Free PC Gaming Blog

I came across this site today and was surprised to see that they have not just one, but three full games available to download for free!  DUOTris, a block – puzzle – stacker type game, DUO, an old-school blasting action game and Echos, “a bit like Asteroids hyperactive, drug crazed brother displayed in blur-o-vision© and viewed through psychedelic sunglasses in a cheap nightclub” in a similar style to Geometry Wars. If that’s not enough, Echos also has an unlockable “crack” bonus game. Check them all out at the Binary Zoo Studios site.

The fantasy MMO Archlord and its new Episode II: Season of Seige is now 100% free.  Like many free MMOs micro-transactions are available to purchase in game items and enhancement.

From the Archlord site:

ArchLord, the fantasy MMO, is now moving to 100% free. All you need to do to play ArchLord now is download the client, request a key and log into the world of Chantra. Get ready to take on your fellow ArchLord players in the battle of a lifetime to become the all-powerful, all-ruling ArchLord!

To get a key simply visit the ArchLord Free To Play page.

If you have any questions visit the Free To Play FAQ.

Get ready for the battle of your life in ArchLord, the free to play MMO.

Fate by Numbers is a throwback to the days of full motion video games. The game was actually developed as a graduation project for a Communication and Design program and has been release free to the public.

“Fate by Numbers is a sci-fi noir adventure game that uses full-motion video. You assume the role of Alice Sanger, private eye. She is assigned to get a briefcase, but quickly finds herself immersed in a web of corruption and shadowy motives.

What follows is a mysterious journey through the layers of a future metropolis influenced by the style of noir movies from the 1950s.”

The students set out to prove that this kind of production could be put together these days using a small budget and pro-sumer equipment.

The game makes use of an hour of HD footage and professional actors that were shot against a green screen.

Now I’m getting pissed.

You can see how this story begins in my post The Day My Inner Xbox 360 Fanboy Died.

So here it is, one week later and I have yet to receive my coffin to send back my Xbox 360 for repair. It was supposed to take a few days. So I’m off to call support again.

For any of you that have called the support line… What is up with the voice over guy and the word “HEY!”

Anyway, I get a recoding almost right off the back that says “HEY I can see that your repair is on its way back to you and you should receive it soon.” Or something like that.  Interesting since I HAVEN’T SENT IT YET!  So I wait to talk to someone.

I finally get a human on the line and give my service number.  She goes to investigate it and I get put on hold for a VERY long time.

Ok, she’s back.  Turns out they had it marked that I was going to pick up the box. Well I live ACROSS THE COUNTRY in PA so, hmmmm, what the hell?!?!

She tells me they’ll ship a new box out right away.  So great, now I have to wait even more to get this thing sent off and even longer until I’ve got a working 360.  I ask if there’s any way to rush it since they messed up.  I get “Sorry.”

So the moral of the story here is if you are one of the hundreds of thousands waiting for your xbox 360 coffin… if you don’t get it within a week, call.  Otherwise, it may be waiting for you to pick up… wherever you’re from.

This just isn’t right.

Nice cliché title! There are 101 ebooks and websites out there claiming “make money online” or “make money with Google” and want to charge you an arm and a leg for the information they claim to have. But that’s exactly what I want to lay out in this post: How to make money playing games or any other hobby that you enjoy… and blogging about it. And I’m charging $0.00 for it!

I started this blog in May of this year and in that short amount of time, I have built this blog to a place where I am now generating a nice supplemental income. I get to talk about things I want to talk about, games I’m playing or checking out, and enjoy and make a nice amount of money by doing it. I also set my wife up with a “mommy blog” using this same plan and she is already starting to make money!

Why would I share this plan with everyone else out there for free? Well, since I’ve been doing this, I’ve shared my surprise success with a lot of friends. Everyone always asks, how can I do that? Well, I’m going to spell that out here - all the steps that I took and you can take to get to this level. I know I didn’t expect to be making this much by this point in this blogs life… so I know firsthand that it’s possible.

I’m focusing on gaming blogs because that’s what this blog is about, but these steps could be applied towards whatever interests you. Even in the gaming space, there are so many niches that you can cover. For instance, the theme of this blog has evolved from talking about games you can buy and download online to mostly talking about full free PC games, other free online gaming, and free gaming in the news.

While there are many options when it comes to hosting companies, affiliate systems, etc. I will be talking about what I have used and what I can say has worked for me. If you decide to set up your own gaming related blog using these steps, link back to this post from a post in your new blog and I will do posts here with links out to your new site.

