Classics for free

[XavierHyde]

I mailed Housemarque again this morning and got a prompt reply from their CEO.

I'm afraid it's not very good news. :cry:

Hello,

Thanks for your email and interest in our company and its past games.

Regarding the possibility to give the games for a freeware distribution,

althought the idea is great, there is a problem regarding the rights.

Unfortunately, we currently do not have the necessary rigths to give our

games for distribution. So, it is not possible, I am afraid.

...

Thanks again for your email and do continue to pursue your worthy mission to

preserve as many classic amiga games as possible.

Kind regards,

Ilari Kuittinen

CEO

I'll try to maintain communication with Housemarque, I'll post further updates here.

[XavierHyde]

After a day of research, I've mailed the CEO of Housemarque again, supplying a lot of information on the current legal status of their old titles and their publishers (turns out Team 17 is actually the publisher of Super Stardust here in Europe!). I've urged him to follow up on this information (by contacting Martyn Brown, among other things) and check their contracts to see if distribution rights have returned to Housemarque.

Hopefully, if he really wants to publish these games for free (as he hints in his first reply) he will seriously consider all of the information I've supplied him with, and act on it.

Keep on fighting for the future of our gaming heritage... :ninja:

[Mike Frett]

Who was it that needed Johnny Castaway screensaver?

Try here

or

Here

or

Here

Right click, Save as :D

[XavierHyde]

ADVENTURE ALERT!!! :woot:

Here's a note to let you all know that the excellent people at Revolution Games have released another one of their classics as freeware. This time, it's the wonderful science fiction adventure "Beneath a Steel Sky".

You can get it together with ScummVM, which features the most updated engine available for this game, and you can choose between a 67mb version (which is the entire CD-ROM talkie version) or the 7.3mb floppy version for those on dialup.

Get your preffered version of ScummVM from here, then scroll to the bottom of that page to see the download links for Beneath a Steel Sky.

Happy adventuring, everyone!!! GO GET IT! :D

[Skyfrog]

About the companies that have not responded, you might have better luck by sending them an actual letter (on that old fashioned paper stuff) through the mail. These are usually taken more seriously and might get better results; of course it takes a lot longer but if it pays off it would be worth it. :) In the meantime here are some more games that I don't think have been mentioned yet.

3D Realms has released their games Beyond the Titanic and Supernova as freeware:

http://www.3drealms.com/downloads.html

Blue Moon software released Skyroads as freeware:

http://www.bluemoon.ee/history/skyroads/skyroads.zip

Transylvania, it's sequel The Crimson Crown, and The Talisman were released by Polarware:

http://ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/pc/p...uin/transpc.zip

http://ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/pc/p...uin/crownpc.zip

http://ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/pc/p...uin/talispc.zip

The Zork trilogy from Infocom is now freeware:

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/

Apogee released the source code for Rise of the Triad, though you still need the original game:

http://www.oakland.edu/~lcmatero/files/rottsource.zip

Epic Megagames released One Must Fall: 2097 as freeware.

This site has a large listing of legal abandonware games, and a few apps too:

http://kotinetti.suomi.net/esa.keskitalo/

All of the above games have been legally released to the best of my knowledge.

[Samoa]

KOOl links everyone...(Y)

[XavierHyde]

@Skyfrog: Thanks 1E6 :) , I can't see any of those games mentioned earlier in this thread. Thanks for adding them! I think I mentioned RoTT somewhere but I never linked to it.

About snail mail (hardly remember anything about its existance ;) ), I might consider it. For now though, I'm focusing on the "local" companies here in Scandinavia, and of course on my contacts with Kyrandia programmer Mike Legg. When things start moving, I will ask Core Design what has become of their promise to release all their CD32 titles (Core did release Chuck Rock 2 and said all the others would follow but they never did).

[RauL]

i just say

the 7th Guest

Alley CAT

Lesuire Suit Larry

Ghostbusters 2

Stunts

[XavierHyde]

Just a short message to say I'm still here and I'm maintaining communications with Mike Legg of the Kyrandia series. His latest mail said he's very excited about the possibility to get the Kyrandias running again and apparently he's been thinking of doing it as a module for the ScummVM engine. But as he says it'll have to wait until his new company is up and running smoothly.

