wolf

[Testament]

http://www.moddb.com/games/hard-truck-2/downloads/hard-truck-2-king-of-the-road

http://www.moddb.com/games/hard-truck-2/videos/hard-truck-2-trailer-demo

Great game, sometimes it'll work on modern systems and other times it won't or will with some rather glaring issues. First continuous open world driving game I've ever played. You'll grow to hate your competition as you work your way to 51% control of the logistics market in the region. Soundtrack is kickass too.
 

 

[Einstein]

Haha i listen to the soundtrack from that sometimes when im in that sort of mood. Good stuff indeed.

[Threve]

Spybotics: The nightfall incident (Turn based strategy game that is very advanced for what it was. An all time favorite. The tutorial is skipped unfortunately but it's quite basic. Move your program around and defeat the other program. Click on your program for more info.)

A very old 2002 game from my childhood that introduced me to strategy gaming. A bit childish but I still enjoy it not just for strategic but nostalgic as well.. hard to find now if not impossible. Uploading here for archive purposes. I believe LEGO Media itself went extinct circa 2008 making this free online game hard to find.

Note: This game can only run on Internet Explorer. After downloading, right click the file and click open with Internet Explorer. Give it a minute and it should work. If not, notify me here and i'll provide the Shockwave flash update to help make it work.

 

spybot_0807_sw.dcr

[delta]

https://www.moddb.com/games/starwars-battle-of-yavin/downloads/starwars-battle-of-yavin-full-download

https://www.moddb.com/games/starwars-battle-of-endor/downloads/starwars-battle-of-endor-full-game

Two freeware games based on the space battles in the original Star Wars trilogy. If you haven't come across them before, you can give them a try.

[rantanplan]

Call of Duty: Warzone is cross platform and free to play for everyone with only registering a Blizzard account and installing their desktop app.

Take a look at Activision's blog, or at Blizzard shop.battle.net.

 

[Goliath35]

On 7/28/2017 at 10:51 AM, Testament said:

GRAND THEFT AUTO 2

http://www.myabandonware.com/game/grand-theft-auto-2-3w7

Grand Theft Auto 2 has been free off of the Rockstar Social Club Classics for as long as I can remember but that site has since been taken down. It's a really fun top down open world shooter. Great music and original radio stations with very few licensed songs. There is also a fart and a burp button.

BATTLEFIELD 2 & 2142 + Expansions
https://battlelog.co/
We should really get a W3DHub clan going on this, seen a lot of players in the middle of the night in  North America.

farts

 

[TeamWolf]

On 3/28/2020 at 6:14 PM, delta said:

https://www.moddb.com/games/starwars-battle-of-yavin/downloads/starwars-battle-of-yavin-full-download

https://www.moddb.com/games/starwars-battle-of-endor/downloads/starwars-battle-of-endor-full-game

Two freeware games based on the space battles in the original Star Wars trilogy. If you haven't come across them before, you can give them a try.

I used to play these sooooo much when they came out!!

[Testament]

On 3/31/2020 at 4:43 PM, Goliath35 said:

farts

 

Based.

Someone dropped a mod for Hard Truck 2 over the past year, will probably go and check that out. Great old game if you haven't played it.

[Goliath35]

18 hours ago, Testament said:

Based.

Someone dropped a mod for Hard Truck 2 over the past year, will probably go and check that out. Great old game if you haven't played it.

Drop a link, now you have my curiosity