Free/Opensource games that keep me busy

eh, played all of those... including whoring up at least 100 hours on advanced wars and the sequel. Farcry wasnt so great O.O...

you can get aids from playing runescape and world of warcraft.

 

Well I don't know much free games, but games you can pirate.. hmm, I liked Rome: Total War ( and the newest release Medieval 2: Total War ).
http://www.totalwar.com/

I can also recommend a game called Empires.. it's the coolest HL2 mod ever made! ;D.
http://www.empiresmod.com

Uhm you could try the Anno series. ( I like the first one most, Anno 1602 ) Got myself hooked onto that for years, and every now and then I still play a game.
http://www.anno1602.de/

Flatout 2: cool stunt/racing/derby game, all about crashing your car into others, etc.
http://www.flatoutgame.com/

Battlezone 1/2: If you don't know that game you have been living in a cave.
http://www.planetbattlezone.com/

The Battlefield series ( BF 2142 sure is damn cool ).
http://battlefield2142.ea.com/

Sid Meier's Pirates / Railroads: play if you are really bored (Railroads looks alot like Transport Tycoon, not so advanced tho, just trains..)
http://www.2kgames.com/pirates/pirates/home.php
http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_detail.php?gameid=12

 

Well If we are going to go that route... Let me drop a bombshell; the sky is the limit :p

NFS:Carbon:
http://www.ea.com/nfs/carbon/us/home.jsp
A very good racing game; and if you liked Most Wanted, there are alot more video clips in this one; though they made it at night againg and because of that the graphics appear worse, but it also lags worse

Neverwinter Nights 2:
http://www.atari.com/nwn2/
A solid RPG, if you have even a sligh interest in RPG's try this out; sucks the life out of you for a week straight. The bad thing is the ghey end, I wont spoil it for you but it is kind of anti climatic...

Medival 2: Total War
http://games.activision.com/games/medieval_totalwar/index.html
Very nice turn based strategy game; like the previous one, loving this one... Just finished oblitirating France as Britian; Just like in real life :D (Kidding... But they did trouble me at the begining until I got my troops together and steamrolled from Paris all the way to the black sea...) It has very nice moments, I suggest you give this a try...

Gothic 3
http://pc.ign.com/objects/726/726093.html
I wouldnt recomend this unless you are really bored, or really like the Gothic series; this new one is full of bugs and it just totaly kills gameplay... Even with the new patch this game is still just WAY TO FREAKING BUGGY... They should have kept the game in production for a couple of months and polished it, beacuse of right now it is not passible for a game, not even an Alpha... Stay away for a bit until there are quite a few patch iterations

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion:
http://www.elderscrolls.com/games/oblivion_overview.htm
A good solid game, good even if you dont like RPG's but are in the mood of whacking something over the head, then to zap them with a spell. The only bad thing about this game is that it is power hungry and the "Radiant AI" is not that bright... And the spells look all the same, that was a bit of a let down... Even when you have a spell that can kill something in 1 shot, it still looks like your beginer spell... Very dissapointing...

Warhammer 40 000 + all EXP:
http://www.dawnofwargame.com/
A really worthy game will keep you busy for hours...

Company Of Heroes:
http://www.companyofheroesgame.com/
A very nice WWII RTS, very immersive stuff with an awesome campaign, then once your done with that move over to LAN games with your mates and the fun goes on a whole new level; now you can get raped by the AI together with someone else :D

Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords
http://www.galciv2.com/
Nice game, a space TBS; you can build your own ships (As in design how they look and what weapons shields engines sensors support) they have, as well as managing planets... Very good game, I suggest you give this a try no matter what; as well as you can download a craploda user made content so you can prented to be The Federation, The Borg, Cylons Etc; and get your inner nerd out :D...

Well thats it for now... Maybe will post more notable games later once I rember more...

 

I need me some free games I tried torrenting NFS carbon, but I couldn't get it to work. I must talk to bojangles!

 

AFAIK, Railroad Tycoon came LONG before Transport Tycoon. Sid Meier wins.