The first step of course is to come up with an idea or focus for your blog. Gaming blogs could focus on your favorite MMO, a specific video game console, a gaming genre… I could go on and on. Whatever you talk about, make sure it interests you! This will help drive you to continue to post and actually generate content people will want to read.

Next we need find a hosting company for your blog. There are many free services out there, but you won’t get nearly the love from the search engines as you would with a blog hosted with your own URL. I suggest the hosting I use for this blog: Blue Host. For $6.95 a month you get an incredible set of features! 500Gigs of storage, unlimited domains, more email addresses available at your new URL than you’ll ever need, and best of all an incredibly easy way to set up your blog or even multiple blogs! Check them out to see the full list of features.

You’ll also want to have an idea for the domain name you want to go after. Be prepared, many of your domain name ideas will have already have been taken. There are two strategies to picking a Domain name URL. One is going after keywords contained in the URL. Can you tell with a name like downloadfullversionpcgames.com that I was perusing this strategy? This has worked well, but there are times when I wish I had gone with option number two - Branding. A URL that focuses on branding is wide open to your imagination. You could pick whatever name you wish. As you develop your topics, you will begin to brand your name in relation to the themes carries through your posts. Many web 2.0 sites have gone this direction. The first thing Blue Host will ask you when you go to sign up is the domain name you want to use.

Once you have found an available domain name, fill out the rest of the info. One you have completed that, you’ll have access to the Blue Host dashboard. There’s a LOT you can do here… I’m just going to focus on the basics to get you up and running. First thing you should do here is create a new email address for new site. Click the “email accounts” icon and link. From here, you can enter your choice of email address, password, and optional mail quota (I wouldn’t suggest setting a quota). Once it is set up, you can come back and check your email from this location.

Ok, now let’s set up a WordPress blog! Go back to the main dashboard and click the “Fantastico De Luxe” icon and link under the Software / Services area. Here you’ll find an impressive list of software from Content Management systems to Ecommerce Shopping cart software you can automatically install to your URL. Look for the WordPress link under blogs and click it. Click the New Installation link. If you have set up more than one URL, choose the domain that you would like to install the blog to. Enter an admin username and password. Write these down, this is what you will use to log in to administer your blog. Enter your nickname… this will be your alias or the name you will be known as on your blog. My alias here is Boggslash. This is the name I use on most MMOs and is also my screen name on Xbox360. It goes back to my original Everquest days and has stuck ever since. Continue by giving your blog a site name. This could match your URL or be its own animal. This site’s title is again going after search traffic with a name like “PC Gaming Blog.” You’ll need to enter your admin email password here to make sure notification emails are sent correctly. Click install and continue to fill out the information.

Once it’s set up, you can access your blogs admin area at www.thenameofthesite.com/wp-admin. Enter the login and password you entered here. The first thing you will see is the WordPress dashboard. Once you get things going, this is a nice overview page to see the latest happenings on your blog. Let’s move on to getting your blog looking the way you want.

There are many skins that can be downloaded for WordPress. I’m going to move on here with the default Kubrik theme. If you would like to look into changing the theme, click the presentation tab and scroll down to the “get more themes” area. When I give code examples in this post though, I will be referring to areas, widths, and code from the default theme. Moving on…

Click the Options tab next. Make sure the Title is what you want to move on with. Enter a tag line to be shown under the title of your blog. The tag line on my blog is: Reviews and Information About Free PC Games Available to Download Online. Again, think about keywords you may want to target in search engines here. Click update options to commit the changes.

Click the permalinks sub-tab under the options tab. Change the option to the second one, Date and Name based so that the name is passed into the URL. Click the Update button.

Now click the presentation tab and then the Header Image and Color sub tab. Change any of the colors here to your preference.

Next click the widgets sub-tab. Widgets are great since you can change the way your navigation works without any programming. Just drag and drop each item you would like displayed in the order you would like them to be. Order them however you would like… the order on this blog is Categories - Recent Posts - Archives - Links, everything else is coded in by hand. We’ll get into more of this as we add affiliate and adWord code later. Click the Save Changes button once you are finished arranging the sidebar areas.

At this point, you probably want to go into the Blogroll tab and delete out the defaults that are there. If you would like to add any blogs related to your site, you can add them to your blogroll here.

Click the comments tab. Once you have activity on your blog, if you have comments waiting to be approved, you can do that here. For now, delete the Mr WordPress test comment.

Click the Manage tab. You can view edit or delete posts you have done here. Let’s delete the “Hello World” test by clicking the delete link.

Ok, now you’re ready to click the write tab and type up your first blog entry. Make sure you make a category for it. Again, think search engines with your categories and the titles you use for your posts.

