The Distracted Gamer

As part of its recruitment campaign the US Air Force has sponsored three free Midway games.  They’re not the newest games, but a free game is a free game.

The games are The Suffering, Area 51 and Rise & Fall Civilisations at War. The US Air Force has in the past demonstrated its willingness to laugh at itself with its continued extensive support of  the Stargate series, and including Area 51 as one of the titles here just continues that theme.

The download site links to the Air Force’s DoSomthingAmazing.com and the games themselves contain ads.  Definitely worth downloading if your connection can cope with the 6GB it will take to get them. Update: note: because they’re ad supported they won’t let you play without an internet connection to load the ads.  So much for my on the train gaming.

Full Spectrum Warrior is also available. It’s not listed on the promo page but it is mentioned on this 1UP article.  You can grab it here (it’s another 1.6GB).   That was a great game on the XBox, I’ve never played the PC version, I’ll have to see if it’s any different.

Just as I posted about them still being in private beta, gog.com has just gone into public beta mode

Also announced today is that Strategy First & Pluto13 will be releasing their games on gog. This means that games like Disciples: Sacred Lands & Gothic are going to be available soon.

There’s a fairly active forum community on the site too.  There’s forums for each game where you can ask support questions or just discuss the game, plus a general discussion group.

For those in the mood for a little nostalgia, gog.com (Good Old Games) has just added Battle Chess to their catalogue for US$5.99 (about $9 Australian with the lousy exchange rate).  You’re going to need a beta code to get access, but you can still sign up for one.

I remember playing this game years ago.  The combat scenes are hilarious, I love the lumbering rook monster.  There’s a bunch of references to Monty Python & Indiana Jones too. The game also adapts as you play, so it can be pretty hard. 

This special edition version has Battle Chess II: Chinese Chess (with dragons) and Battle Chess 4000 (with aliens).  I hadn’t seen the other two versions before. The Chinese Chess game is based on the Chinese game called Xiangqi, so its rules & pieces are different, where as Battle Chess 4000 is just regular chess with a sci-fi theme.

If you’re a old-school gamer, I can’t recommend gog.com enough.  There are some great titles on there, all DRM-free and all for either $5.99 or $9.99 for the new(er) games like Colin McRae Rally 2005 & Second Sight.  Get yourself a beta code & check it out.