 

actually, its not Railroad Tycoon, but just "Sid Meier' s: Railroads ! ".
So maybe you mean another tycoon game, but the sid meier one came out not that long ago.

 

i cant beleive no one said cyberdogs (cyberdogz?), smash tv clone.

a great game if you have 3-4 people over (no 1 player or online ) is jump&bump. your cute little bunnies who try to jump on eachother, and each time you do you are rewarded with seeing your friend explode into a million bloody bunny peices.

 

Everyone should play homeworld at least once, but that in my opinion, I also used to play runescape. I was mostly a blacksmith. ;D Check out goldenoldies.com for some classics. GTA2 is free from rockstar, search for sentry (A free sentinel clone).

 

ground control 2 is fun

 

I just got anarchy online, and I'm hooked That might be because I've never played any type of mmorpg ever, and I'm infatuated with the fact that I can go fight, and then buy furniture for my apartment. I'm still confused about a lot of the aspects of the game, like using class-related skills, but eh I'll figure it out eventually.

 

I tried it a while back and wasnt all that impressed by it... >,<

 

Heh, I used to play that.

It got boring around level 40.

 

On the subject of MMORPGs:

Hi. I'm Chack and I'm a sheep. Only after 4 years on EverQuest did I realize that. I mean, how long can killing "a_swamp_rat" over and over again entertain you?

I guess the MMORPG market found the magic formula that keeps sheep like me coming back for more:

1. Create an overly simplistic progression model: killing monsters = experience, X amount of experience = level up, power up items = kill monsters faster. If the players get bored - invent other ways of progression such as quests (the stupider the tasks - the better) or crafting (why invent something complicated when something simple suffices?) Don't overdo it, otherwise figting the "end-game boredom" syndrome will take all your resources.
2. Owerwhelm the players with shiny graphics, cool magik effects and huge boobs on female characters; create some poor excuse of an "economy", and a hint of a story-line; thow in a gimpped Player-versus-Player mode to appease that niche; don't forget to add useless character customization options so that every player's avatar doesn't look like the clone army they actually are.
3. Slow down the players' progression through levels as they gain them to a crawl (literally), to keep them coming back for more. After all, the more time they invest - the more addicted they will become. Then find the maximum amount people will pay for this punishment and set that as the monthly fee.
4. Once every couple of months release expansions with more of the above. Charge a full game's price for them, claiming "revolutionary" changes. Make sure to leave folks who do not buy into your bullshit out of the loop, forcing them to "upgrade" just to keep up with their sheep friends.

Did I miss anything?

 

I think you can also the add the hours spent trying to earn some rare armor, so you look like a some sort of legendary 1337 player or just dying in the middle of town while people refuse to revive you for the next 12 minutes & steal your wallet (like this guy standing over my dead corpse minute later...)

 

You're definetly right about all of that, except for that fact that I refuse to pay for games so I get the free ones :D

 

Make friends with a meta-physiscist. He can buff almost every stat so you can twink better armor and weapons.

 

What I hate is that you feel like you are being rewarded for doing incredibly boring tasks, such as clicking something that's meant to be a rock, repeatedly for half an hour, every day, in the quest for "money" or "mining skill". how crap.

 

I don't know what you're referring to

 

hoow can you guys have not mentioned the best game ever made?!
allegiance

its a spacesim (shooter / fps) crossed with a RTS

ou have one player on the team who is the commander, he builds bases and researches techs, commands the team etc, for him its mainly a RTS, except all his units are players, though some times he is needed to defend bases etc.

for the rest of the team, its flying the ships, though there is a huge emphasis on team work (no one player can win a game by him self)

the simpelest way to describe it would be empires in space, but done better!

...
you know how you always complain about noobs not reading the manual before playing empires?
read our manual before playing
tutorial missions are helpfull too
the @cadet training program should also get a good mention

p.s. we have a very active dev team, and other members of the community are making highres texture patches, so bases and asteroids are starting to look really sweet


p.s. did i mention free and open source?

 

That's what I hate about most MMORPGs, pointless levelling or repetitive and ultimaately uninteresting tasks for most of your play time. I really don't see why people actually pay monthly for that sort of thing =/