Windows users who want to keep up to date with recent developments need to find ways to do so. They can follow specialized sites like Indiegames, YouTube video channels like that of The Cynical Brit or the Game Saturday series here on Ghacks.

But even if you follow several channels you will probably still miss out on some of the better games. Game Downloader is a free software for Windows that is more a less a constantly updated game download manager for free Windows PC games.

The portable application displays a listing of popular free games in various categories that can be downloaded directly from within the program’s interface.

You pick a game category first. Available in the pulldown menu are game types such as turn-based strategy, puzzles, board games, first person shooters and sports games.

The list of available free games is the populated after the category has been selected. Each game is displayed with its version, a screenshot and game information. There are also links to YouTube, the game developer website, options to get the file size and to download the game.

Many great free Windows games are listed here, from Battle of Wesnoth and Freeciv in the turn-based strategy game section over Warsow and OpenArena in the first person shooter category to popular card and board games like Risk, Solitaire and Poker.

It is obviously possible to find and download the games manually on the Internet. The biggest achievement of the program is that it makes the whole process more comfortable. Plus, it offers all the information necessary to decide whether playing a particular game could be fun (including online and multiplayer)

Game Downloader on the other hand has a few shortcomings. A search is missing, as are detailed information like compatibility or sub-genres. It would have also been nice if the program would offer to download all games from a selected category automatically. The Pc game downloader furthermore does not highlight games that have already been downloaded or installed previously.

Windows users who want to dive deeper into the freeware games scene can use Game Downloader with its 100+ free games as a starting point. The program can be downloaded from the Sourceforge project website. (via)

You have to move people between cities and move goods like oil and coal between the relevant industry. This probably sounds easy, but it is strangely fun!

The game requires the user to have a copy of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, as it relies on that game’s data for graphic files. If you have lost your copy, a bit of googling should return a few copies.

The game is highly extensible and users can modify vehicles, add and make maps (some available ones are real-life, such as one of the Boston metropolitan area or of the UK) and add new types of vehicles. These modifications and maps are on the OpenTTD Forum.

The default vehicles are planes, helicopters, hovercraft, ships, trucks, buses, railways, electric railways, monorail and MagLev train. The vehicles available, and the models of them, vary as the game progresses – you obviously can’t have a supersonic jet in 1950!

OpenTTD can also be played multiplayer over a LAN or Internet. This is a nice thing to play with a friend whilst bored.

The game isn’t very challenging; you can easily go from a balance of -€200,000 to hundreds of millions in green figures in about 50 in-game years. Yet, it remains fun. Online gaming is much more challenging.

It can be played on all major operating systems and developmental ports exist for portable devices like PocketPCs and Nintendo DSs!

AssaultCube

AssaultCube is a quite simple 3D FPS available for Linux, OS X and Windows, which just reached version 1.0 about a week ago. The graphics are not very advanced, but a benefit of this is that it’s easier to run a server and that it can run on nearly any machine.

The best aspect of AssaultCube is the online play; there’s always a few busy servers available where one can play capture the flag, deathmatches or variations on those modes. AssaultCube is limited to seven weapons: sniper rifle, assault rifle, handgun, grenades, knives, shotgun and submachine guns.

Maps can be created for AssaultCube quite easily.

Sauerbraten

Sauerbraten is an FPS built on the same engine on which AssaultCube is built but has much more sophisticated graphics and is built in a fantasy world as opposed to a real one.

In Sauerbraten, weapons include crossbows, guns and rocketlaunchers. This is definitely a more interesting variety than AssaultCube! Once again, CTF and deathmatch are popular game modes.

The game notably lacks a crouch mechanism and struggles to run at higher resolutions on my MacBook Pro. However, it is an amazing open-source game with many fantastic maps.

Once again, Sauerbraten is orientated towards online pay but the CPU games are much better than AssaultCube’s.

Interestingly, the game can also be played as a 3rd person shooter!

Nexuiz

Nexuiz is an FPS with quite fictional weapons, like electricity guns etc. The game clearly belongs in the realms of fantasy, being set on a space station where one must shoot aliens.

I find the game difficult to play. Movement is far too fast compared to Cube engine games and it really does require quick reflexives.

