15 free to own games for Windows
By Jonathan Schlaffer
If you don’t have much money to spend on gaming you may have been looking for free or low-cost alternatives. Here are 15 free games that might be worth your time whether you have the money to spend on games or not. Just because they’re free doesn’t mean they are cheap or light on features, some of them hang with the best paid titles. This list consists of first person shooters, RPG, action and space flight simulations so hopefully you can find something worthwhile.
First person shooters
This game is an online first person shooter. You run, you shoot, you can team up or team kill (not sure about the rules on that), there are also a number of things you can add to the game by buying items. You can also buy a copy of the game in store that gives you 8 slots for items as well as “gold” membership and money to buy additional items.
This game was developed by the US Army to increase recruitment. Whether that actually worked or not can be questioned but it sure is one realistic tactical shooter. Before you can actually start playing the game, you must take place in four training missions, most of which are used to familiarize you with the controls. There are optional training missions after this that unlock special abilities or equipment but are not required.
The graphics are good, the realism is excellent and it’s all funded by the US Army for recruitment. Critics have called it propaganda but I just call it, a “free” game courtesy of the United States government. It’s only free in the fact that it doesn’t cost anything to own but tax payer’s dollars actually paid for development of the game.
Enemy Territory was originally intended to be an add-on for the remake for Return to Castle Wolfenstien which would have featured both single player and online multiplayer modes. Obviously the single player element never made it but it has been released as a free to download and play online game.
It’s Doom, well, it’s actually Doom 3D just with better textures and mouse controls.
EA is planning to release Battlefield Heroes, this summer and it’s going to be free to download. It’s geared towards the multiplayer element but may yet include a single player aspect. Not too many of the game’s details have been released yet. Even so, it should be at the top of your list.
The game is free. The hardware to run it is not. In order to run this game you will need an Aegia PhysX card which will run you $100 to $150. It will give you a benefit in some artificial benchmarks as well as other games that support the technology. As for Cell Factor, it has received mixed reviews but at least watch the demo video before deciding.
Cell Factor: Revolution features multiplayer and a single player campaign mode.
This is an episodic shooter based off SpikeTV’s “The Kill Point.” The game currently consists of 7 downloadable “episodes” that focus on multiplayer combat in settings taken from the TV show. It is based off Valve’s Source Engine. Sadly, there is no single player aspect.
Another episodic shooter but this one features both single player and multiplayer modes. The original KumaWar consisted of 74 episodes before KumaWar 2 was released. In the first game you were able to select between first and third person aspects. The second game has a first person view only. Both games are free to download and play. So far, KumaWar 2 consists of 11 episodes and features updated graphics over the original game.
Both versions of the game are loosely based off actual US military campaigns, a majority of which take place in Iraq.
Urban Terror is a “total conversion mod” of Quake III. The weapons in the game can be found in real life and feature recoil and are less accurate while running. You can only carry a limited number of weapons and ammunition but many modern games feature this limitation.
If you are hit by enemy fire, the wound will need tending to or you will lose mobility depending on where you were hit. It also allows your character to perform some “special” maneuvers that could not be done in real life. Multiplayer mode only.
A free first person shooter that features “cartoonish” graphics but it actually manages to pull it off. Gameplay centers on constantly moving around and performing special moves to accomplish your goals. It’s worth a look but keep in mind this is a multiplayer game and has no single player mode or campaign to play.
This is one of the best first person shooters that this generation has ever seen but you need to buy it if you want the campaign. If you just want to join the online multiplayer action then you can download FEAR: Combat and get to the action.
Before Bungie made Halo or was gobbled up by Microsoft, there was Marathon. Marathon eventually became a trilogy of games belonging to the Sci-Fi shooter genre.
Space Fight
If you’re a fan of space flight games or Babylon 5 then you will want to check this out. You fly a fighter in a story-based single player campaign or can do multiplayer missions. The controls respond much like you would expect a fighter in space to do in that there is some give and take, it does not stop immediately and you continue to drift for a while after cutting the throttle. There is also an element of the controls that feel “loose” like you would expect a spacecraft to feel. It’s a pretty good game for being free.
RPG
Dink Smallwood is a game done Zelda-style and was originally published back in 1997. The game was released as freeware in 1999 and continues to be updated. It now supports 32-bit color and includes Dink Edit so you can make your own adventures once you finish the game.
Action
Grand Theft Auto, one of the most well-known franchises of our time and the first two games have been released at no cost. GTAI and GTAII can be downloaded for free and need almost no introduction. You steel cars; you wreak havoc and destruction while trying to evade the law. These games were made before 3D environments so are 2D “above” view style games.
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March 20th, 2008
great list , thank you.