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)

While it is certainly possible to download them from an Abandonware site, it is not always clear if the right holders have made the game available for free. It is a grey area legally and I prefer to buy old games instead.

One of the sites that I discovered some time ago that caters to the old games niche is Good Old Games, or GOG. All games on the old games websites are DRM-free and working on newer versions of Windows.

Even better, prices usually range between $5.99 to $9.99 which I personally find very acceptable for classic PC games. When you look at the games catalogue, you will find many classic PC games listed. From the Alone in the Dark and Baldur’s Gate series over classic Sierra adventures like Gabriel Knight or Phantasmagoria to all time favorites like Dungeon Keeper, Panzer General 3D Assault and Unreal Tournament GOTY.

The majority of games retails for $5.99 or $9.99 with only a few exceptions that break the $10 mark which means that you can get between 5 to 10 different games for the price of one PC game that has just been released.

Here is a list of games that I can recommend on Good Old Games:

• Baldur’s Gate: The Original Saga (RPG)
• Baldur’s Gate 2 Complete (RPG)
• Broken Sword: Director’s Cut + The Original Game (Adventure)
• Broken Sword 2: Remastered + The Original Game (Adventure)
• Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon (Adventure)
• Dungeon Keeper (Strategy)
• Fallout (RPG)
• Fallout 2 (RPG)
• Fallout Tactics (Strategy)
• Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (Adventure)
• Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within (Adventure)
• Heroes of Might and Magic® 3: Complete Edition (Strategy)
• Heroes of Might and Magic® 4 Complete (Strategy)
• Icewind Dale Complete (RPG)
• Icewind Dale 2 Complete (RPG)
• Master of Magic (Strategy)
• Master of Orion 1+2 (Strategy)
• Panzer General 2 (Strategy)
• Panzer General 3D Assault (Strategy)
• Phantasmagoria (Adventure)
• Phantasmagoria 2 (Adventure)
• Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri™ (Strategy)
• Unreal Tournament GOTY (Action)

All 24 games and extensions would cost $171.78 Dollars. This may look like a lot of money, but it turns out that it boils down to $7.1 per game if you buy all the games listed above.

You find lots of good old games in the list, classic games that every PC gamer should have played. Yes, graphics are definitely not top notch anymore but if you can ignore that, you end up with lots of value for your money.

The game pages on the Good Old Games website list game compatibilities, with most PC games being compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Users do need to know that some old games limit the screen resolution. It can happen that the maximum resolution of a game is 640×480. Some games can be played in window mode to make them more playable.

The community part of the website has forums for each game much like the Steam community forum. Here you find tips, tricks and help if you run into problems.

In short: Good Old Games offers affordable PC gaming classics that are compatible with recent operating systems. The only downside for non-English speaking users is that games are only offered in English on the website.

I taught myself Commodore Basic back then and started programming a football manager. Time constraints and some advanced programming issues killed the project in the end. But hey, I was ten or so.

The C-64 gave birth to lots of classic computer games, from the notorious Commando to Sid Meyer’s Pirates, Airborne Ranger, Maniac Mansion to Impossible Mission and arcade conversions like Bomb Jack.

The website C64i lets you relive your memories if you happened to play C-64 games back in the 80′s, or explore them if you never came in contact with them before. The site uses Java to run the games in the browser. A recent version of the Java Runtime Environment is all that is needed to run the games.

Just head over to the website, pick a game that you want to play and wait until it is loaded in the browser. It should not take more than a few seconds to load in most cases.

C64i has a top ten list of games that are the most popular on the site, which is probably a good place to start, unless you know exactly what you are looking for.

In the top 10 are all time classics like Commando, Great Giana Sisters, Bubble Bobble or Paperboy. Each game is displayed with a thumbnail image. If you are into action, you may want to start with Commando, if you like jump and run games you may want to pick Giana Sisters or Ghost n Goblins.

Controls are always the same. You use the arrow keys to move, the Ctrl key as the fire button and space as a secondary button which was not available on the C-64. The secondary button simplifies some actions in certain games, for instance throwing grenades in Commando.

Games are sorted into categories listed at the top of the page. You can use it to pick your favorite gaming category to see all the games listed there. The site has a beta category as well which lists untested games that may or may not run. The beta list alone is bigger than all category listings combined. Worth checking out.

Many games throw error messages currently, at least when played in the Chrome browser. Commando worked fine, Giana Sisters on the other hand threw an error message and refused to load correctly.

The sister site, Dosdose uses the same layout and concept to offer online access to PC Dos games. Games like Indiana Jones, Moonstone, Ultima V or Airborne Ranger are playable on site.

The games on this site work better, I did not encounter a single one that refused to load.

Both sites offer lots of entertainment, especially for people who have played C-64 or PC Dos games in the past. You will encounter games that may not be working correctly, but there are so many to chose from that it should not make a huge difference.

Have you played C-64 or PC Dos games in the past? If so, which games were your favorites back then?

Game Anywhere supports nine games out of the box: Abuse, Borderlands, Dragon Age Origins, FIFA 10, Football Manager 2010, Football Manager 2009, The Sims 3, World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne with the option to add additional games so that their saves and configuration files are backed up as well.

The process again is more complicated than the one offered by Game Save Manager. The user of Game Anywhere needs to edit the userGames.txt configuration file to add new games so that they are recognized by the software.

The developer’s guide and the configuration file itself contain information on how to add new game save and configuration information.

The program interface of Game Anywhere lists options to synchronize game saves with a thumbdrive as well. It was however not possible to select those options.

Game Anywhere is a interesting alternative to Game Save Manager. The developers should consider making the program more user friendly by adding the ability to select game save and configuration files directly in the program interface.

It would also be nice if local data storage could be selected that does not need an account.

Game Anywhere can be downloaded from the developer’s website. The game save and configuration manager requires the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5.

Legit customers sometimes cannot install or play a game because of the copy protection. It has happened in the past that a game could not be installed if a virtual DVD drive was installed on the computer.

The most common form of protection nowadays is an online activation that forces a legit buyer to activate the game online. This does mean however that the customer needs to have access to an Internet connection to activate the game. That was, until now, a one-time job.

Ubisoft now decided to up the ante by linking their games to the cloud which essentially means that games can only be played if the user has an online connection. If the connection breaks the game will stop working.

This obviously improves the copy protection of the game but to what costs?

• Games cannot be resold anymore because they are linked to an account (selling the account would work but one would have to create single accounts for every game)
• Users with no Internet connection cannot play the game
• Users with shaky Internet connection will have a mediocre gaming experience
• The game cannot be played if the master server drops (either because of technical problems on the server side, on the user’s Internet connection side or because Ubisoft decides to stop supporting the game or files bankruptcy)
• Users cannot play games while on the go
• Games cannot be lend to friends anymore

The main question here is if the protection will keep piracy at bay. History has shown that this is likely not to be the case. Until now every game has been pirated eventually. It might take a little longer for the first game or so to become available but it will happen eventually. And the score again will be Pirates:1 Legit Customers:0.

What’s your opinion on this always online copy protection? Do you think it is the right step in protecting games from being pirated or do you see it as another fruitless idea that will only punish legit customers of the game?

It is likely that additional games are shown in the coming days. This could mean that we are going to create a follow up article with even more trailers and game previews. If you think that we missed a game or think that we have added a game that should not be in this list let us know in the comments.

New Super Mario Bros (Nintendo Wii)

Has the looks and feels of the real classic Super Mario games. 2D environment and Co-Op play!