The game isn’t smooth either. Before a game starts, there’s a text-only screen telling me what is loading etc. and the menu at the start looks terrible, especially at my screen resolution.

It’s still a fantastic game to play, however.

AssaultCube

Sauerbraten

Nexuiz

Needless to say there’s scores of other good games, these are just my favourite free (as in beer and freedom) shooters.

Ubisoft decided to make some of their recent games available for free in an ad supported version which can be downloaded exclusively from Fileplanet. The games that can be downloaded are: Rayman Raving Rabbids, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Far Cry and are available for US-Residents only.

You will also need a Fileplanet account to be able to download those games. Those are surely some hassles and I would personally not go through them to play those games but I know that some will do that.

The major difficulty that I have with this releases is that there are zero information regarding the type of advertisement provided by Ubisoft or Filefront.

I did found more information on Darren Gladstone’s blog where he confirms that the ads are only displayed during load and sage operations. That means no ads during gameplay, for now.

All games have a size of one Gigabyte+ which means that it takes some time if you download it from Fileplanet, one of the many download sites that I absolutely do not like and do not intend to use.

Some users reported that you only need a US Ubisoft account to make them work even if you currently live in another country.

Update: Free games supported by ads have not really taken off. It seems that companies like Ubisoft who experimented with free ad supported games have stopped the experiment.

I’m not saying that all paid games are bad and all independent games are good but this year has seen only a few commercial games that are worth my time and money while I enjoyed hundreds of independent online and offline games.

I decided to name five of the most remarkable games that I have not mentioned before at Ghacks to give you a good choice of games to choose from. There should be something for everyone, we’ve got action games, a Zelda like RPG and a shooter.

Enjoy the games:

Ark 22 (Windows)

Ark is a action roleplaying game just like the old 2D Zelda games on the good old NES and SNES with very good storytelling and gameplay that lasts for about 10 hours. The game has a size of 20 Megabytes and is available for Windows only.

Black Shades (Windows, Linux, Mac)

You play a bodyguard (with black shades) whose task is to protect the VIP dressed in white from all sorts of assassins, zombies and punks. The game is well done and lots of fun to play. Best of all, it is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Death Worm (Windows)

Death Worm is a fast paced action game that reminds me of games that I played on the Amiga back then in the last century. You play a death worm that is speeding through the desert sand trying to catch all sorts of animals, birds and humans that are walking on top of it. Great fun.

Return to Sector 9 (Windows)

Great shoot em up game with lots of extras and secrets. You have to get used to the controls first which usually takes a few minutes. After that it is a great innovative shooter with power ups, boss enemies and lots of fun.

Sumotori Dreams (Windows)

Sumotori Dreams is surely an accomplishment if you consider that it only has a size of roughly 110 Kilobytes. It is basically a Sumo Wrestling type of game that can be played alone or with a friend. The real beauty are the often funny but realistic looking moves of the combatants.

Veck is a classic shoot at everything on the screen type of games that seem to make an comeback with independent game developers lately. Enemies do not fire at your spaceship in the first levels at least so the only thing that you have to take care of besides shooting like a maniac is to avoid the kamikaze spaceships that try to ram into yours.

The controls are kinda fun. You can select keys for moving your spaceship around plus you can opt to use four different keys to use directional shooting as well. This means that you can fly in one direction and still shoot in another. This is essential in this game, believe me.

Veck Special Edition is a Windows game that is using only 1.7 megabytes of space.

The game features one table and you have the opportunity to download user generated tables as well. The main websites links to other websites that offer user generated tables, one that was offering lots of recreations of existing pinballs was irpinball. Take a look at the Tables section at the official site to visit all the links.

10. The Last Ninja

Last Ninja was one of the most successful games on the Commodore 64 winning many awards because of its stunning graphics, sound and unique gameplay. System 3, the developer of this masterpiece created three Last Ninja games all highly successful and ported to many systems including Atari ST, Amiga and MS Dos. The Last Ninja is an action adventure game that features lots of fighting and puzzle solving, the remake comes with an editor to create your own levels.

9. Barbarian

Barbarian, or Death Sword, was a brutal fighting game for the Commodore Amiga that created lots of controversy at that time. This fighting game pits you against another opponent in an arena, your goal is to win the fight obviously. The finishing move created the controversy, you were able to decapitate the enemy barbarian. If you did that a gnome came out and kicked the head around and moved the body out of the screen.

