classic posts

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

Quite a long time ago, there was a small economic simulation by the name of MULE. One of the first commercial business simulations, it paved the way for later titles like Railroad Tycoon or Transport Tycoon. Thanks to a simplified model of supply-demand economics, just about anyone could pick up the game, play, and learn basic economic concepts while competing with their friends. However, the visuals have definitely not aged well over the years, making the game increasingly harder to get into for most players. There's been a number of remakes, but the best is a little freeware number by the name of Planet MULE. It's a faithful recreation of the original mechanics with a new coat of paint, so it's time to delve into a classic. For simplicity's sake, Planet MULE will simply be referred to as MULE throughout this article.

Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

Once upon a time, there was a wildly popular real-time strategy game that helped create the genre as we know it. Westwood's Dune 2 created the modern real-time strategy game, and almost all of the features introduced in it have been used widely in other real-time strategy games since. While it is a great game, it wasn't until Westwood's second game in the genre that real-time strategy as both a single-player experience and as a multiplayer phenomenon became apparent. Command and Conquer (sometimes referred to as Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn to separate it from the other games) has one of the most lasting effects on the genre, with only Blizzard's games being this influential to real-time strategy on this sort of scale. There's a reason that Command and Conquer has recieved a long-running franchise with fantastic games.

Dust off the time machine and step back. Apogee Software (a.k.a. 3D Realms) recently released eight classic games as freeware. Be aware that these games are no longer supported and may require software like DOSBox to get running, since some of these games date back to the early 90's. Otherwise, enjoy the free trip back in time.

Download Arctic Adventure Full Free Game (269 KB)
Download Beyond Titanic Full Free Game (430 KB)
Download Dark Ages Full Free Game (374 KB)
Download Kroz Full Free Game (4 MB)
Download Monuments of Mars Full Free Game (200 KB)
Download Pharaoh's Tomb Full Free Game (217 KB)
Supernova Full Free Game (756 KB)
Word Whiz Full Free Game (188 KB)

Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

There's a few RTS games that are considered to be true classics of the genre. Dune 2, Starcraft, Command and Conquer: Red Alert, and Homeworld are all considered to be classics. And so is Chris Taylor's first game, the incredible Total Annihilation. With more units per side than any RTS had even dared to try, massive battles that took place in 3D environments, and a system that relied on real-world concepts such as physics and intel rather than dice-rolling, Total Annihilation blew our minds away with its complete departure from the norm. Even with Supreme Commander, its spiritual successor, on the market and an open-source remake called Spring on the internet, Total Annihilation is still as fun and innovative now as it was in 1997.

Every Friday to come, we'll present to you some of the biggest downloads at Big Download. Sometimes they'll be the most popular, sometimes the best rated. Sometimes they'll be our own personal favorites! There's a little of each in today's inaugural round-up. Thanks to the launch of Mass Effect, the huge Ubidays press event, and all the other exciting stuff this past week, there's a lot of great stuff to check out. Here are the Big Downloads!

	Beyond Good & Evil 2 Teaser Trailer Ubisoft dropped the bomb on everyoneat the Ubidays press event: the esteemed Beyond Good & Evil is getting a sequel! Here's the first trailer, our most popular download this week.
	Doom 3 Classic Mod Relive the 90s in the Doom 3 Classic Mod. It's a remake of classic Doom in the more modern Doom 3 engine.
	Prince of Persia Ubidays 2008 Teaser Trailer Also from Ubidays, the Prince of Persia trailer shows off the next installment's colorful, gorgeous visual style.
	Mass Effect Combat Video 3 We can't let this week slip without featuring arguably its biggest release, Mass Effect. Here's a combat video depicting zombies and worse.
	Get a Life Half-Life 2 Mod The Get a Life mod for Half-Life 2 has been popular in the Big Download offices these past few days. It's a full-length single-player affair that has you uncovering the mysteries of the protagonist's past.

Deus Ex, an esteemed classic of the first-person-shooter genre, will join Psychonauts and Thief: Deadly Shadows on GameTap's list of free-to-play games next week. Even though it uses the original Unreal engine, Deus Ex has aged surprisingly well. It stands next to System Shock 2 as one of the deepest and most praised shooters in PC gaming.

GameTap offers a vast library of old to semi-recent games, which can be downloaded and played by members. Most of those games are only available to paid subscribers, but every once in a while a good one is made free for a while to promote the service. It used to offer gaming news and other editorial content, but that division was just shut down.

This week, new games available to subscribers include Ducati World Championship, Tortugo Pirates of the New World, and Brian Lara Cricket 2007. Ah, well; they can't be awesome every week.