Classic PC Games : Free Software : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Some consider it the best game of , which, when you consider the competition Half-Life , Starcraft , Baldur’s Gate , just for starters , is a heck of a compliment. Photo: Microsoft. Emphasising exploration and interspecies diplomacy, Stellaris codifies and gamifies every aspect of modern life and imagines how it could be different. As they travel from world to world, they must solve puzzles and find missing pages from the book to continue. Unfortunately for them, the time machine is faulty, and they’re soon separated. River Raid.
 
 

My Abandonware – Download Old Video Games

 

Running older games on PCs used to be an uphill battle, reliant on fan-made patches, task manager wizardry and Windows’ unpredictable compatibility mode. Thanks to digital download platforms like Steam and GOG, however, booting up a classic title is just as easy as diving into a newer one.

Through the highly scientific method of “polling my co-workers,” I’ve come up with a list of titles that are at least 10 years old, and are just as much fun to play now as when they launched. If you’ve never tried them before, now’s the perfect time — and if you have, they’re well worth a replay.

When Interplay disappeared into the wasteland, the series rights went to Bethesda, which reworked it from top to bottom. Unlike its predecessors, Fallout 3 put players in a first-person perspective and incorporated shooter elements in order to make the title more accessible.

Players were wary of the changes, but once they dug a little deeper, they discovered that Fallout 3 had all the hallmarks of the series: the enormous world, the deep character customization, the branching narrative and more. Far Cry 5 came out recently, and the reviews have been polite.

The gameplay works like gangbusters, but the setting doesn’t feel fully realized. Reviewers pointed out — correctly — that Far Cry 2 handled the balance between chaotic open-world gameplay and a politically charged story much better.

Taking control of a mercenary in a fictional Central African country, players face off against a Nietzschean arms dealer called the Jackal, for whom death and destruction is its own reward. The FPS gameplay is tight and varied, but more important, the setting feels realistic and explores colonialism’s complicated legacy in Africa. There’s no denying that the two sequels to The Witcher are better games than the first.

By today’s standards, The Witcher is a little clunky and slow-paced. However, if you can deal with the game’s steep learning curve, you’ll be rewarded with an eclectic cast of likable characters, an unpredictable story that changes with your choices, satisfying combat mechanics and a deep character advancement system. Players take control of Geralt of Rivia: a witcher monster hunter who has lost his memories, but can perhaps regain them if he pursues the wraith-like entity known as the King of the Wild Hunt.

Even once you get past the memorable intro video, however, there’s a lot to like about Civilization IV. As in other games in this turn-based strategy series, you’ll take control of a powerful civilization, led by a charismatic ruler, as you guide your tribe from humble beginnings in the Stone Age into interstellar glory in the near future.

The late, great Leonard Nimoy provides narration. When it first came out, Psychonauts was what one could charitably call a “cult classic” — and, uncharitably, a “flop. You play as Raz: a young psychic, sent away to a summer camp for kids with supernatural mental powers. The real draw, however, is the diverse array of levels you’ll tackle, including a suburban conspiracy thriller and a Mexican black-velvet bullfight. First-person shooters and horror games don’t generally mix, but in F.

You take control of an operative who works for an elite squad of sharpshooters, called First Encounter Assault Recon. See what they did there? Along with your squad, you take on a madman named Paxton Fettel, who has taken over a huge building complex and sicced super-soldiers on its hapless occupants. The B-movie sci-fi setup, however, is only a facade.

As you delve deeper, you learn about a psychic little girl named Alma, who may be at the center of the whole mess — and who can play with your perceptions of reality. The first Half-Life was a remarkable game, which combined tactical first-person gunplay with clever physics-based puzzles. What it lacked, however, was a character-driven, cinematic story. Half-Life 2 picked up almost 20 years after the previous game.

What started as a contained alien incident has exploded into a full-blown invasion, complete with a world government that’s only too happy to serve the invaders. Gordon Freeman, armed with his trusty crowbar and a delightful new gravity gun , must jump, shoot and puzzle his way across a gorgeous, dangerous world, aided by trusty sidekick Alyx Vance.

