Free full computer game downloads

Pull your head out of the bargain bin for a minute and admit something to yourself: You’re a cheap bastard. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Hell, we’re cheap bastards, too. Just look at how much games cost these days. If we weren’t constantly sent new titles to review, we’d be in the same boat as you. Which got us thinking—you deserve a real list of the best mods, games, and add-ons currently available.

And that’s what we’ve done here. After painstaking hours of downloading, installing, and playing as much free gaming goodness as our PCs could handle, we can now give you the best of the best. Some games will be on this month’s CD, and most will be found through our website (101games.computergaming. com)—but above all, everything here is well worth the download time.

Freeware

They put “Free” in there for a reason.

If you know where to look, there’s a wide range of freebies out there. Old ones and new ones, from tiny little time wasters to massive downloads worth their weight in gold—they’re all free for the taking. You may even wonder why you aren’t paying for some of these.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

If this fantastic, multiplayer-only RTCW expansion cost $30, we’d tell you to rush out and buy it, so the fact that Activision is giving it away should be incentive enough for you to drop this magazine and fire up your download manager. Enemy Territory lets up to 32 players battle through an entire campaign, leveling up their skills and abilities in the process. It also introduces several new character classes essential to the kind of teamwork this game requires.

Steel Panthers: World at War

Combat mission and its sequel may be the best tactical WWII games on the block, but you can save a ton of money and still have a ton of fun with Steel Panthers: World at War. An old DOS game updated to work in Windows, it offers enough scenarios to keep any WWII buff occupied indefinitely.

Grand Theft Auto

Don’t tell Joe Lieberman, but hidden away on Rockstar Games’ website is a free complete version of the game that begat world-conquering hits Grand Theft Auto III and GTA: Vice City. Downloading this baby is a serious commitment—it’s 328MB—and Rockstar is limiting the number of concurrent connections to keep its servers from crashing, but we think it’s worth the effort.

America’s Army: Operations

Really, you’ve already paid for this tactical shooter with your tax dollars. This online multiplayer game offers terrorist-busting action that in some ways surpasses the Rainbow Six series. With a sense of realism second to none, America’s Army gives a deeper appreciation for the exacting training, preparation, and teamwork needed in the real world. We can’t wait for the Special Forces game coming in late October.

Stair Dismount and Truck Dismount

It’s cruel, it’s twisted, and we can’t tear ourselves away. The objective? Do the most possible damage to a crash-test dummy by booting him down the stairs (Stair Dismount) or putting him in, on, or in front of a speeding truck (Truck Dismount). Good luck cracking the online high-score list—there are some really sick bastards out there.

Beneath a Steel Sky

The adventure genre may be on life support, but programs like ScummVM are giving it a shot in the arm by letting players enjoy such great games of yore as Beneath a Steel Sky. Download either the CD version or the smaller floppy version of this outstanding cyberpunk adventure at the ScummVM site. generally A TOP-DOWN RACING GAME with tracks confined to a single screen may not seem like much of a bargain—even if it’s free—but GeneRally incorporates a physics engine with enough detail to keep things interesting. There’s also a varied selection of vehicles, and if you can’t find someone to race against, it’s possible to waste hours trying to whup your ghost car.

Falcon’s Eye

Kids these days—always demanding games with graphics and missing out on all-time classics like Nethack. Install Falcon’s Eye and you’ll never be able to use that excuse again. It turns Nethack’s ASCII symbols into honest-to-God isometric graphics, just like our imaginations once did.

Colossus

Way back in 1982, Avalon Hill published a board game called Titan. It featured epic battles between powerful mythical creatures, and it captured the hearts and minds of beer-swilling college geeks everywhere. Original copies now sell for more than $100 on eBay, but if you can stand not to roll tons of dice and manage large stacks of monster chits, download the elegant—and free—Java version. more free games…

Orbiter

Want to fly a space shuttle? Do it (and more) for free with Orbiter, a soup-to-nuts space-flight simulator that can handle everything from the surface of the Earth to the far reaches of the solar system. You’ll find tons of add-ons and high-res textures, and the next installment promises particle effects and other goodies.

More Free Games…

Vantage Master Online

Not the greatest game ever, but where else will you find a free online RPG?

Pekka Kana 2

Side-scrolling action at its finest and free-est.

Little Fighter 2

You’re little. You fight. You’re a little fighter.

Abuse 2

The side-scrolling action-game extraordinaire is back.

Notrium

Use Crimsonland-like controls to solve puzzles and escape a hostile planet.

Ancient Domains of Mystery

Yes, it’s ASCII. And yes, it’s arguably better than Nethack.

Stick Soldiers 2

Even its simplistic graphics can’t bring down the gameplay.

Wazzal

This top-down action-adventure game plays out like pirates in outer space.

The Ardennes Offensive

This Korsun Pocket predecessor is a fantastic strategy game with a great interface.

Blip & Blop: Balls of Steel

Blast Pokémon, Care Bears, Smurfs, and other icons to smithereens while you wait for the inevitable lawsuit.

Shareware

Because sharing is what friends do.

Yeah, we know shareware games aren’t completely free, but these “try before you buy” titles pack more gameplay into their limited demo versions than you’ll find in some big-name-publisher titles. Technically, you can play the heck out of these games and never pay a cent, but we’re guessing you’ll spring for one or two, since they are the cream of the crop.

StarScape

Resource collection and management, research, galactic exploration and navigation, ship design and customized ship creation, cool art direction, fun Asteroids-style space combat—about the only thing missing from this ambitious action-strategy game set in space is the fat $50 price tag that a monolithic game company would slap on it. Frankly, this is the most formidable game in the bunch. Our only warning: Expect to feel compelled to cough up the registration fee after finishing the 20-minute demo—StarScape is just that good.

Crimsonland

The most claustrophobic third-person shooter ever earns the scarlet letters in its title by liberally drenching too-tight game levels in gallons upon gallons of blood. Crimsonland’s fast-paced “one man against swarming hordes” gameplay is enough to make us like it, but loads of unique power-ups and a very cool experience-point system for buying crucial character-improving perks make it an adrenaline-delivery system that earns our hard-won love.

Bookworm

We’ve paid more for this word game in lost productivity and blown deadlines than we have in registration codes. Bookworm is ridiculously simple: Rack up a big score by hunting out words snaking through the jumble of Scrabble-style tiles while making sure to use up burning tiles before they hit the bottom of the screen and end the game. There’s no such thing as “just one more quick game” with Bookworm, but damn if we haven’t blown off work, loved ones, and sleep deluding ourselves that there actually is.

Laser Squad Nemesis

From the makers of X-Com comes a game much like X-Com, but multiplayer in focus. This squad-based play-by–e-mail alien-hunting strategy game is seriously deep and hellaciously time consuming. The shareware version includes a tutorial, three actual e-mail matches, and unlimited hotseat play. We gave an Editor’s Choice to the full version of Laser Squad Nemesis, so you know it’s gotta be good.

Shareware

Because sharing is what friends do.

Yeah, we know shareware games aren’t completely free, but these “try before you buy” titles pack more gameplay into their limited demo versions than you’ll find in some big-name-publisher titles. Technically, you can play the heck out of these games and never pay a cent, but we’re guessing you’ll spring for one or two, since they are the cream of the crop.

Crimsonland