Games!!!

June 25, 2001 11:26 AM

Games!!! Games!!! Games!!! What do you guys play when you've got some free time? (I'm personally most interested in free games, but you're welcome to share anything.)
posted by gd779 (58 comments total)

I prefer...

Zippity PONG™!


posted by daveadams at 11:30 AM on June 25, 2001

well, snood like you say is a game i play a lot... another (not free, but i've seen it in the bargain bins now so buy it while it's cheep cheep cheep) i play a bunch is the heroes of might and magic iii, which is a great turn-based strategy game. sort of like chess, but loads more interesting.

lately i've been playing some of my old SNES games via emulator... currently i'm playing the secret of mana.
posted by moz at 11:36 AM on June 25, 2001

Board games ...

... and (self-linking alert) lots of 'em ...
posted by Shadowkeeper at 11:42 AM on June 25, 2001

My current fav
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 11:44 AM on June 25, 2001

Pong? Hey, they're not even playing the game!

WALLHACK!
posted by pnevares at 11:44 AM on June 25, 2001

A thread about games. Good call !!

I play a lot of Unreal tournament on my PC.
I own a Williams Robotron Cabinet that I cherish, and play.
I have managed to collect quite a slew of old consoles too. 2600,5200,7800, intellevision, Fairchild Channle F, NES, 3do, and a Vectrex system that is quite sweet.

I like games. Backgammon is my board game. Not too good at it, but I like the gameplay, suits me better than chess.

An all time favorite was Rocket Ball on the C-64. Used to have loads of fun with that.
posted by a3matrix at 11:44 AM on June 25, 2001

I'm the neighborhood Rock Paper Scissors Spock Lizard champion.
posted by iceberg273 at 11:49 AM on June 25, 2001

/me looks at my entertainment center.

ps1, psx2, nes, snes

but i keep coming back to my giant mame collection.

aahhh.... emulators = good.

i also like abandonware. old sierra adventure games really pump my nads.
posted by jcterminal at 11:50 AM on June 25, 2001

my current favourite. free, online, rule your own country or corporation.
posted by dutchbint at 12:16 PM on June 25, 2001

Anyone know a good place to find the ol' game Galactic Empire?
posted by norm at 12:23 PM on June 25, 2001

The Random Game. (I can't remember - I may have gotten there from MeFi?)
posted by gleuschk at 12:25 PM on June 25, 2001

Currently getting rotation in my CD drive:

Serious Sam
Freespace 2
They Hunger (free mod for Half-Life)
Need For Speed High Stakes
Descent 3
Heretic 2

All my friends are more into Age of Empires and those sort of conquer-the-world games. I'm a lone psychopath surrounded by megalomaniacs.
posted by straight at 12:32 PM on June 25, 2001

Unreal and Unreal Tournament, but I play with the editor more than the actual game.
posted by Laugh_track at 12:36 PM on June 25, 2001

Right now, The Sims is eating me alive.

Also, NetHack is a great classic text-only game that I've finished three times! THREE!
posted by Succa at 12:41 PM on June 25, 2001

Playing a borrowed copy of Planescape: Torment right now, an original and intricate RPG from the Black Isle geniuses. I also play a lot of Civ 3, Warcraft 3, Neverwinter Nights and Dungeon Siege in my head as I wait for them to be released.

I designed levels for Age of Kings and Empire Earth, but am so tired of real time strategy that I don't do anything in real time anymore. Even breathing is turn-based.

Board games include Carcassone, which just won German game of the year (thanks for the link, Shadowkeep -- I like your zine), and the zombie fast food game Give Me the Brain.
posted by Yogurt at 12:49 PM on June 25, 2001

I play this game called "MetaFilter." Maybe you've heard of it.
posted by kindall at 12:53 PM on June 25, 2001

I picked up a new game this weekend: StarTopia. It's an economic strategy game, where you manage a space station with all kinds of aliens. By Saturday night, I was looking up from the screen wondering when and how the room had gotten so dark. (Which is proof that I need to get out more, even if only to find some people with whom to play Formula De.)
posted by harmful at 12:54 PM on June 25, 2001

Right now, I'm running through Baldur's Gate II again to prepare for the expansion (and do all the quests I missed the first time). But I still load up MAME and chew through Aero Fighters I, II, and III quite often. Especially since I got my Adaptoid. Best Game Platform + Best Game Controller = Lots of Fun. My wife and I beat G.I. Joe -- The Arcade Game last night. Ahhh, togetherness.

