Classics for free

[sting3r]

i think pong is one of these games...

[XavierHyde]

does anyone know where i can download Kings Quest 1 and Heroes Quest 1? i can't find it anywhere :(

You can get some good-looking remakes of Sierra games here:

clicky

This is all strictly unofficial but I suspect some of the Sierra staff are behind that site.

[XavierHyde]

The week in view:

Louis Castle (of Westwood, Electronic Arts) brought me up to date on the Phantasie situation: the source code was stored on floppies. He recently wanted to take a look at the sources but found the disks damaged beyond repair. He says the only way to get at some usable source is by disassembling a working copy. More information to come on various Westwood games as talks continue.

Interactive Binary Illusions will release Flight of the Amazon Queen for free soonish. Most likely this will be done with the 0.6 release of ScummVM, since they have been concentrating on support for "Queen" in the last few nightlies.

Martyn Brown confirms that Team 17 are in talks about releasing more of their oldies for free.

In summary, things seem to be looking up. :D

[XavierHyde]

Did some work today tracing the rights of Westwood's assets... interesting stuff.

Westwood did a lot of games for Epyx, including World Games, Temple of Apshai and some other stuff. Epyx was sold to Bridgestone, which was sold to Atari, which was sold to Hasbro Interactive, which was sold to Infogrames, who took the name Atari... :wacko:

Westwood is most famous for the SSI games "Eye of the Beholder", I guess. SSI was sold to The Learning Company, which was sold to Mattel, who sold it on to Gores Technology Group, who probably sold it on to a company named Riverdeep - awaiting confirmation on this from Riverdeep since they are not part of Gores portfolio.

And of course, many of Westwood's games were published by Virgin, who are today a part of French giant Titus (part of Interplay?).

I've relayed this information to the developers I know from the Westwood team, and let them decide how to move on from here.

In unrelated news, AudioGrabber has gone freeware. But as it isn't a game I won't list it. :laugh:

[XavierHyde]

Got word from one of the Westwood founders today saying he's going on a quest for the Kyrandia source code when he gets the time. Three cheers for him! And give him a :beer:!

[XavierHyde]

Just a status report so you don't think I've dropped the case. :)

The Kyrandia developers will discuss how to go about a possible freeware release (or an engine update) of the series. I'll post progress reports as they arrive from the team.

I also added a little tidbit to the top post - a previously commercial 3D remake of a very old previously commercial 2D game.

Remember to check up on this thread (in particular, the top post) from time to time as it's more or less frequently updated (several times a month, anyway).

[Zzz1111]

Sweet, classics rock.

[XavierHyde]

Updated today... Flight of the Amazon Queen, a classic adventure game, was released as freeware together with ScummVM v0.6.0. Download links are available in the top post.

[Squirminator2k]

I'm going to make sweet, sweet love to Google right now for helping me find this site. It may interest you to know that the aforementioned Dream17 (now up and running - www.dream17.co.uk) has already got a few Team17 games up for download and I am working on getting more up as we speak. At present I only have ADFs but I'm hoping to get permission to place PC versions of the games, as well as that better format of Amiga Disk Image which I can never remember the filetype for.

Incidentally if Cappuchok is who i think he is, what a coincidence, eh? ;-)

[XavierHyde]

Quick recap of recent activities:

While activity on this thread has been somewhat low (at least on my part) for a few weeks, rest assured that I and my contacts in various companies are working to bring you more legal classic gaming for your enjoyment. Unfortunately I can not say more than that at this time. Stay tuned and have patience.

Please go visit Dream17 and get a feel for the classic games made by Team17. :)

@ S2k:

The Amiga format you are looking for would be IPF, created by the Classic Amiga Preservation Society. :D

And yes I am, the old forum at Team17 wouldn't register this nick - too many characters for the registration form. :(

[Squirminator2k]

Whoo.

[XavierHyde]

25-Mar-2004: Linkstealers have been discovered! Someone who is not me posted the early beginnings of this thread on Jun 19, 2003 at http://www.pcplayground.com/ftopic625.html . The ONLY and REAL URL of this thread is https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=65246 and the real thread starting date is 10 Mar 2003.

Accept no imitations! :)

[XavierHyde]

I've found another previously commercial game released for free, though I still have to verify its legal status before posting it.