@ RauL: Leisure Suit Larry is not freeware, despite it being widely available at so-called abandonware sites. I'm not sure about The 7th Guest but the others are more or less OK to download, I think. But don't post links to them all the same.

[~Greeno~]

well i would like to play monkey island 2 if i can find it anywhere( i have played all the other parts and this is the only one i havent played)

but i dont think it is available

I am pretty sure it will be available somewhere, as I have it from an American cover disk from a while ago off a magazine called PC Accelerator. Sadly they don't produce the magazine anymore? (Can anyone in the USD confirm this, as I had a overseas subscription and it just stopped and I couldnt contact them anymore :( anyway back on subject). This disc had a lot of full version classic games on it, things like Alone in the dark etc (If I remember correctly, I will have to dig it out, its here somewhere) that they said were now freely available as abondonware. So have a good look around, you may find it :)

Brianicoleman, whats that thing dancing around in your avatar? Its kind of funny :D

i've got it :) u want it ?

i don't condone piracy or anything...

mail me @ [email protected] is you use MSN or anything even better, I'll get it for ya

[XavierHyde]

Let's get this straight - to avoid future questions to the same effect: To the best of my knowledge, no LucasArts game has ever been released as freeware or declared abandonware by LucasArts themselves. Together with the fact that you can still buy these titles on their webpage and on some budget labels, I conclude that LucasArts does not consider any of their games abandonware.

One possible exception to the rule is that LucasArts allows The Underdogs to carry a rather large download that will upgrade an original floppy version of Loom to the VGA talkie CD version (complete with the audio drama), but that's only because LucasArts had some legal trouble with the company that published the CD version and so are not allowed to sell it themselves anymore.

If anyone close to LucasArts can confirm or deny the above, please tell me and I shall stand corrected. I have failed to get a reply from them on these matters since they do not publish the appropriate email adresses on their webpage.

NOTE: Use a popup blocker (or Opera, or Firebird) when you browse The Underdogs. SpywareBlaster is a great help too, as The Underdogs unfortunately use a very nasty ad service that likes to push Gator spyware installers.

[cyberfrem]

Have you seen this version of Xenon that The Bitmap Brothers have released for free?

Seems as if it's been available for a while - don't know how we missed it?!

I remember playing Xenon 2:Megablast on my first PC (an Amstrad 1512) years ago! Great game.

[Skyfrog]

The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour were not released as freeware. While it's true that Trilobyte went out of business the games were published by Virgin Interactive, who I assume still own the rights to them.

[XavierHyde]

The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour were not released as freeware. While it's true that Trilobyte went out of business the games were published by Virgin Interactive, who I assume still own the rights to them.

^^^ True. Trilobyte's games weren't released as freeware, but as they're still available on some budget labels and in bargain bins, and there's a patch available which makes them work under XP (mentioned earlier in this thread, and with some additional tweaking) it makes them interesting nonetheless, at least for the collector. So if you can find a copy of these, you should still be able to play them on the most up-to-date Windows versions. Pretty nice!

@ cyberfrem: I believe Xenon 2000 was made as a reader project (programming tutorial) in some UK computer mag some years ago. Still, it's a nice game (and has been mentioned and linked to earlier in this thread I believe!)

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

Have you seen this version of Xenon that The Bitmap Brothers have released for free?

Seems as if it's been available for a while - don't know how we missed it?!

I remember playing Xenon 2:Megablast on my first PC (an Amstrad 1512) years ago! Great game.

Yer I remember that, it was aproject on on PC Format magazine here in the UK, build your own game, it was quite good from what I remember, and I had fun making it over a series of around 5-6 months I think it was ...

Very good game.

[cyberfrem]

@ cyberfrem: I believe Xenon 2000 was made as a reader project (programming tutorial) in some UK computer mag some years ago. Still, it's a nice game (and has been mentioned and linked to earlier in this thread I believe!)