MAME is quite possibly the best entertainment program ever created for the personal computer. If only you didn't have to buy all those damn circuit boards in order to download roms. ;)
posted by OneBallJay at 12:55 PM on June 25, 2001

Sissyfight. And Pimpwar.
posted by dogmatic at 1:01 PM on June 25, 2001

Posted in another thread: ZAngband, and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
MAME is definitely the bomb, though. And I wish they'd port Planescape: Torment to the Mac. I'm tempted to buy a Wintel box to use as a game console, if only for the Black Isle games...
posted by darukaru at 1:05 PM on June 25, 2001

Are we avoiding the obvious, or do people here really not play COUNTER-STRIKE? It's like the crack, you know.

Speaking of crack, I would like to right now discourage any and all of your from ever playing UO. It's even more crack, and you have to pay $10 a month to smoke it. It's got me by the balls and won't let go. Help.
posted by Hackworth at 1:07 PM on June 25, 2001

My favorite game is "Space War" for the palm, a free trek clone that can be played over infrared.


So what are your favorite free online games?

I wish space war could be played online (via the palm).
posted by mecran01 at 1:12 PM on June 25, 2001

just finished Elite Force...playing Alice, Sammy Sosa High Heat Baseball, Virtual Pool, lots of Quake 3 and if I feel an overpowering urge to watch little pixel guys heave the technicolor yawn, I'll pop in Rollercoaster Tycoon. My wife and I used to play Worms Armageddon occasionally, but it would just devolve into lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth when the Super Sheep would go off unexpectedly, often launching the would-be aggressor into the briny deep, and much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I have a whole rack of games I played for about a week and then put back on the shelf. In the immortal words of Belle and Sebastian: "Put the game back on the shelf"
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:14 PM on June 25, 2001

Hackworth: do you play Counterstrike with people you know or with strangers? I never got into the sort of multiplayer gaming where you just pick up a game with anyone. I just kept running into jerks. That's one of the biggest design challenges for mp games right now, I think. How do you make a good open system that can't be spoiled by cretins?
posted by Yogurt at 1:14 PM on June 25, 2001

wow that was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Too bad they don't have "idiotcheck" along with "spellcheck"

:(
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:22 PM on June 25, 2001

I've been playing Evernight for a while now. It's pretty fun, but can be very time consuming. I think I've spent way too many hours staring at the Risk-like map.
posted by Doug at 1:31 PM on June 25, 2001

I go for Hardwood Hearts myself. Very pretty version of the card game with amusing special effects & an on-line play option.
posted by thomas j wise at 1:31 PM on June 25, 2001

I swear, Jeremy, Fact Party has got to be on my list of all-time favorite games. Now if only I could find some people to play with me. Single player Fact Parties are fun, but multi-player Fact Parties rock.
posted by iceberg273 at 1:39 PM on June 25, 2001

I second that, Yogurt. I used to take my box up to the local college (which I graduated from) to play CS with my friends that were still there in the dorm. I tried it two or three times over my 56k and it was simply not worth my time. It was just too laggy, and everybody I tried to play with were a bunch of jerks ("you're cheating...no you're cheating ... stop cheating you stupid motherf&(*&# ... ). Very tiresome.

I meet up with a LAN group every once and again, but unfortunately they're hooked on Total Annihilation. I don't give a frog's cloaca about RTS games -- my brain just doesn't seem to be wired right play them well. Usually I can talk them into a few rounds of Rogue Spear, which is a real first-person shooter (i.e. you don't do much after you get shot the first time).

Hackworth, I nearly spent an extra quarter in college because of UO. I really believe that we'll eventually see MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) Rehab centers in the near future. I can't complain too much, because I made about $1,200 bucks selling the stuff I accumulated on Ebay. It's amazing to me what people will fork over big money for.
posted by OneBallJay at 1:44 PM on June 25, 2001

<offtopic>

A cloaca is a common chamber where reproductive, intestinal and urinary ducts open to a vent or anus.

