This week’s best free PC games
It would of course be a little cheeky to include my own short room-escape game, Masked, in a list about the week’s best free PC games. So I won’t. Instead, I’ll hope you click on that link, and spend the space talking about quests for coffee, strange rhythm-action ideas, a game that’s a bit like Uplink only different, and the chance to clean up a puddle of pee! Always fun. Read on for this week’s picks.
Score some swag for F2P shooter Repulse [Giveaway]
If you’re going to succeed in the awfully-crowded F2P FPS market, you’re going to have to find a way to set yourself apart. Aeria Games’ latest run-’n'-gun, Repulse, has all the usual modes we’ve come to expect: Deathmatch, CTF, infection (known here as Invasion), and objective-based maps. But the game’s movement abilities are what really stand out. And we’re here to help you start playing in style, right from the get-go, without setting foot in the item shop. We’re giving away 2,000 codes for a sweet item-bundle, but hurry—these firearms are on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Get a free Tribes: Ascend Soldier Utility Pack
Update: We ran out, but then the lovely guys at Hi-Rez gave us 1000 more! They won’t last long.
Tribes: Ascend is now in open beta (so go play, seriously), and in celebration of the wide release, Hi-Rez has graciously provided us with 1000 codes redeemable for the new Soldier Utility Pack (worth 240 GP), which can be upgraded to grant Soldiers an additional grenade slot, increased health, and faster running.
Filosofighters takes the phrase “battle of ideas” rather literally
Flash fighting game Filosofighters recasts the world’s greatest minds as, well, fighting game characters. You pick your philosopher and battle through the history of thought, culminating – appropriately enough – in a showdown with yourself. Beats fighting syphillis, I guess. Its educational overtones are unlikely to have much impact unless you can read Portuguese, but all you really need to know is that arrow keys control movement, X is kick, and C is punch.
Tribes: Ascend entering open beta on Friday, adding Arena Deathmatch and new maps
Good news, everyone! Starting this Friday, February 24 at 12 p.m. EST, Tribes: Ascend will leave closed beta and open its free-to-play doors to the greater public. The game won’t launch officially until later this year, but with F2P games, the difference between an open beta and a “launch” is debatable. Perhaps the beta comes with an asterisk acknowledging that bugs happen, things get nerfed, and there’s still polishing to do, but Ascend is already pretty shiny. It started strong, and developer Hi-Rez has made substantial improvements during the closed beta, which CEO Todd Harris says “exceeded expectations” with over 300,000 players.
Aion announces free-to-play plans for North America, all content will be free
If I could demand one thing for free, it would be a five pound tub of licorice. If I could demand two things, it would be full access to a mystic realm of winged beings and a five pound tub of licorice. Aion: Ascension, the major update coming to Aion this spring, fulfills most of my desires with their newly announced F2P business model. Everything previously released and in patch 3.0 will be absolutely free for everyone. Yes, everything for free—well not my licorice, but those tubs of delicious red chewies aren’t really NCsoft’s to give away in the first place.
Champion Roundtable: Nautilus, the Titan of the Depths
League of Legends’ latest champion is a massive water-logged diver, who looks more than a little like one of Andrew Ryan’s creations. Lucas, Gavin, and Hollander Cooper discuss his tidal highs and lows in the latest Champion Roundtable, assessing whether or not this seaworthy tanky-jungler is worth the ticket of admission. One thing’s for certain: toss him in a lane with Annie, and you’ll be having flashbacks to the dystopian Rapture all game long.
As always, you can download League of Legends for free on the game’s official site.
Realm of the Mad God: free co-op bullet hell action RPG hits Steam
This may well be the “first ever cooperative MMO bullet hell shooter,” but I pray to the mad god that it isn’t the last. Realm of the Mad God is a massively multiplayer action RPG with all of the quest text and story stripped away, leaving only a lean, arcade style blaster in its wake.
In the beginning, you’re just a wizard with a weak wand, but as you hoover up experience for each kill, you’ll level, grab new weapons and unlock new classes. There are a few roguelike genes caught up in Realm of the Mad God’s weird, tangled DNA. If you die, your character stays dead forever and all his items are lost to the void. It’s so fast paced it’s hard not to just start over again instantly on death, making this very, very moreish.