Oops! :blush: Sorry if that is the case - I must've missed it! :whistle:

[kombolcha]

what about nes games.. i got an emulator ;)

[darkmark327]

God... I just downloaded my all-time favorite game for the old computers :rolleyes:.... And I can't get it to work! :angry: I try to run it... Doesn't work... I do it in Win 95 compatibility... Doesn't work.... I run it in the command prompt.... I get an error - Runtime Error 200 at 0002:24ED.

And it ****es me off even more that I have an old computer downstairs that has it on it, but I can't use the computer becasue I'm pretty sure the PS/2 port exploded or something. :(

[Edit] Someone else wanna try it? The game's called "Tyrian". I found it on that site that was posted before.... freeoldies.com or something. :unsure:

Oh man, I loved that game...as soon as you mentioned the error I thought "Tyrian?" and was hoping someone had found how to get it working on > 486. I just found all the midi files online and was overjoyed to hear the music from that with > FM synthesis!

[darkmark327]

Tyrian was awesome. And yeah, Tyrian 2000 works with newer OS's, anyone know where to get a working DL link though? Seems like they've all gone offline...

http://gemsgames.game-point.net/games/Tyri...rian%202000.zip

Filemirrors.com is your friend (not sure if this is abandonware or legal, i'm sorry if it's the former; please edit me in that case)

[ArbaaL]

http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/ - new multiplayer ufo, if someone wants to play, msg me :devil: :devil:

[devBrian]

Tyrian/2000 are by far the best shooters EVER.

I remember getting the demo of it (plus Descent and Epic Megagames Pinball... Jazz Jackrabbit, all equally incredible) with my Acer ... Man, I loved those times... playing Jazz or Tyrian with my friends, owning them and seeing them pout... Oh man.

By the way, I have the Jazz Jackrabit 2 multiplayer! If anyone wishes to play it with me, toss me a PM :)

[XavierHyde]

I've been down sick for a week so I guess it's about time for some replies to posted messages... :)

@ Vice King: No NES games in this thread, sorry. Don't get me wrong, I love the NES and think it had some of the best games ever, but none of them are officially OK to download since Nintendo still haven't eased their policy against ROM sites. I think I mentioned somewhere on this board that the CEO of Nintendo said in an interview in 2002 that he thought it was great that people still played the old NES games, but the company policy as such has not changed.

NOTE: Cinemaware might have some legal NES games for you to download, though. They seem to be intent on releasing every version of every game they made for download on their website. Requires free registration, though.

@ darkmark327: To the best of my knowledge Tyrian has not been released as freeware, which would unfortunately qualify it as 'abandonware' of the gray-zone type. Still, it is an awesome game. I'm contacting the authors to check on it, if I get a reply I'll post it here.

Keep up the good work, everyone, I'll check back with progress reports soon(ish).

[darkmark327]

I was pleased to get Tyrian 2000 semi-working, ah, that takes me back. Unfortunately sound and music are screwy or lacking or crashing. I need to find the bootable cd i made, damn. (Basically a Win9x startup disk with CD-Rom support, but I lack a floppy drive, so I only used one to make the boot image and made that into a cd so i could do it)

[XavierHyde]

Just thought I'd mention that the ScummVM team are reportedly working on support for the first Broken Sword game together with Revolution Software. Could this mean another free release? We can only hope... :)

I'm currently looking for a contact inside Codemasters who can give me pointers to whom I might contact within the Sensible Software division, in an attempt to get Sensible World of Soccer 97 and earlier versions released into the public domain. Any hints are appreciated... ;)

[XavierHyde]

On investigating the Tyrian 2000 situation, I haven't recieved a reply from the author, but some things lead me to believe it is, if not legal, then at least OK in the eyes of the creators.

The webpage of the developers have shut down the possibility to buy the game. And in their last update, The Underdogs added a download to their Tyrian 2000 entry. Given these clues, I'd say Epic or XSIV have surrendered Tyrian to the public domain. I'll keep you updated in case I recieve further information.

On another note, the creators of the strategy underdog "Enemy Nations" have finally managed to put the image on BitTorrent, which would dramatically increase your chances of downloading a complete image. Go get it! I mentioned the link on the first page of this thread, the info on the creator's page has been updated to include the BitTorrrent link and a new FTP server.