The only downside is that we’ll probably never see Half-Life 3. Back before Disney took over Lucasfilm, Star Wars games used to be a dime a dozen. They weren’t always good, of course, but for every Yoda Stories there was a game like Knights of the Old Republic.

RollerCoaster Tycoon kickstarted a whole genre, and RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 brought the series into full 3D, but RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 hit the sweet spot right in the middle. In this management simulation, you get to build your very own amusement park, complete with the wildest roller coasters you can imagine.

The premise is simple: Buy up an empty plot of land, then start your very own park from scratch. The attractions, vendors and prices are all up to you, but you’ll need to keep your parkgoers happy. And, yes: The game even measures how nauseated they feel after riding a particularly adventurous roller coaster.

Back in the day, first-person shooters were as simple as their names implied. You shot things, in a first-person perspective, until either you or every other living thing in the game died a gruesome death. That started to change in the late ’90s, and Deus Ex was one of the first times the experiment really worked.

Rather than simply telling players to blast their way through the game’s cyberpunk world, Deus Ex let them customize the protagonist, J. Denton, to be an expert marksman, a brilliant computer hacker, stealthy thief or anything in-between. You can even join different in-game factions, which affects the story’s outcome. Before there was BioShock, there was System Shock. But since System Shock was occasionally a little too complicated for its own good, let’s look instead at System Shock 2.

Universally beloved ever since its launch, System Shock 2 was three things in one: a first-person shooter, a horror title and a role-playing game. As a soldier aboard a starship controlled by a hostile AI, you’ll have to explore huge, open-ended levels while you battle your way past infected crew members. You can level up your skills in weaponry, repairs, hacking or even psionic powers, all while uncovering an engaging “technology-gone-wrong” narrative.

You create a character from scratch, complete with a race, class and moral alignment. A fearsome man named Sarevok has been hunting down adventurers all along the Sword Coast — and you’re next on his list. How your adventure proceeds from there is up to you. The real-time strategy genre emerged in the early ’90s; it was arguably perfected in the late ’90s when StarCraft hit store shelves.

This military sci-fi title told the intertwining stories of three distinct races: the human Terrans, the insectile Zerg and the telepathic Protoss as they vied for control of a distant corner of outer space. What’s remarkable about StarCraft is that the three races are distinct from one another, but still almost perfectly balanced. From constructing buildings, to amassing an army, to actually waging war, each race has a radically different playstyle, which has kept competitive players hooked for 20 years and counting.

The Curse of Monkey Island is a beautiful game on every level. You could mistake the gorgeous graphics for a classic Disney movie. The puzzles will tax your brain to its limit, until you stumble on the surprisingly logical answer — and wonder why you didn’t see it sooner.

Even the storyline has some depth, thanks to a heartfelt love story between Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate and his long-suffering sweetheart, Elaine Marley. When The Curse of Monkey Island came out, point-and-click adventure games were already on the wane, but thanks to this rollicking pirate tale, full of memorable jokes and catchy songs, they got to go out in style.

No discussion of classic PC games would be complete without mentioning Doom: the great-granddaddy of them all. Doom was — and still is — all things to all people. It’s a challenging first-person shooter. It’s a fully realized 3D world. It’s a horror story. It’s a menagerie of bizarre enemies. Doom combined inventive level design, satisfying shooting and over-the-top violence into a game that’s hard to put down, even 25 years later. As a space marine stationed on Mars during a demonic invasion, your mission is simple enough: Send every enemy that looks at you funny back to hell, either by shotgun, chainsaw or BFG Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom’s Guide, overseeing the site’s coverage of gaming hardware and software.

He comes from a science writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and technology. After hours, you can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.

Tom’s Guide Tom’s Guide. Marshall Honorof opens in new tab opens in new tab. More about gaming. Topics Gaming. See all comments 1. Half-Life 2 was so amazing! Many an hour of mine was spent on that one. Great list!