</offtopic>
posted by iceberg273 at 1:47 PM on June 25, 2001

for board games, you can't go wrong with Cheap Ass Games (who don't seem to have an operational website...that link is an ordering type thang). They make games at the "bare bones" minimum, where you have to provide the little men to move around, money from other games you have lying around etc. The concepts are simple but often great fun.

My favorite so far is "Kill Dr Lucky", the premise of which is that Clue (or Cluedo) started after all the fun was over. So this game evolves around trying to kill the hapless victim in various ways, including Bad Cream and a Tight Hat (!)

Another benefit to having to provide your own playing pieces is that it gave all my Red Rose Tea figurines something to do with all their spare time. I mean honestly, 4 manatees? 7 Timber Wolves?! The mind boggles

c
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:49 PM on June 25, 2001

Cheapass is at Cheapass.com actually.
posted by Yogurt at 1:53 PM on June 25, 2001

Someone already mentioned mame, if you want to get just about every arcade game from the past twenty years go to mame.dk, probably the best rom site on the net.
posted by swipe66 at 1:55 PM on June 25, 2001

Doh!

I looked at that one and thought it was a fan site.

Ah, well. Thanks Yogurt. May the schwartz be with you.
posted by Kafkaesque at 2:04 PM on June 25, 2001

Freeciv is a deeply addictive, free (in every sense), multiplayer (or single player, if you'd rather) clone of Civilization. It's yummy. Assuming you like slow moving strategy games.
posted by moss at 2:07 PM on June 25, 2001

Love the Blizzard games, but am now too addicted to crack to consider another game :)
posted by bclark at 2:26 PM on June 25, 2001

Anarchy Online is coming out this week! I have been in the beta and its simply an incredible game - cant wait to play it!

At work when i want to sneak in a quick game i am still hooked on that damn Bejeweled game.
posted by skinjob at 2:29 PM on June 25, 2001

Very addictive: Javaquarius
posted by grumblebee at 2:31 PM on June 25, 2001

I'm bitter. I don't have much time to play games. I love Celtic flavor. I ENJOY BEING SCARED.
posted by Wulfgar! at 2:45 PM on June 25, 2001

I recently got addicted to Pyroto Mountain... from a link there from Metafilter. That "game" has taken up so much of my time. While I was at college and had fast connections I would login every four hours...

As Melinika wrote earlier, Pyroto Mountain is part trivia game and part community message boards and is a lot of fun...
posted by dalryaug at 3:24 PM on June 25, 2001

The only game I've been playing lately is Tribes 2, and I feel like an abused wife. "No, he'll be better next time...next time..."
posted by solistrato at 3:25 PM on June 25, 2001

Worms World Party currently consumes me. I also played Black & White for a while before it just got too tedious to enjoy.
I've also dabbled in playing chess, euchre, and some single player games here which has a quick and easy interface.
However, I await Neverwinter Nights to consume my remaining free time.
posted by Grum at 4:00 PM on June 25, 2001

Yogurt: I usually just jump on any of the homelan servers and just start playing away. I agree that there are alot of idiots out there that don't understand what the "team" in "teamplay" means for a game like CS, but the good thing about homelan is since they have so many dedicated servers, it usually attracts good players. That doesn't always mean that behave, but I have learned to ignore chatter or just jump to the next server is things are really stupid. All in all, I can usually get about an hour or two of good gameplay in before I get worn out.

Accoutingboy: Thank god I'm unemployed, otherwise I'd have a serious problem ;) I may have to sell my UO acccount when I get a real job, else I don't know if I'd have the time. On another note, I'm interested in the open source UO projects out there right now, like sphere server and UOX, as MMORPG games sans monthly fees woule be awfully nice.
posted by Hackworth at 4:14 PM on June 25, 2001

Oh yeah, I just saw rouge spear in your post, too. That was my game of choice before CS, but I think i'd like to see quicker gameplay before I'd switch back. Never really got consistently good game connections with RS, either in Mplayer or the Zone, and CS is faster for those of us with short attention spans.