8. Alien Breed

Alien Breed was a top down shooter for the Commodore Amiga and developed by Team 17. As you might have guessed the game is heavily inspired from the Alien movies. The best part about Alien Breed was the fantastic cooperative mode. I love playing cooperative games, love it more than anything else when playing games. Nothings more fun than playing a cooperative campaign. Great game, enough said.

7. Supercars

Supercars was such a great racing game on the Amiga created by Magnetic Fields. The game featured a top down view, various leagues, the ability to tune up your car with nifty stuff and buy better faster cars which you needed later on in the leagues with better drivers. This part unfortunatly had no multiplayer but the second version of Supercars had. Still, one of the best top down racing games ever.

6. Rock’n Roll

Rock n Roll was a highly addictive puzzle game on the Amiga. It features intense realtime game play, great artwork and music. The players task was to steer a ball through a maze to reach the exit into the next level. Sounds easy but is definatly tricky.

5. Marble Madness

Players move a ball through a isometric level to reach the exit of the level. A time limit puts additional pressure on the player, as do the opponents that patrol the area. The most difficult part is to understand the physic aspect of the game, to get a feeling for the right time to accelerate and slow down the ball.

4. Logical

Logical was a great game that I enjoyed playing. All you had to do in this game was to fill each wheel with marbles of the same color. Wheels were connected and could be turned clockwise. In the later stages teleporters and switches added to the difficulty of the game.

3. Legend of Zelda

Everyone knows Zelda and the main character Link. Legend of Zelda is a top down action game with roleplaying elements. It was created by Shigeru Miyamoto who was also the creator of the Mario franchise. In this first game Link must navigate through eight dungeons to obtain the eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom along with other useful items, many of them necessary to complete his quest.

2. Railroad Tycoon

Sid Meier was a genius back then, he created one blockbuster after the other. Pirates, Gunship and Railroad Tycoon. The games setting is the period when railroads slowly took over transport and you are one entrepreneur who wants to make his fortune by building a railroad empire. To do this you connect citys, transport goods between citys, buy new railroads, expand your business in citys and buy and sell stock. Great game, back then and even now.

1. Into the Eagles Nest

The game could be described as an enhanced gauntlet with a world war 2 setting. Your mission is to rescue three captured comrades from a Nazi fortress, grab as much gold and other treasures as you can, destroy the fortress and make sure to come home safely. The original game had eight levels and I’am not sure how many levels this remake has. It is still lots of fun to play, and that is what counts.

The game should be available today at the website given above. The counter is at Zero but this might be because it is using your timezone and it might be only valid for a special timezone the developers selected. Just wait and the game should be ready to download soon.

C-Evo: Civilization, we all know that game created by Sid Meier. It is highly popular and new versions of that game make are produced regulary. C-Evo tried to correct errors and design mistakes from the original Civilization game reducing luck for instance (winning with a lancer against a tank is highly unrealistic, don´t you think ?). If you like Civilization you will like C-Evo.

LGeneral: I enjoyed the first Panzer General game, played it for hours and hours. The main reason for that was that there have not been that many turn-based games in the time when Panzer General was released. It featured complete World War II campaigns and you had the chance to change the course of history. Conquer the United States with Germany ? No problem, just play very very good and you might make it. LGeneral is a faithful copy of the original Panzer General game.

Neverball: Neverball reminds me of the C-64 classics Trailblazer and Marble Madness. Collect as many coins with the ball as you can. Movement is a quite unique experience though. You do not control the ball directly but raise or lower the sides of the complete playfield. Great experience.

Settlers 3D: Settlers of Catan is a great boardgame that was created in Germany. The goal of the game is to reach a certain amound of points by gathering ressources, trading them with other players and building towns and roads. Settlers 3D is an open source implementation of that boardgame including the popular seafarers addon.

WinLems: Lemmings was a huge success for DMA design back on the good old Amiga. It was ported to PC, console systems and handhelds and is most likely one of the most ported games of all time. A bunch of lemmings fall out of a generator and you have to guide them to the level exit by giving some of them various functions like blocking and digging.