May 8, 2007

Free games: assorted selection of the RPG variety

A decent freeware CRPG is a rare beast indeed, usually to be encountered in the deepest caverns of cyberspace (where the particularly kinky & nasty porny web bits also reside) and in the south-eastern parts of the great Rio Amazonas, unless of course one is looking for the more popular and quite populous Rogue, NetHack or MUD variants. Or MMORPGs of course. Oh, and better let's not forget all those classic games gone freeware, but you get the point. Freeware RPGs are to preserved and showcased and that's what I'm about to do (sort of), after of course you hunt for some more of them here and here. Without further ado then, here are the games:

The Ruins of Cawdor, Sierra's final installment in the highly innovative online graphical MUD series that began with The Shadow of Yserbius, has now been patched, upgraded, generally messed around with, turned into a WinXp single player hack 'n' slash dungeon romp and released for free. Still addictive and good looking as ever, mind you.

The Warrior's Tale, a game inspired by Bard's Tale and another fantasy dungeon exploring RPG experience, is a fine example of traditional homegrown freeware game production. Download it and lead your party of 6 (no, not that kind of party, it would look silly) to victory against the viciously vicious, abominably nasty and irritatingly demonic Moloch.

Exult, on the other hand, is more of a brilliant storytelling experiencing in a rich and detailed universe than a turn-based killing fest. Actually, I could even argue that when Exult reaches its final version and its full power is finally unleashed, it will be one of the best CRPGs ever created. Ever. Why? Well, simply because it will be a complete WinXP compatible reworking of the utterly fantastic Ultima 7.

Ark 22 will be less familiar an RPG for PC gamers, as its roots are the cutesy console action RPGs of the 16-bit era. SNES ones to be more precise. If you still enjoy the Zelda games of the 90s, then you 'll definitely enjoy this one. Quite an addictive little thing too.

Related @ Gnome's Lair: The Legend of Zelda Retrospective DVD, Lone Wolf online, Decker, freeware gaming archive

16 comments:

  1. Thank you, thank you and thank you.....

    look im sorry about the plants... they refused to drink... pining for you they were... glad your back...

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  2. yay! something for the weekend :)

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  3. Glad to see you've not burned anything down dear Elderly. Oh, and you kept the place clean. Lovely.

    And the rest of the week too oh munkey!

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  4. Amazing find! And I have not even heard of three of them. I don't know how you do it.

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  5. Interesting to see a free game based off the Bard's Tale. For some very perplexing reason they released the PS2 update of the 'Bard's Tale' on the same day as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas... did they want it to fail or something? Anyway, great post as usual Gnome. Keep the free shi... erm, stuff, coming.

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  6. Well, Ilthmer, it does involve a few virgins, some former virging, a modem and a goat. Can't say more. Btw, thanks for the kind words.

    I'll try to ross. Oh, and have you actually tried the PS2 Bard's Tale? Is it any good?

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  7. Ahhh!!!


    Exult!!!!!!

    I remember using that on my PII to play the double pack of Ultima 7 and Ultima 8!

    I can still use the old Exult to play on my AMD XP powered computer but sound and other stuff kept screwing up...

    ...hopefully this will be done soon so I can hear Dupre's voice after he was possessed in Serpents Island!

    I still have the original disk will all the game info and manuals...

    I remember screwing around with boot disks for my 386 so it would run Ultima 7...I never fully beat Serpents Island...but I did beat the first one. I killed that bastard Hook personally...

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  8. Should work fine now... And having an old Pentium -nay 486DX- around is a brilliant idea actually. Then again, space will be a problem...

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  9. A Virgin and a goat..... the Greeks have all the luck...... any erm... pictures?

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  10. No damn! Unless of course this helps:

    hickerphoto.com/data/media/40/goat-photos_4405.jpg

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  11. tried ark22 last night - not my cup of tea... Also Exult requires the U7 data files, no?

    Which fortunately leaves me with still 2 games this weekend. yay!!

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  12. Oh, but dear munkey the U7 datafiles are so easy to get... Try them abandonware sites...

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  13. damn.. nice goat... but i was sorta counting on the virgin... unless of course...

    nah... couldn't be... could it?

    thats not a virgin goat by any chance?

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  14. Of course not. This is glorious greece after all, where all goats are ritually raped and bears are allowed to freely shit...

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  15. Here is a big list of free open source software.

    http://fossgamer.110mb.com/index.html

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  16. Great list. Thanks anonymous.

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