What's the best game you ever got for free?

[Ihateregistering1]

I'm stunned no one has mentioned Path of Exile yet (apologize if someone has and I missed it).

I love ARPGs, and I'd say PoE is easily in my top 5 of all time, maybe even top 3, and the game was free to download and play! Can't go wrong with that.

 

[FPLOON]

Probably the first Metroid Prime game... At the time, I never thought a game that was mostly in first person would keep me invested for more than 30 seconds because I really hated first person anything in gaming... (I kinda still do, but not as much as it was back them...) My glob, was I fucking wrong! It was one of the greatest experiences I have ever played on my Gamecube that wasn't outright recommended to me beforehand...

Honorable mention goes to Cave Story because immediately when I got it, I was already spoiled the ending... (Not a good day for me on that one...)

 

[Poppy JR.]

Are you talking about games that we get like, for birthdays or Christmas or something?

Or are you referring to things like giveaways and such?

Could be either, really.

 

[Poppy JR.]

TF2 by far.

But with that out of the way, Don't Starve. Got it from a friend who happened to get two copies on steam.

Funny story about that. I'd heard so much about how great TF2 was, so I caved. I ordered it on amazon... THE DAY IT WENT FREE2PLAY! At least I got a hat.

 

[ThreeWords]

I managed to torrent Sburb for free. That was a pretty hectic few days...

 

[Dandark]

Best free game I can think of that I played was League of legends. I spent a lot of money on it anyway while I played and enjoyed it despite it being free.

As for a game given to me for free I can't really think of anything. Im sure I have received free games but none come to mind when I try to think of them >.<

 

[LaoJim]

Surprised no-one has mentioned Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake. The shareware versions only gave you access to the first set of levels, but still had hours of gameplay. (I did eventually end up buying these games, but only after I'd played them a lot beforehand).

My mother is an older gamer, and is very selective in the games she played and so I tend to get games she either doesn't like or has completed handed down to me. I got Portal 2 for free since she didn't really see the point of it (I later discovered that she hadn't got far enough into the game to get the portal gun!) I also got Kingdoms of Amalur and Dirt.

It depends on your definition of free, but back in the days of the Spectrum and Commodore 64, games magazines would feature 'free' cassettes loaded with tens of games. Personal highlights from that period include Chaos (wizard battles from the guy who designed XCOM) include Batty (great Breakout clone)

 

[Eamar]

Portal. My ex had an extra Steam copy for some reason, and he gave it to me. Needless to say, it's right up there with my favourite games of all time.

I also got XCOM: Enemy Unknown for free when I pre-ordered Bioshock Infinite, but I haven't got round to playing it yet. Based on what I've seen and what my friends have said though, it looks like I'll be happy about it.

 

[Salsajoe]

Arma 2 and all of its addons at that point. A good friend whom I've never met in person bought it for me while i was on holidays, and it just so happened to be on sale in that period. We've had lots of fun being all "tacticool" trying to work together as a tankcrew, sniper teams, just walking into an AO with nothing but rifles and grenades. I think I've racked up around 300 hours of it by now.

Too bad it's being ruined by loads of idiots running around as pilots with javelins and .50 cals *sigh*.

Good fun though, good fun.

 

[Rooster893]

A good friend of mine allowed me to take ownership of his copy of Mortal Kombat (2011), as he was buying the Komplete Edition of the game for his birthday. It's the perfect Mortal Kombat to me; I play it almost every day. I'm so excited for the sequel!

 

[Chrozi]

I will exclude F2P and birthday/holiday gifts, so the best game I got from a "here dude, you can have it" is an NES with about 30 games, and a PS3. I also got Crimson Skies as a promo when it came out and got a ton of play out of it.

 

[Raging Raven]

Thief Gold,which is my G.O.A.T

 

[Maximum Bert]

I'm stunned no one has mentioned Path of Exile yet (apologize if someone has and I missed it).

I love ARPGs, and I'd say PoE is easily in my top 5 of all time, maybe even top 3, and the game was free to download and play! Can't go wrong with that.

Path of Exile is an excellent free RPG or at least it was when I played it back in beta hopefully it still is and they actually handled micro-transactions well imo although it still annoys me that you cant get everything in the game without cash (or one sum of cash rather) but despite me not liking the general micro-transaction business model here it is implemented well and does not effect the gameplay only the aesthetics (or it did when I played).

I would go with Katawa Shoujo mainly because its totally free and not free to play and secondly because I found it surprisingly good. I was sceptical as hell because I dont really like visual novels and the subject matter sounded a little dodgy but fair play they did a damn good job with it imo and them putting all that work in and then releasing it free of charge is laudable. I encourage those instantly dismissive of the title to at least check it out seeing as its free and all and ofc not a huge download you may be positively surprised and at worst you realise you dont like it and have lost a little time trying something different.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

So far? Probably Diablo III. A friend of mine allows me to use his PSN to download games(and vice versa in return) and I've put more hours into Diablo III than any other game I downloaded from his PSN.

 

[Snomennescio]

This thread gave me the realisation that I receive a lot of games. Huh.... my friends are pretty cool.

Most noticeable at the moment: a friend got me the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition and BG2EE for Christmas - mostly out of pity as I had to leave my consoles behind when I moved. Great fun to be had. It eats up the time like _that_.

 

[Kyrian007]

I don't really know if I could include gifts... I've gotten so many over the years I'd leave something out (I'm old enough to have recieved new Atari 2600 cartridges as gifts.) But as far as giveaways...

I got Metal Gear Solid's PC port including emulated Metal Gear 1 and 2 free with a video card I bought. That was pretty cool. It also came with StarLancer and the PC version (read, good version) of Crimson Skies. That was a solid bundle.

But the best... would have to be Dragon Warrior. Probably one of the most significant giveaways in video game history. Although for 8-bit I got a free copy of Punch-Out, Excitebike, and Top Gun for playtesting a really terrible controller(you don't know it, it never saw the light of day.)

 

[lacktheknack]

A dude here gifted me Planescape: Torment, which was awesome.

However, it is slightly edged out by the fact that Dwarf Fortress exists.

 

[Guffe]

Well I got Warcraft III and TFT (The Frozen Throne) for birthday.
And looking at the amount of time I've spent on that, plus all the fun it has brought over the years, defineatly that series.