 

Classic video games for pc

 

As you enter this warring world, will you make tribes coexist peacefully; encouraging villages and towns to grow into sprawling Videogioco di flipper “3D Pinball: Space Cadet” v5.

Manca la guida in linea. Pharaoh is an isometric city-building game that was released on October 31, , created by Impressions Games and published by Sierra Studios, for Microsoft Windows. Using the same game engine and principles of Caesar III also by Sierra Entertainment , it is the first such game in Sierra’s City Building series to focus on another civilization of ancient times.

Players oversee the construction and management of cities and settlements in Ancient Egypt, micro-managing every aspect of the city to Uncover the tuner underground in a massive, free-roaming metropolis. Get behind the wheel in one of 30 of the hottest cars and own the streets from dusk ’til dawn. Explore the city, encountering underground races, hidden hideouts, secret shops, and unexpected challengers With comprehensive performance tuning options, all-new game modes, and the most sought-after cars on the circuit, Need for Speed Underground 2 delivers the most authentic tuner experience ever.

This is the official demo of the Welcome to Virtual Woman 95, the program that allows you to create and interact with a Virtual Woman. You choose her personality type, ethnic background, physical appearance, clothing, location, and other characteristics, and engage her in conversation. The goal? Lets just say that Virtual Woman has a few tricks up her sleeve for the right smooth talking guy. But now, evil creeped into heart of the Empire, and the Golden Axe was stolen.

The council of Defensors was tricked and misguided. The four best warriors of the whole realm are already on pursuit of the enemy. The council gave them the power of Elemental Magick, since great are the dangers they’ll have to face.

They know no fear or doubt. In their hearts and minds there’s only the sacred Redguard is a swashbuckling action adventure set in the award-winning world of The Elder Scrolls. Speak with the citizens, cross swords with Imperial guards and back-country ruffians, scramble over hill and dale, and treat yourself to the sights and sounds of the island of Stros M’kai.

This is a stripped-down demonstration version of the game, with limited functionality, in which you can get a feel for the cool gameplay and graphics; the full version has many features and locations unavailable Created by the developers of the award-winning real-time strategy game, Age of Empires, The Rise of Rome lets you play an active role in directing the ascension of the infamous Roman Empire. Wage war on a grand scale with this highly anticipated add-on pack that extends Age of Empires into a new era of world domination.

It was the first major game by the developer, German studio Vectorcom Development, and sees the player managing a company that develops and manufactures cars. From Ensemble Studios, the creators of Age of Empires and Age of Kings, comes Age of Mythology, a game that transports players to a time when heroes did battle with monsters of legend and the gods intervened in the affairs of mortal men. Taking on the role of one of nine ancient civilizations, players guide their people to greatness by commanding all aspects of their empire: gathering resources, raising massive armies, waging war against enemies, establishing profitable trade routes, building Open Sonic is an open source platformer featuring two playable “zones” divided into three levels each, three characters from Sonic universe Sonic, Knuckles and Tails and cooperative play but limited to one activity only.

While current version of the project is only 0. Next version, called Open Surge, will be 0. The goal in each regular level both Topics: Windows games, Linux games, Vintage computer games, Action games. Twenty years ago today Lucasfilm Games released the game “Maniac Mansion” that became a milestone in in the history of adventure games. It introduced a new revolutionary gameplay Point’n Click to the genre as well as the possibility of multiple user-selectable characters and multiple possible endings depending from the abilities and decisions of the characters you choose in the beginning of the game and a certain kind of humour that dominated the genre for some years Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is a downloadable, free-to-play multiplayer game in which players wage war as Axis or Allies in team-based combat.

It’s a team game; you will win or fall along with your comrades. The only way to complete the objectives that lead to victory is by cooperation, with each player covering their teammates and using their class special abilities in concert with the others. Featuring multiplayer support for up to 32 players, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is the ultimate Are you ready for some girl vs.

Then you need Fetish Fighters!! Fetish Fighters is an all female fighting game, featuring characters dressed in sexy uniforms and costumes. The full version has up to 17 characters fighting on 10 different stages. A FREE trial version is available that has 5 characters, fighting on 3 stages.