Once you a few posts entered, it’s time to start monetizing this thing! One of the easiest ways to start doing this is by using Google AdSense. AdSense will spider through the content of you page and show ads targeted to the content that you have entered. You will get paid for every click on the ads. So:

to generate the code you will need to enter into the layout of your blog.

Now, the toughest part for people without any coding experience is to get the ad code into the right parts of the site code. You’ll want to click on the presentation tab and the theme editor sub tab to past in the code. The easiest place to do this off the back is in the header and in the sidebar area.

If you are using the default them and would like to put ads under the header like you can see above in this blog, first generate a 728×90 content block and get the code from your AdSense account. Then, enter the code below with your code pasted from google where it says Paste AdSense Code directly above the last <hr/> in the header:

<br />
<br />
<center>
Paste AdSense Code
</center>

There are many other affiliate systems and services you can check out and experiment with. Here’s a list of ones that I have had success with:

• Azoogle Ads - Many offers to choose from here. You should be able to find product to target in almost any market.
• AuctionAds - Auction ads has worked really well for me here. AuctioAds will generate ads for ebay listings based on keywords you enter. If people click through and buy, you get a percentage of the sale.
• LinkShare.com - Many sites to choose from. For me, both WildGames and Direct2Drive links come from LinkShare.
• Text Link Ads - This site will pay you for posting links on your site. The money you can make is dependent on the popularity of your blog.
• ReviewMe - Review other sites on your blog for cash.
• 
  - Get paid for posting on different topics, products, or services. This site is great… you can monitor available topics and choose to post on one when it fits the theme of your blog.

Also, if you are serious about getting traffic from the search engines and would like to learn more about Search Engine Optimization, I suggest buying Aaron Wall’s SEO Book. It’s a great launch pad for learning the basics and getting more traffic to your site.

One last resource I would suggest checking out is John Chow’s free ebook “Make Money Online“. John lists out many ideas that expand on what I’ve talked about here. He also lists out many of the wordpress plugins that can help take your blog to the next level.

Now it’s up to you to put together some great content and start generating income talking about what you want to talk about. Play games - talk about them - get cash… it’s amazing how easy it really is!

The new free to play MMO from Acclaim called 2Moons has launched the open beta. The game will feature in game advertising to supplement subscription fees. The game boasts “an epic adult story, intense fighting action, and extreme violence”

Official press release from Acclaim:

“2Moons” Free to Play Extreme Action MMO Game Open Beta Launches with Massive Explosion

New worlds opened for huge initial surge of online gamers

Los Angeles (August 7, 2007) - Acclaim Games is pleased to announce the start of Open Beta for 2Moons, a free to play extreme action Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) for PC directed by video game industry veteran David Perry. “We opened the site on Monday July 30th and we were blown away with over 100,000 downloads, so much that our first world got filled in 24 hours. It’s stunning! We had to delay the announcement until we opened our new world named Abaddon” said David Perry, director of the game.

With the highly anticipated launch of 2Moons Open Beta, any player will be able to sign up for free and enter the land of Haran to team up in guilds, battle menacing beasts, and defeat their most hated enemies in large-scale bloody massacres with thousands of others.

Players have been anxiously waiting for 2Moons ever since hearing about the exciting 3D multiplayer online game. At the game’s silent launch, there was a sudden explosion of players due to the great hype surrounding its release and internet word-of-mouth. An additional server set was quickly added to make room for all the new players coming into the game, so now players can choose between the Trieste or Abaddon worlds. With such a tremendous response from dedicated fans and new players, 2Moons is expected to grow rapidly and reach the 1 million players milestone very quickly.

Based on a hugely successful game called Dekaron in Korea, 2Moons promises to be one of the most exciting online games to be released this year, and is expected to become a huge hit for Acclaim. “Never before has a AAA game been available for free. This is a defining moment for our hundreds of thousands of registered players who have been patiently waiting, now the pain is over. The pricing wall has been broken, players will vote with their playtime” says Howard Marks, CEO Acclaim Games Inc.

2Moons is targeted to hardcore gamers who want to experience an epic adult story, intense fighting action, and extreme violence. The game’s tagline, “No mercy for the weak, no pity for the dying, no tears for the slain,” lets players know that this is truly a game for hardcore players! The game is intended for audiences age 17 and older due to mature content including extreme violence and strong language.

With 24-years of experience in the video game development industry, David Perry is directing the 2Moons game to make sure it is a big success. His unique experience and vision will ensure that players get the most exciting online gaming experience they could hope for with 2Moons.

