Free to play PC Games

[HairyHeretic]

If it's been mentioned before, we now need to remove City of Heroes / Villains from the list, as they announced a couple of days ago that the game is being closed down in the next few months.

[SinXAzgard21]

I really suggest FireFall, I've mentioned it months back and still suggest giving it a try.

[Shjade]

If it's been mentioned before, we now need to remove City of Heroes / Villains from the list, as they announced a couple of days ago that the game is being closed down in the next few months.

I have to admit that announcement was a little disheartening. I only played the game for maybe a month and can't say I enjoyed it too much, but I know it had a fairly close-knit community as far as MMOs go and a lot of people were happy with it. Shame to see it go down in flames so soon after trying the F2P transition. :|

[makizushi]

Ever wanted to be a pirate, control a ship, and sink other people?!

Pirates of the Burning Sea. It's a free to play game made by Sony. It's been around a while now and it's really interesting. Plenty of role play options to go along with it.

I wish I had someone to play with, or even a group to make a guild or something. It's a fantastic game!

[Frozen Flame]

What I love about free-to-play MMO's is the straightforward gameplay and grinding. I have yet to find one that doesn't have an unnecessarily complex crafting system, and ridiculous grinding curves though. I understand the economic reasons they're there (servers are expensive,) but it can be a killjoy for otherwise great games. Fiesta and World of Kung Fu come to mind.

[Shjade]

I don't think Atlantica Online or Vindictus have unnecessarily complex crafting systems, but they DO have stupid amounts of grind.

[SinXAzgard21]

I don't think Atlantica Online or Vindictus have unnecessarily complex crafting systems, but they DO have stupid amounts of grind.

Stupid amounts is the nice way to put it.

[Mobats]

the free MMO's are epic for the most part

[Teo Torriatte]

I have been playing quite a few freeware games. I apologize if some of these have already been mentioned.

Action Fist- a loving tribute to games like Gunstar Heroes, with solid mechanics and cute pixel graphics.
Around the World in 33 Days- Take a bit of Loco Roco and a bit of Gish, mash it up in Gamemaker and you get this. Pretty fun, imo.
Desktop Dungeons- A wonderful little coffee break length, board game style roguelike. There is a commercial version that is still in the works, but I still like this version a lot.
Eye Attack 2- This is exactly what a 2d Mario Galaxy game would play like, if you took out Mario and put a giant eyeball in his place. Yes, it's as epic as it sounds.
Genetos- Pretty much the entire evolution of the shoot-em-up(shmup) genre in one game. Very slick and fun to play, imo.
Glum Buster- A cool little game that mixes several genres and makes you think a little, as well. And it's charityware!
GraviTron- No, this isn't based on the gut wrenching carnival ride. It's an update of the old "cave flyer", games like Thrust, with slick neon graphics.
Iji- A platform shooter with a really nice story, multiple endings, a nifty upgrade system, and generally more going for it than a lot of commercial games.
Janitor Dan the Spaceman- A 2D platformer that makes me wish I could find a job cleaning space stations.
Last Scenario- A game made with RPGMaker that is a tribute to the old school JRPG. It even has a little card side game akin to Triple Triad. I spent waaay too much time playing Triple Triad, lol. (Almost as much time as I spent playing Blitzball, but that is getting way off topic)
NeonPlat Adventures- A Mario Bros style platformer with neon graphics. The coolest thing about this game is that there is a near endless number of levels, based on what day it is, you can go back to past days and then every new day means a new level.
Ninjammin Beat-jitsu- This is one of my favorite games ever. A rhythm platformer with plenty of levels, unlockables and achievements.
Pragmatica- A puzzle game where you program robots to achieve various tasks. Way more fun than I just made it sound, lol. And it has some really slick presentation.
Sixty Five Million and One BC- An awesome 2D platformer with some insanely smooth animation... and dinosaurs!
Spelunky- A randomly generated platformer where you play some pixelly guy that wants to be Indiana Jones. I love this game, you can get into some really crazy situations, some of them which are less than winnable but then you can just try again and get something totally different.
Stealth Bastard- A 2D platformer that focuses on stealth... and being a bastard? Much more the former than the latter, and is a really great game to boot with pretty pixel graphics, a level editor and a global leader board.
Super Crate Box- More of a time waster type game, but I use that in the nicest way possible. Run around shooting crates, grabbing the weapons inside them and killing hordes of bad guys. Another one with awesome pixel graphics and has that "one more go" quality.