And I think the elder ones of you will remember the computer game from Activision as well. This one is a remake of this game and the developers Scottige and Trevor Storey surely did a great job. They improved the graphics and the sound effects, but Topics: Windows games, Vintage computer games, Action games, Game remakes. It includes new music, locations,enemies, moves, graphical effects, a parallel plot and a lot more features.

This game is simply amazing. It has that nostalgic “Golden Axe”, “Double Dragon” feeling and you just can’t help but seeing yourself back in an arcade hall putting in another Rumors surrounding the history of stately Ravenhearst Manor have circulated for decades.

The recently acquired diary of Emma Ravenhearst may hold the key to unraveling the tale behind this unsettling place, yet the pages are missing. Players assume the role of Master Detective to unlock secrets held within Ravenhearst, scouring a myriad of enchanting rooms in the manor for cleverly hidden clues.

Locating and assembling diary pages helps tell the story of the house and, ultimately, unlock the Topics: Windows games, Vintage computer games, Puzzle games. However, you don’t always want the latest AAA title or free battle royale.

You want to scratch the nostalgia itch. Luckily, there are a host of websites dedicated to precisely this: the love and preservation of old games. Here are the best sites where you can download old PC games for free. Abandonia is an index of abandonware “dedicated to classic DOS games. What is abandonware, anyway? Abandonia was founded in when the concept of abandonware was merely two years old. After a few inactive years, Abandonia blossomed into one of the leading sites where you can download your favorite old games.

At the time of writing, Abandonia features near 1, downloadable games with over , members. Abandonia gives each abandonware game a thorough review, screenshots, and an editor and user rating.

You can browse and download old PC games by name, year, rating, and category. Sign up here. Join the newsletter! Sign in with LinkedIn Sign in with Facebook. Keep up with the latest tech news, reviews and previews by subscribing to the Good Gear Guide newsletter.

Show Comments. Security Watch. Best NBN Plans. With mods to improve the graphics, the game still holds up fairly well mechanically. Hexen: Beyond Heretic is available for purchase on Steam. Master of Orion is the first true space 4X game, and arguably still the best.

Its ultra-streamlined interface, the result of exhaustive playtesting, makes it a pleasure even by modern standards, and the graphics, while dated, retain their pixel-art charm. You can get Master of Orion on Steam or on gog. Everyone loves a good Star Wars game, and Star Wars: TIE Fighter was one of the first on the PC, and its unique premise – putting you to work for the bad guys – made it an instant standout.

It is known in the video game community as one of the best space-combat simulators ever made. The energy system is configured so that players can’t have everything running on full power at once. As a result, players must decide whether to put their energy into shields, engines, or weapons. Each has a pro and a con, so different strategies are required for different battles. The second CRPG made with the now-legendary Infinity Engine, Planescape Torment released with somewhat less fanfare than its predecessor Baldur’s Gate , but it has since developed a reputation as almost the platonic ideal of good RPG writing.

You play the Nameless One, a restless wanderer who is blessed or cursed? As you quest for information about your origins against the wildly imaginative backdrop of Sigil, the City of Doors, you are joined by an eccentric band of traveling companions, including a bad-tempered thief with a flicking tail and an Irish brogue, and a wisecracking floating skull. You can get it on gog. While most real-time strategy games were limiting themselves to a 2D map, Homeworld boldly leapt into the third dimension, imagining what combat might be like in the emptiness of space, where craft can move up and down as easily as left and right.

The distinctive gameplay is complemented by wonderfully atmospheric visuals and music. No other game, RTS or otherwise, feels like Homeworld. The tastefully remastered version is available on gog. The first Star Control was a fun head-to-head space-combat game, descended from the original Space War , that had a rather perfunctory strategic wrapper. The second game was vastly more ambitious, building upon its predecessor’s core to create a galaxy-spanning adventure in which you sought to free Earth from domination by the malevolent, caterpillar-like Ur-Quan.