“This is the final phase of testing with the help of our 2Moons community before this game is commercially released. Unlike the previous Closed Beta, during this period we will roll out all the key features of the game one at a time for them to experiment with and give us feedback,” says Director, David Perry.

2Moons Open Beta will begin with all players starting their characters from scratch at the time the servers are opened. Later in the Open Beta, players will be able to enter Siege Mode to defeat competing parties of players and overtake the castle. And when the highly anticipated Dead Front feature is released, several rival parties will enter through various gates, fight their way through hordes of enemies, checkpoints and sub-bosses in a bloody battle royale that will require mutual cooperation. In the end, however, they will turn upon each other in a free-for-all, hardcore PvP battle to the death, with the last party standing crowned the ultimate warriors. Also included in this version will be character voices recorded from 2Moons community members who entered the “Voices Over 2Moons” voice-over contest to give a voice to some of the game’s non-player characters.

Assistant Director Rusel DeMaria says, “We have an amazing and passionate community of hardcore players, and we think they are going to have a bloody ball in 2Moons. And the best is yet to come!”

There will be various in-game events, community contests, and prize giveaways for the 2Moons community giving players many opportunities to win special prizes such as gaming hardware, in-game items, and Acclaim Coins packages that can be used in any Acclaim game.

Within a few weeks after Open Beta, the 2Moons Shop will be opened. Players will be able to use Acclaim Coins to purchase all-new optional game items designed to enhance gameplay. Items in the shop will allow certain players to access special items, customizable clothing, and other unique game enhancements. New items will be released regularly to keep the shop constantly loaded with fresh additions.

2Moons is the fourth release from the new Acclaim, a resurrected company focused on providing quality multiplayer online games for free. The games will be supported with a mix of advertising and virtual item stores.

Any player can participate in 2Moons Open Beta. Players can register, download the game and play for free by visiting www.2moonsgame.com .

About Acclaim Games®

Based in Beverly Hills California, Acclaim Games is a revolutionary new company with a familiar name. In 2005 the cofounder of Activision, Howard Marks, purchased the company confident that the Acclaim name would surpass its former glory as one of America’s marquee brands. Today, Acclaim Games offers only the finest multiplayer online games for free with a focus on community, playability and most importantly fun. To learn more please visit www.acclaim.com.

About David Perry

David Perry is the CEO of GAMECONSULTANTS.COM and prior to that was the founder of Shiny Entertainment, Inc. For more information, please visit: www.dperry.com. David Perry’s latest Matrix Movie related game projects are estimated to have grossed over $300 million, and he has had numerous #1 hits and awards over his career with titles such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Disney’s Aladdin, Earthworm Jim, and many more.

About Rusel DeMaria

Rusel DeMaria is a 26-year veteran of the game industry, a well-known writer and currently the Assistant Director for 2Moons, working under David Perry.

Being a busy “gamer dad” one of the problems I’ve always had is playing any kind of MMORPG with others because I rarely know if I’m going to have a big enough chunk of uninterrupted time to commit to other players.

The new online browser based role playing game Duels has come up with a great solution for my problem that will still allow me to challenge other real world players.

Duels has all of the basics you’d expect from a role playing game. You choose the look of your avatar, generate your stats, equip your character and you off to duel. The difference here is you don’t control that actual Duel! You challenge your opponent and choose how you fight, but since you don’t control the actual duel, you don’t even need to be online when your opponent accepts your fight. Once you’re back, you can view a playback of the duel.

The end result here is a mixture of role playing and web 2.0 social networking smartly entwined into a great browser based experience. It’s simple and addicting.

One of the problems with it right now is that because of the extreme initial popularity the game has experienced, it runs fairly slowly and tends to lag between screens. They have been working on infrastructure upgrades, so I’m sure that these speed issues will not be around for very long.

If you give it a try, send me a challenge!

Since theme of this blog has always been about PC gaming, I haven’t mentioned my 360. I didn’t want to drift too far from what readers have come to expect.

This post will be completely Xbox 360 related, so the PC only guys can skip right over it… unless you want some more (like you really need it) ammunition to fire at your buddies arguing over why you bought your latest gaming PC for five times the price of their 360.

As much as I love PC gaming, I have been a 360 fanboy (or hitting 30 this year with a two year old running around, I guess I’m really a fandad) for a long time. I’ve spent many many hours on my 360 as can be seen in my semi-respectable 10653 current gamerscore (Xbox screen name Boggslash).