Jesus, I need to get out more, I know way too much about video games.
posted by Hackworth at 4:20 PM on June 25, 2001

I'm not a gamer, I just keep an eye out for suitable replacements to Freecell and Hearts. I like quick little distractions, like Electrotank's Mini-Golf. I started keeping a list [SELF LINK WARNING, WHOOP WHOOP] of good, free games on the web. For my kids (4 boys, all of whom love to play video games). No, really, it's for my kids.
posted by JParker at 4:41 PM on June 25, 2001

I'm still playing lots of TFC, a little AOK and Starcraft when nostalgia strikes, a little CounterStrike and other HL mods, Unreal Tournament and a few mods there, Worms World Party is great, I'm over my Bejeweled and Diablo II addictions.
posted by mutagen at 4:53 PM on June 25, 2001

* groooooooooaaaaan *

Okay, which of you jerks posted that "Bejeweled" link. Man, now I'm gonna get fired for sure ...
posted by Shadowkeeper at 5:04 PM on June 25, 2001

i like snood, and bejeweled. lately i've been playing the lemonade game.

and maybe i'm soooo 1997 but i still love to play snake on my cell.
posted by sugarfish at 6:37 PM on June 25, 2001

netbaby. sometimes. i still play a lot of craft games... sims... strategic anything.
posted by elle at 6:54 PM on June 25, 2001

Got 71,970 on Bejeweled once. Took over two hours to accrue. It was the oversaturation I needed to sicken myself of the game permanently. :-)
posted by youhas at 11:44 PM on June 25, 2001

I've been playing Counterstrike for two years now, and it STILL hasn't gotten old....maybe it's because there are still so many people playing, and they make new betas which make things fresh again.
posted by Yardsale at 7:26 AM on June 26, 2001

Well, on a couple totally different notes, my friend Lisa got me hooked on snood, which is good for just randomly wasting time. (she's addicted. I stopped by her room during exam week after my German exam, we had a history exam that afternoon she'd barely studied for... she was playing Snood.)

I play counterstrike whenever wyrm has a lan party, my boyfriend Stefan got me started playing that.
posted by dagnyscott at 8:05 AM on June 26, 2001

If you're looking for a solitaire game to replace FreeCell or Hearts, let me recommend Cool 21. It has a stupid name, but it's the best solitaire game outside of FreeCell. It also has the advantage of multiplayer action, but you could just as easily play it with a deck of cards on an airplane tray table.
posted by MikeB at 8:47 AM on June 26, 2001

I'm an old-schooler when it comes to games. The more mindless and pixellated, the better. MAME is great, especially since they've come out with Windows & Mac versions (my dream is to never open another DOS window again). I've got all the incarnations of Pacman, Frogger, Centipede, Dig-Dug, Galaxian, Missile Command, Asteroids, Space Invaders, etc. The best NES emulator out there, imo, is NESticle (Windows only, sorry). That takes care of my Super Mario 3, Galaga, and Defender urges. If you can find it, I highly recommend a freeware Scrabble game written by a German fellow named Arne Heizmann. You can play against a friend or the computer, and you can regulate how "smart" the computer is. It supports several languages. His site is down, but the file may be available elsewhere. Here is a Spanish site with a screenshot. You may be able to download it there, then get the English dictionary plugin.
posted by gimli at 8:54 AM on June 26, 2001

I know it's for kids, but I always kill time with Goodnight Mr. Snoozleberg.
posted by bluefly at 10:21 AM on June 26, 2001

I play these q3 mods:
Rocket arena 3: Deathmatch mod.
Weapons Factory arena: Large class based ctf mod.
Urban Terror 2: realism mod.
True Combat: another realism mod.
I've looked at, but not really done much with Crystal Space which is an attempt to construct a free 3d engine.
posted by davidgentle at 2:39 PM on June 26, 2001

What happened tpPlanetarion? How bout some MUDS? TheMultiplayer Online Games Directory?
posted by Jongo at 2:28 AM on June 27, 2001