A hint: It's a CD-ROM point-and-click adventure game. It's made by Al Lowe. And it's NOT a Larry game. :blink:

[Laughing-Man]

I've found another previously commercial game released for free, though I still have to verify its legal status before posting it.

A hint: It's a CD-ROM point-and-click adventure game. It's made by Al Lowe. And it's NOT a Larry game. :blink:

Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist?!!!

[XavierHyde]

Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist?!!!

Might be... :)

But I'll hold off on posting the link until I get the validity of it confirmed from both Al Lowe and VUGames.

Added a couple of games to the top post, by the way.

Edited April 7, 2004 by cappuchok

[dev/null]

Bethesda has released the first game in the elder scrolls series for free.

completely copy n' paste:

We are proud to announce the 10th anniversary of our award-winning series, The Elder Scrolls?.

And to top it all off, we are offering the full version of the game that started it all 10 years ago -- The Elder Scrolls: Arena? -- for free, from the Downloads section of the site.

The Elder Scrolls

[Suddenly_Dead]

According to this tribalwar.com news article, Vivendi universal games is releasing Tribes 1 and Tribes 2 for free in order to celebrate (and generate hype and the likes) the release of Tribes: Vengeance later this year (Q4 some time). [bTW: Tribes: Vengeance will rock, and it's got many changes from its predecessors to increase likeability for mainstream gamers, and increase the general fun and enjoyment for everyone. These games aren't completely indicative of their soon-to-be sequel, but they are very sweet anyways.]

Will repost when it is, but June is a ways off :(

LOS ANGELES, CA (April 9, 2004) - Vivendi Universal Games announced today that it will be distributing the videogames Starsiege?: Tribes? and Tribes 2 for free on a special-edition DVD-ROM bundled with the newsstand edition of the June issue of Computer Gaming World magazine and online via FilePlanet.com. The giveaway is meant to celebrate the fourth-quarter release of Tribes: Vengeance, the next installment in the venerable Tribes franchise of PC action games.

Edited April 10, 2004 by Suddenly_Dead

[XavierHyde]

According to this tribalwar.com news article, Vivendi universal games is releasing Tribes 1 and Tribes 2 for free in order to celebrate (and generate hype and the likes) the release of Tribes: Vengeance later this year (Q4 some time). [bTW: Tribes: Vengeance will rock, and it's got many changes from its predecessors to increase likeability for mainstream gamers, and increase the general fun and enjoyment for everyone. These games aren't completely indicative of their soon-to-be sequel, but they are very sweet anyways.]

Will repost when it is, but June is a ways off :(

Nice find! I'll post them in the top post when they're released. :woot:

By the way, I found Tribes 1 as a freebie on one of those "free ISP" discs in a shop years ago. Also, Virgin's "Evolva" was bundled free with a Swedish gamer mag a couple of years ago. Not free for online distribution, though. :(

[XavierHyde]

By the way, I need some help locating a file...

Capcom released a PC and PocketPC port of their old C64 hit Vulgus for free download a while ago. The page is still on their website but the file isn't there anymore. Anyone got the file or can point to a download location, and I'll list it in the top post...

[Leo Natan]

Hm, I'm looking for FIFA97 (a real classic). Can anyone help?

[Fugi]

^ **** your sig ******!

[XavierHyde]

Hm, I'm looking for FIFA97 (a real classic). Can anyone help?

EA is not likely to release it for free. I know this since I've recently had contacts inside EA try and get the company to freeware some assets related to Kyrandia. We ran into a dead end when we brought it up with EA management. :cry:

Unless really freeware, I won't mention it anymore in this thread.

[Steven]

I think its a Classic and it's Free too!

America's Army!! :D

See Sig :)

[Laughing-Man]

I think its a Classic and it's Free too!

America's Army!! :D

See Sig :)

Are you an army recruiter in real life, you see to like suggesting this game to people. I have never seen someone so adiment about one game.

[XavierHyde]

I think its a Classic and it's Free too!

America's Army!! :D

See Sig :)

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

Even though it may be considered a classic by now and even though it IS freeware, AA is not covered by the scope of this thread, said scope being "previously commercial games gone freeware / open source".

The keyword here is "previously commercial". AA was never released commercially (though it will be soon enough, I've heard). So it will most likely never be listed in this thread.

Hope that clears things up a bit. Again. :D