From Gears of War, Oblivion, Crackdown, and G.R.A.W. to way too many Xbox live downloadable games… I have played a LOT on it (looks like I just hit 100 games played looking at my xbox.com profile). The system is great and I’ve loved it… when it worked.

I’ve been hearing the rumors and reading the stories about the issues people have had with the Xbox 360 crashing, the red rings of death, etc., but it seemed like I was one of the lucky ones. With every story I read I thought “man, that sucks… But it’s not going to happen to me!” (Positive thinking)

Well, about a week ago, while playing some marathon sessions of Crackdown (damn, agility orb collecting is addicting) I started to encounter some scary events on my 360. The screen would go black with some digital lines and dots here and there, yet I would still here the sound. My first thought was that the connections on the back of my TV were loose… wiggled them around a bit. Nope, not that. Pulling the connection out of the back of my 360, putting it back, and starting it back up seemed to fix it. Hmm… getting frightened now.

Fast forward to today. I finally broke down and ordered Guitar Hero 2 from Amazon. It arrived at work and I couldn’t wait to fire it up when I got home. I unpacked the new toy and started rocking out. I got through the first 2 songs and I must have really burned it up because it was at that point that my screen went BLACK! So now I’m standing there with my X-Plorer guitar, mouth wide open, staring at a bank screen.

I’m thinking, ok, I just need to do what I’ve done before, pull out the cord, put it back in and turn it on… I hear the familiar Xbox whoosh sound… no video. Damn.

Ok… there’s got to be something I can do… I look online and try suggestion. I remove the hard drive and any other accessories and start it back up. Nothing. Damn.

At this point, I give in and call support. After holding for way too long, I explain my situation and they think it’s a bad video wire. I was thinking (or more like it hoping) that the wire was all I had to worry about. Thanks tech dude… and I’m off to Circuit City to buy a new wire.

Twenty minutes later, I’m home with my new video connection. I plug it in, cross my fingers, turn it on and… BLACK. Damn.

Great, so now it’s time to call tech support again. After holding for a while, I get a new tech-dude. He tells me it needs to be sent in to be fixed and a box was on its way.

So now, I need to wait up to 5 days for the box and “up to four weeks after that” until I get my “fixed” box back.

I can’t tell you how bummed I am about this. I mean, I know thousands have bitched and complained and damnit, they have every right to. A product like this should not have such a limited life span. It’s just crap and it’s not right.

I’m not going to be one of the guys who says screw it I’m going and buying a PS3 and forget the 360. I’ll patiently wait, but when I get my “fixed” version back, it better really be fixed. If I get another black screen, I believe at that point, I’d take it out back and pull an “Office Space” on its ass.

So for now, I guess I’ll download a copy of Frets on Fire and get rocking on my trusty ol’ PC.

The Xbox fanboy inside has died. R.I.P.

I recently put up a post entitled “Real World vs. Virtual World MMORPG Cash“. This was my first experiment using payperpost. Payperpost provides topics that allow you to post on and receive payment for your efforts… so you can get paid directly to blog.

Any post that is done for payperpost or any other sponsored listing will clearly state that this post is sponsored by whoever is paying for the entry through the payperpost system.

This is great because it can help sponsor blogs such as this one without affecting the theme of the blog. In other words, I can look through the listing of posts that I would qualify for in order to find a subject, web sites, product, or service that relates to PC gaming.

These postings could be considered “commercials” between our regular postings on free pc games from around the web to help pay for hosting, advertising, etc.

If you would like us to do a paid posting about your site or game, you can request a post directly from us - Hire Me via PayPerPost Direct!

This blog has recieved over 230,000 unique visitors since our debut in April. We will continue to expand our coverage in our commitment to post on full free PC games available to download online. We always appreciate any feedback we can get though the community, so keep the comments coming!

Also, if anyone of our regular readers would like to be a guest blogger here… let me know. Email me your post, contact info, and site link to info@downloadfullversionpcgames.com. The post needs to be about full version games available online - preferably free ones.

This year should officially be titled the year of the penguin! Seriously, from Hollywood blockbusters to award winning documentaries.. and now PC games, these wobbling creatures are everywhere!

Now we have TAGAP: The Apocalyptic Game About Penguins, a new side scrolling action game with crazy 3d effects staring Pablo the Penguin. It’s fun and it’s 100% free!

Pablo has escaped from the mad scientist doctor Glowenko who wants to conquer the world using his army of cloned penguins. Now he must fight his way through zombie penguins, killer penguins and even robot penguins lead by his nemesis Pedro the Penguin.

The action is fast an furious. The controls are simple, move with the arrow keys and aim with your mouse.

Download it here or check out the trailer below: