Back when I was in college, Quake (the first one) was the game that everyone played over the network. In fact I don’t think I ever played it in single player mode. While playing games we would sometimes organize ourselves into teams and play against each other. However, we really didn’t have any way to communicate other than by typing messages to the...

If you’re a gamer, you probably are pretty much hating EA right now. In less than a month from now, EA will be discontinuing internet multi-play ability for several titles in February 2010. Where the real kick in the face happens is on the games that have "09" in the title of them. This means that for any of the EA titles on the list you bought...

First off, I am not a gamer. When I do play a game, I prefer classic arcade style games or turn based strategy games. That said, if the games you like to play are not hardware intensive then using a netbook as a gaming machine might be an option. By design, the netbook is lightweight and small (albeit not as small as a dedicated portable gaming machine) with a...

This is an update to Want To Shoot Rich In The Face? Quake Live is an FPS style game that’s completely in-browser, and that means it’s cross-browser/cross-platform compatible. The plan here is to schedule an event to get a bunch of PCMech readers (yes, that means you’re invited) into the game to see if you guys and gals actually like it or...

With Windows 7 seemingly gaining more and more popularity, a question some people may have is how legacy games will work in the new OS. The solution to this may be as simple as using a virtual machine (ala Microsoft Virtual PC) to run the games. While Virtual PC does not support hardware acceleration, you can see that it runs the FPS Quake 2 quite well using...

There have been some who read PCMech that would like to shoot me in the face. Well, you may get your chance. Last week on PCMech LIVE, the subject turned to gaming and I said I wanted to give PCMech readers an option to play a game with a real live PCMech author, that being yours truly. The problem has been that people have different computers that use...

Everybody at one point or another has experienced painful boredom when playing a video game, to where you ask yourself, "Okay, so why am I doing this?" This can happen even with the best of game titles and it can be tough sometimes to even enjoy yourself. The term "button mashing" is when you’re playing a game that you’re...

I recently came across a thread on a random forum where it called out to the members to post a screenshot of their desktop to show off their wallpaper graphics. What was interesting wasn’t the graphics per sé but rather the screen resolution for most of the screen shots shown, which happened to be 1024×768. It showed up so much that a few commented...

Games on your cell phone are a great way to kill time anywhere. Whether you are waiting in a doctor’s office, getting your oil changed or are riding in a car (as a passenger of course), a game is an entertaining way to pass the time. To find games for your cell phone, check out MobileRated. MobileRated works with the best mobile developers around the globe...

If you’ve bought enough computers over the years, chances are you’ve had at least a few of them that dropped in value so fast it made your head spin. Before listing the worst, the best concerning resale value has always been laptops. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Lenovo, Macbook, Dell Inspiron or what-have-you. The laptop will always retain...

For you gamers out there with not a lot of cash, or just want something different in the MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online game) arena, here are 5 free ones for you to try out. Twelve Sky Type: 3D Fantasy, oriental style, martial arts 2Moons Type: 3D Fantasy, action 4Story Type: 3D Fantasy, medieval style 5 Street Type: 3D...

Those of you who are fans of FPS (first person shooter) games, single or multi-player, should take a look at the open source project Blood Frontier. Some of the highlights from their website include:Unique, original, and fun gameplay, storyline, theme, artwork, and content. Pushing the boundaries of open source first person gaming. Play plain ol’...

While I’m sure a lot of our readers are not into gaming, I am also sure a large number are. If you are and prefer to build your own system over purchase a ready made, then this tip is for you. This article on Tom’s Hardware titled ‘System Builder Marathon: Performance & Value : Is Spending More Justified?‘ covers building a gaming...

Didn’t get enough games in part 2? Here are some more! Neverball Described as “Tilt the floor to roll a ball through an obstacle course before time runs out. Neverball is part puzzle game, part action game, and entirely a test of skill.” Basically speaking you keep rolling a ball by tilting the table before time runs out. Nexuiz This is a...

Did you get your fill of games from part 1? We didn’t think so! So here’s part two. Freeciv This has been mentioned on PCMech before and definitely gets a spot on this list because, well, it’s the best Civilization clone there is – and very addictive. Freecol If you liked Civilization, you probably liked Colonization as well. Freecol is...

Here’s a list of free games you can get right now. All of them are ready for download and don’t cost a dime. I’ve made a point to choose games that are at least somewhat recent (if not very recent concerning releases) so that they run a-okay on your computer. Note: Many of these games run on Windows, Mac OS X and/or Linux. It’s not just...

The Iphone is just cool. Calling it a phone is almost a disservice because what it really is is a full mobile computing platform. And in that vein, it can also be a mobile GAMING platform. Now, I’m not a big gamer (my regular readers know that). But, I did spend a little time playing around in the App Store looking for some decent free games for the...

Sometimes there are freebie games released that are just plain frickin’ awesome and TrackMania is one of them. This is a racing game. While it’s true it has little to no driving realism to it, nobody cares because it’s just a blast to play. For you old-school arcade gamers out there, remember Pole Position? Think of TM Forever as Pole Position...

Back when I used to play games, there were really only two real-time strategy games I enjoyed. One of them was Warcraft 2 and the other was Command and Conquer. For the nostalgic gamers out there, last year EA released Command and Conquer Gold for free via download. If you have never played Command and Conquer, look no further than Wikipedia’s description....

In what has to be one of the coolest Linux LiveCDs ever released, there is a DVD distribution of Linux that is absolutely nothing but games, games and more games. You can check it out here. It’s built on the Arch Linux distribution and there are 16 games available on it. Compared to other distro releases, this is not about productivity (no tools present...