Almost universally beloved, Star Control II retains a place in its fans’ hearts as one of the very best computer games ever made. You can get Star Control II with the first game bundled for good measure on gog. In Civilization , once you build your spacecraft and head for the stars, your problems are over. In Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri , they’ve just begun. You’ll have to contend with colonists of other factions, as well as the organisms of a strange and hostile world, if you want to secure your civilization’s future beyond its terrestrial cradle.

Many still consider Alpha Centauri the apex of the 4X strategy genre. You can buy it on gog. Bolstered by a well-thought-out literary backstory, Krondor featured some of the strongest writing yet seen in a videogame and an engaging tactical combat system.

You can find Betrayal at Krondor on Steam and on gog. There were a lot of cyberpunk games coming out in the mid-’90s, but a lot of them were dour and pretentiously self-important. So it’s like a breath of fresh air to see one that actually has a sense of humor.

Beneath a Steel Sky brings a Douglas Adams-esque tongue-in-cheek wit to its dystopian world. Its point-and-click puzzle gameplay is definitely tailored for adventure aficionados, so be prepared for a little frustration if you aren’t a genre maven. An added bonus is that the game’s cutscene artwork is done by Dave “Watchmen” Gibbons. Best of all, it’s totally free!

A huge, 3D, third-person open world, populated by NPCs who can be spoken with and seem to be going about their own lives. A trippy sci-fi storyline involving parallel universes, high technology, and intrigue. A mount you can ride, enemy-infested fortresses you can approach from multiple angles, and a plethora of powerful objects to aid you in your quest. Such a melange of action gameplay, RPG mechanics, and ambitious world-building may be par for the course nowadays, with GTA and Assassin’s Creed titles dominating sales charts, but in it was a breathtakingly bold experiment.

A few quirks aside, the gameplay still holds up, and there’s the added bonus of one of the very best musical scores ever composed for a videogame. You can get Outcast here.

If the blocky voxel graphics are too much to bear, there’s also a gorgeous, albeit pricier, modern update. The result was a fascinating mixture of well-researched facts and speculative fantasy.

The game unfortunately didn’t do well enough to engender sequels, but it remains a beloved oddity among devotees of the genre. You can get Darklands on Steam and gog. The follow-up to genre-founding s space sim Elite , Frontier was a fantastically ambitious game in the s and it’s still impressive. Whole solar systems including ours are rendered in real time, with orbits changing and planet surfaces accessible. Decades later, No Man’s Sky created something of the same feel, but without the sense of scientific authenticity that Frontier still commands.

To the lamentation of fans , Frontier can’t be purchased nowadays. Modern successor Elite Dangerous is in some ways a much better game, but in other ways, not quite the same experience. After Panzer General was a monster hit, the big brains at SSI decided to take the same formula and game engine, but populate it with bog-standard fantasy elements like wizards, dragons, and mounted knights.

Gamers more at home with Tolkien than with histories of Operation Barbarossa could get in on the hex-map fun. Did it work? It worked. You can get Fantasy General on gog. Quake was also the first shooter to have maps specifically for multiplayer, and clans sprouted up in the community around it. The game is arguably just as important as Doom for shaping the current gaming vista. Instead of the depths of the ocean, the game takes place in the vastness of space, tasking the player character with trying to prevent an infection from spreading to everyone on board.

Or perhaps it might have taken them longer to get there. Star Wars: TIE Fighter is renowned as one of the best space-combat sims in video games, with strategy playing a huge part in epic dogfights set against the backdrop of space.

What was even more revolutionary was that a Star Wars game put players into the shoes of an Imperial pilot, rather than a member of the resistance. The title was the best-selling PC game in its year of launch, and has become a cultural phenomenon in South Korea. StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty released in , but the original got a spiffy remaster in Deus Ex is a cyberpunk action RPG that explores themes of societal inequality, technological advancement, and the augmentation of human beings. The protagonist JC Denton is an entry-level cyborg, for all intents and purposes, and his first assignment as an anti-terrorist agent, is to root out the culprits behind a stolen shipment of vaccines for a lethal pandemic.

 
 

Classic games online

 
 
Day of the Tentacle. Resident Evil 2.