[Frozen Flame]

I have been playing quite a few freeware games. I apologize if some of these have already been mentioned.

Action Fist- a loving tribute to games like Gunstar Heroes, with solid mechanics and cute pixel graphics.
Around the World in 33 Days- Take a bit of Loco Roco and a bit of Gish, mash it up in Gamemaker and you get this. Pretty fun, imo.
Desktop Dungeons- A wonderful little coffee break length, board game style roguelike. There is a commercial version that is still in the works, but I still like this version a lot.
Eye Attack 2- This is exactly what a 2d Mario Galaxy game would play like, if you took out Mario and put a giant eyeball in his place. Yes, it's as epic as it sounds.
Genetos- Pretty much the entire evolution of the shoot-em-up(shmup) genre in one game. Very slick and fun to play, imo.
Glum Buster- A cool little game that mixes several genres and makes you think a little, as well. And it's charityware!
GraviTron- No, this isn't based on the gut wrenching carnival ride. It's an update of the old "cave flyer", games like Thrust, with slick neon graphics.
Iji- A platform shooter with a really nice story, multiple endings, a nifty upgrade system, and generally more going for it than a lot of commercial games.
Janitor Dan the Spaceman- A 2D platformer that makes me wish I could find a job cleaning space stations.
Last Scenario- A game made with RPGMaker that is a tribute to the old school JRPG. It even has a little card side game akin to Triple Triad. I spent waaay too much time playing Triple Triad, lol. (Almost as much time as I spent playing Blitzball, but that is getting way off topic)
NeonPlat Adventures- A Mario Bros style platformer with neon graphics. The coolest thing about this game is that there is a near endless number of levels, based on what day it is, you can go back to past days and then every new day means a new level.
Ninjammin Beat-jitsu- This is one of my favorite games ever. A rhythm platformer with plenty of levels, unlockables and achievements.
Pragmatica- A puzzle game where you program robots to achieve various tasks. Way more fun than I just made it sound, lol. And it has some really slick presentation.
Sixty Five Million and One BC- An awesome 2D platformer with some insanely smooth animation... and dinosaurs!
Spelunky- A randomly generated platformer where you play some pixelly guy that wants to be Indiana Jones. I love this game, you can get into some really crazy situations, some of them which are less than winnable but then you can just try again and get something totally different.
Stealth Bastard- A 2D platformer that focuses on stealth... and being a bastard? Much more the former than the latter, and is a really great game to boot with pretty pixel graphics, a level editor and a global leader board.
Super Crate Box- More of a time waster type game, but I use that in the nicest way possible. Run around shooting crates, grabbing the weapons inside them and killing hordes of bad guys. Another one with awesome pixel graphics and has that "one more go" quality.

Very nice. I forgot about Desktop Dungeons! I'm glad to see they're making a commercial version with purty graphics too. I lost several hours in that game...

[Chris Brady]

Oh, this might be a better place to post it:

http://www.blackmesasource.com/ A remake of Half-Life (the original) that's free.  And all you need is a free download of Source SDK 2007.  The game will be available in less than an hour 15 minutes.

[Teo Torriatte]

Very nice. I forgot about Desktop Dungeons! I'm glad to see they're making a commercial version with purty graphics too. I lost several hours in that game...

Me too. I actually have the commercial version preordered, and it comes with access to the alpha they are working on. But right now it's only available to play online, and it gets tiring having to load it with my craptastic internet connection every time I want to play it. So I am waiting for them to hopefully one of these days actually finish it so I can have something to download.

Oh, this might be a better place to post it:

http://www.blackmesasource.com/ A remake of Half-Life (the original) that's free.  And all you need is a free download of Source SDK 2007.  The game will be available in less than an hour 15 minutes.

Oooh I might have to check this out. My fps skills are... lacking... but I always did like this one. I remember playing this with my friends at the LAN parties we used to have, totally getting my ass kicked but having a lot of fun, anyway. The bee gun was fairly epic, and beating stuff with a wrench almost never got old.

[Frozen Flame]

Oh, this might be a better place to post it:

http://www.blackmesasource.com/ A remake of Half-Life (the original) that's free.  And all you need is a free download of Source SDK 2007.  The game will be available in less than an hour 15 minutes.

Hey thanks! :D This will probably be the first game I play next week. Good stuff.

