Free PC Gaming Blog

When I saw this press release, I knew I needed to post it here! For this month only, Independent developer Laurian Studio is giving away their 3D fantasy role-playing game Parhedros: The Tunnels of Sethir to everyone over the age of 18 who agrees to write to their congressperson with the message that "Video-Gamers Vote!"

Game Developer Seeks to Increase Voter-Awareness among Video-Game Players

LITTLE FALLS, New York, Nov. 1, 2007. Are some politicians alienating a neglected voter-bloc when it comes to the recent controversies over content in video-games? Independent game developer Laurion Studio thinks so, and wants to prove it by giving away a free computer-game in a voter awareness campaign aimed at the getting out the vote among the game-playing populace.

Laurion announced that during November through Election Day it is giving away a free, fully registered copy of its new 3D fantasy role-playing game Parhedros: The Tunnels of Sethir on its web-site (www.parhedros.com) to everyone over the age of 18 who agrees to write to their congressperson with the simple message that "Video-Gamers Vote!" The game normally sells for $22.95 on-line.

"We hear so much about protecting kids from games," explained Laurion spokesman David Van Meter, "But how often do we hear that the average video-gamer is actually 33 years-old, and that a whopping 72% of all gamers are over the age of 18, according to studies by the Entertainment Software Association? Video-gamers are also voters, and I think it’s time to let politicians know that we are tired of being treated like children when it comes to free speech in our games."

Laurion’s game Parhedros itself affords an example of the sort of "free-thinking" games that are quietly being published only on the internet by mostly small, independent developers for this so-called "mature majority" of gamers. Despite being a role-playing game that focuses mostly on exploring dungeons and battling fantasy monsters, the story also touches upon such mature themes as alcoholism and crises of sexual identity, and some of the characters may do "nude scenes". Needless to say, you won’t find games like this coming soon to a major retail store anywhere near you.

"From our viewpoint, games will only reach their full potential as an artistic medium when they can freely tackle the same sorts of subjects that novelists and film-makers have treated for decades," said Van Meter. "But the political hand-wringing over game content and ratings has left the major studios and retailers afraid to touch games that intellectually challenge adults as works of fiction. It will stay that way, too, until video-gamers speak up and assert their political voice."

For more information on Laurion Studio and its offer of a free copy of Parhedros for concerned game-playing voters, visit parhedros.com.

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.

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!

I used to be big into Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, and Everquest 2. It always amazed me how much time I would start to invest in these virtual worlds. Real world time would slip away it seemed almost as fast as the much speedier time of a day in an online world. That is eventually why I stopped playing these games all together. I just didn’t have the time to put in to keep up with the guys that had hours and hours available to invest each day.

The idea of real world money in trade for MMO gold starts to become incredibly attractive for those lacking the time needed to really get ahead.  Everyone seems to make out in the end… the people who are putting the work and time into the virtual world can make real world money while those without real time can invest cash to advance their MMO character.

With Ebay stopping the sale of virtual items, a site like MMObay steps in to fill the virtual world transaction gap.  MMObay covers all of the biggest MMOs, from World of Warcraft gold to Runescape accounts for sale. They are also a member of Trust Who, an identification validation service removing anonymity from trading virtual goods and accounts.

If you’re looking to spend the cash for a high level character or trade real world money for online currency, this is the site to check out.

This post was sponsored by MMObay.

The new beta build is up and running for the new free to play MMO: Mythos.  You can sign up for an invite into the next phase of beta testing. Looking at the posted screenshots, this Diablo style online MMO is looking pretty cool.  There seem to be a lot of games like this popping up these days that allow you to play for free, but give you more items and a jump ahead by putting up some cash (microtransactions).  This is kind of cool for those who have the cash but not the time to put into these games. It feels like a bit of a cheat for those putting massive amounts of time though, but as long as there’s a careful balance, I guess it’s a decent trade off. It’s kind of like real life that way, those with $$ can jump ahead while the rest of us need to bust our butts to keep up. I’ve found that this kind of model works well in the fact that you can get a good idea of the full game and make a well informed decision on whether or not you want to invest your money into it.  Let”s face it… while free is great for us, the programmers and guys putting these games together deserve and need to get compensated and have inspiration to continue developing great games.

Ok, now I’m really on a free games kick. Inspired by my old flash star wars game I made years ago and my love for all things Star Wars, I was just thinking… I wonder if there are any free Star Wars games out there… so off to Google I go. I just searched Google for “Free Star Wars Games” and I couldn’t believe the first result that came up: http://www.swcombine.com.

Star Wars Combine is a free massive multiplayer online role-playing game set in the Star Wars univers, and it’s FREE to play!! I have not had the chance to play yet. I’m waiting for approval, but this looks really in depth for a free to play game. I can’t wait to get in and try it out. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about it before. Shows that there are a lot of hidden gems out there… and we aim to find them and point you in their direction!

For those of you who own FATE, you might not know of the items you can download from the official FATE website. If you’re like me, you downloaded it and never looked at the main FATE site. I checked it out this weekend and was surprised to see these additional packages to download.

They have an Enhanced Media Package to improve the games textures and sound. There is also a Bonus pack that adds new weapons, armor, and 3 new monsters.

Nice little packages for an already spectacular game. As I’ve said before, if you like the Diablo games (only better graphics!), than you shouldn’t miss out on FATE.

One of the things I like to do is find the games out there that are a diamond in the rough. They may not have the latest and greatest graphics, but the fun factor is the most important to me. I found this in Aveyond.

Aveyond is an RPG that is very much in the style of an old school SNES game like the Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger games. If you enjoy these types of turn based games, then this one’s a game you should check out. I had a nostalgic feeling as I started playing Aeyond. At first it felt like an SNES Zelda with the top down view and slowly building story elements. Once the turn based battles started, it felt like I found a classic Final Fantasy I never played.

I think sometimes I go into checking out these games with the preconceived notion that because of the low price, I’m not going to get the full experience that I want. I’m finding as I explore some of these alternate non-mainstream games that there are a surprising number of great diamonds to be discovered: FATE, Aveyond, Grimm’s Hatchery just to name a few. I hope to find many more and post them here so that others can find them and enjoy these games that we’ve been missing out on.

I heard of Fate before, but this weekend I finally downloaded it and gave it a try. I was very impressed! This was a whole lot more than I was expecting. Wildgame’s has done a fantastic job capturing the Diablo style RPG feel and control with great graphics to match. You have a pet companion that will accompany you and assist on your journeys and battles in Fate. You can fish in certain locations for food to feed your dog companion that will transform him into creatures that are much more powerful. There is a surprising amount of depth to this RPG for a game in its price range.

Speaking of the price range, Wildgames has some interesting systems in place. First off, you can purchase the full game for $20. The other option is a “coins” system. With this system, you purchase a plan that gives you so many coins. You can use these coins to play 100s of their games. This is a neat idea… you pay less and get to play many different games without having to purchase the full versions. I like seeing these different plans that online game producers are experimenting with these days!

I have just started playing Fate this weekend and I’m hooked. I’ll do more of a review post when I’m further into it. If a new Diablo style game RPG dungeon crawler is what you’re looking for, give the free trial of Fate a try!