Best freeware games

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Sometime over the course of the summer I discovered a freeware Japanese platformer called Doukutsu Monogatari, or Cave Story. The graphics are pretty good despite being 8-bit, and the music is kinda chiptune-ish. You start out in a cave with no weapons, but you soon find a gun and are able to leave the area you're in. Then you find a village inhabited by rabbit-like people called mimigas who live in constant fear of a mysterious adversary known simply as "the doctor." And don't let the cute graphics fool you, the game gets pretty dark.

http://agtp.romhack.net/doukutsu.html The Windows version can be downloaded there. You'll need the English patch unless you understand Japanese.

Does anyone else have any freeware gaming gems? Bonus points if there's a story worth paying attention to.

Everything that was 8-bit was made with chiptune-ish music. Midis were all they had!

Well, Cave Story was made between 1999 and 2004. It could've been more modern, but I guess the creator decided to go with a more retro feel.

Ha! As soon as I saw this thread, I thought "Cool, I'll recommend Cave Story to some people." But yeah, it's unbelievably awesome. Easily the best freeware game I've ever played, and far better than a lot of commercial games.

Neverball is quite fun. It's 3d with shiny graphics too, yet with very low sys reqs. I saw someone play it on a 16mb NVidia Vanta!

http://icculus.org/neverball/

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Gunz: The Duel. They're both online freeware games. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is a WWII first-person shooter. It could probably be best described as a Team Fortress set in WWII, because there are a few different classes to choose from. Gunz is a third-person shooter where you can do a bunch of "The Matrix"-style stunts. Unfortunately, there are tons of hackers/cheaters who play it, too.

There's also Stepmania, which is like a DDR for your computer. You need a PlayStation -> USB converter to play it with a dancepad, but it is actually kind of fun to play using a keyboard (in my opinion).

http://www.gunzonline.com/ - Gunz
http://www.stepmania.com/ - Stepmania
http://games.activision.com/games/wolfenstein/ - Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

Dink Smallwood
http://www.rtsoft.com/dink/

Grand Theft Auto and Abuse are good freeware games. Also, I've played Dink Smallwood and found it to be decent, even though the combat is a little unpolished.

GridWars. Best shoot em up ever!

Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, im addicted to it xD

Hello 666 is your avatar from Cave Story. I have played CS and the pic looks very familiar.

Yeah, it's from Cave Story. It's Misery's dialogue box portrait.

www.fun-motion.com

They arent all freeware, but those that are are quite fun

Other than that, theres Cortex Command (a sadly defunct sidescrolling shooter which would have been awsome if it were ever finished), Shipgame (the same, I dont think you can download it now though), and the Falling Sand Game (more of a toy, but still fun).

I know The Underdogs (might get in trouble for linking to it...) has some good stuff in terms of abandonware, and theyre generally careful in terms of legality, as the ESA watches their site closely.

I know of several cheap games ($20-10) out there as well. Children of the Nile, any of the Hitman games, and X3 spring to mind. Oh, and The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind is a must buy.

Also, if you can find them, games like Die by the Sword, Total Annihilation and Freespace 2 are good buys. They arent uber in terms of graphics, but their gameplay will blow your mind. TA particularly, it was published in 96 I think, and still has an active fan community making tons of mods for it. Sadly, that community is in decline now.

Falling Sand is strangley addictive.

I used to play some good DOS games, they include Dangerous Dave, Crystal Caves, and the Commander Keen games.

Those aren't technically freeware, though. Crystal Caves 1 and Commander Keen 1 and 4 are shareware, but the rest are commercially licensed. At least I think so. Are you talking about Dangerous Dave 1 or 2? I think DD2 is commercial. Man, that really takes me back. I remember never being able to get past that damn Frankenstein.