It’s been free to play for a while on the Realm of the Mad God site, but its arrival as a free to play game on Steam gives us a good excuse to recommend it. Its Steam debut means its scatological collection of worlds will be packed full of low level wizards rushing around shooting chickens. 85 players at a time can jump into Realm of the Mad God’s instanced zones, which results in some spectacular, chaotic co-op monster slaying. Give it a go, you almost certainly won’t regret it, until your clicking finger falls off.
This week’s best free PC games
This week’s best free game, Unmanned, took me through a range of emotions. But the two prevailing ones – discomfort and regret – are feelings games usually struggle to hit. It’s a fine example of interactive storytelling, engrossing and interesting, and you should play it immediately. Also on this week’s list: a lengthy plod down some creepy stairs, a big Dwarf Fortress update, a tangle of limbs, and one kid’s desire for five minutes of peace. Read on…
Dwarf Fortress update adds “secret vampire dwarves” and werewolf invasions
Remarkable indie adventure generator, Dwarf Fortress has just received a great big update. Version 0.34.01 is now free to download from the official site, adding fresh new ways for your Dwarves to die horribly. Vampire dwarves can infiltrate your settlements and full moons bring the added threat of werewolf invasion. More unpleasantly, “Ingested syndromes are now possible” in adventure mode, so you’ll have to watch what you eat when exploring the new cities present in the latest update.
There are some gems in the bug fix list as well. “Demons masquerading as gods will try a little harder” and the devs have “restricted mandates so they’ll be more reasonable.” Thank heavens for that! Find the rest of the patch notes below. For more Dwartress, check out our Dwarf Fortress diary, a tale of seven drunk dwarves and their quest to reach hell.
Star Trek Online season four kicks off on Saturday, the Jem’Hadar are back
Star Trek Online’s following up on its recent relaunch as a free-to-play MMO with a new episode titled “the 2800,” which will start on Saturday. The new season of story quests will kick off with the reappearance of a Dominion fleet of genetically engineered super-soldiers called the Jem’Hadar at Deep Space 9.
The remaining four episodes will be released every Saturday after that until the season finale on March 10, in which the [glowing light/sparkly cloud/space amoeba] you thought was god turns out to be [an advanced alien lifeform/a satellite that's reached the edges of space and evolved into a troll] who can only be stopped using [a really big missile/ a discombobulated tachyon energy pulse/ true love].
You can play Star Trek Online for free by signing up and downloading the client from the Star Trek Online site. As well as the trailer above, there are these four screenshots featuring wormholes and space-walking.
Time to take down Braniac: exclusive reveal of DC Universe Online’s next big update
That intergalactic jerk Braniac has been bottling the cities in DC Universe Online and stealing Earth’s citizens for too long. His attempted take-over for Earth has been the primary storyline in DC Universe Online for the past year, since the game’s launch in January 2011. A year and a few raids later, we’re finally going to be able to go toe-to-toe with Mr. smarty-pants when the next content pack takes us to Wonder Woman’s native island of Themyscira. We’ve got the exclusive scoop on what players will find there, and where DCUO is headed after its big, bad villain is down for the count.
Hawken will be free to play, out in December, sign up for the closed beta now
“I’m throwing my wallet at the screen but nothing is happening!” is a common reaction to the trailers for stunning indie multiplayer mech-war project, Hawken. According to a blog post on the Hawken site, you won’t need your wallet at all. It’ll be released as a free to play game on December 12 this year.
Champion Roundtable: Ziggs, the Hexplosives Expert
Every two weeks, we give you our verdict on whether or not the latest League of Legends champion is worth buying. Take a seat at the table with Josh, Lucas, and Hollander Cooper as they wax poetic on the joys of blowing people up with magical bombs as a maniacal Yordle. Could Ziggs be the diminutive demolitions expert you’ve been looking for?
This week’s best free PC games
Last week played host to the annual Global Game Jam, in which developers around the world strive to create an entire game within the ludicrously short period of 48 hours. The sheer number of entries is overwhelming, and I’ve not managed to play nearly enough of them to say which are the best. Among this week’s pick of free games are three I’ve found interesting so far, along with a collection of titles developed in association with the London Science Museum. Head below the jump for another week’s worth of free PC gaming.