[Teo Torriatte]

Two more games, both of them of the roguelike variety.

HyperRogue- This one is... strange. You traverse a large, randomly generated sphere, using hexagons instead of the traditional cardinal grid most roguelikes employ. The combat is simple, don't end your movement in front of a monster, in fact, almost chess-like, the game won't let you do so and if you are put in a position where there is no other way to go, it's game over. The object is to collect treasures and open more lands to explore, which also spawns more monsters, and eventually takes you into hell where you are looking for one of the orbs to win the game.

LambdaRogue- A more traditional playing roguelike, with some very nice tile graphics. Actually, it's not so traditional in that its default game mode includes a story and quests and stuff, but you can also play in "coffeebreak mode", which makes it play much more like most other roguelikes out there. It's basically two games in one, because you can play it as a traditional rpg, or as more of a straight up dungeon crawler.

[Oniya]

Two more games, both of them of the roguelike variety.
LambdaRogue- A more traditional playing roguelike, with some very nice tile graphics. Actually, it's not so traditional in that its default game mode includes a story and quests and stuff, but you can also play in "coffeebreak mode", which makes it play much more like most other roguelikes out there. It's basically two games in one, because you can play it as a traditional rpg, or as more of a straight up dungeon crawler.

I downloaded this, and I have to say, I'm enjoying it to pieces!  I had one playthrough where I ended up 'outside' before I was ready to take it on, and couldn't find the stairs back down, but now that I've got a better handle on it, I keep wanting to fire it up (usually when I'm supposed to be doing something else...::) )

[Brandon]

I recently found out that Gotham city imposters became free to play. I tried it out and its a fun game with a silly aesthetic but its got great customization options. I would never play it for a competitive FPS but its still a good time if you just want something silly

[Skynet]

I haven't downloaded it yet, but Slender looks like a cool horror game.

It's based upon the infamous Slenderman.

[SinXAzgard21]

Slender in my opinion isn't worth the download.

Game spoils:

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

You never actually win, you'll find all the pages and still die.  It has no replay but if you have friends who get scared easily then ya download it and film them.

[Skynet]

Yeah, I get a kick out of it mostly by watching Let's Plays of it with author audio.  It's fun seeing how far they can go without losing it! ;D

[Brandon]

Two free to play games currently on my radar and one of them Im actually playing. They are Planetside 2 which is supposed to be released later this month and is a futuristic FPS.

Then there is Raiderz. At time of writing Raiderz in is an open beta test so there really is no reason not to go try the game out. Its theme is that of a monster hunting MMORPG with a very complex hit detection system similar to Terra Online.

However I would be remiss if I did not list a warning so WARNING: RAIDERZ IS HARD. After around level 15 the difficulty ramps up considerably where you must be dodging and mitigating as much damage as you can. If you arent doing that you're going to die, a lot. I started playing the game as a defender (the tank class) in the close beta test and by level 20 even with a few cleric skills the game was kicking my butt.

A note on clerics: In group combat clerics (what Im playing right now) can heal you but they lack the mana capability to chain heal or do much more then spot healing.

At time of writing I am unsure when Raiderz is supposed to go live though after looking through their cash shop I do not feel it is pay to win

Edit: Both planetside 2 and Raiderz are now live free to play games

[wxiyn]

+1 for armorgames. I have played most of their puzzle games.

I'm a bit of an addict to www dot armorgames dot  com and www dot  miniclip dot com/games/en

Both sites have lots of variety, from action to puzzles.  Armor can get a little gritty, to the PG-13 level, while Miniclip is pretty much all ages.

[HairyHeretic]

The Secret World went free to play today. If you don't already have a copy, you'll still need to buy that, but no more monthly sub.

[SinXAzgard21]

The Secret World went free to play today. If you don't already have a copy, you'll still need to buy that, but no more monthly sub.

Well I bought it a couple days ago... I haven't played much but it seems that it doesn't really like AMD cards.

[Brandon]

Tera online has now gone free to play. Its a neat MMO if you like spatial combat systems and can tolerate the Wold of warcraft questing style. Plus the business model is pretty fair where people who bought the game pretty much have the same game, and the subscription model gives you stuff you wouldnt have gotten before.

I cant comment on the free to play part since I bought the game before this. Anyway, check it out. Its free so what do you have to loose?

[Shjade]

Its free so what do you have to loose?

Well, considering it's an MMO: oodles and oodles of free time?