Great Games To Put On a Free PC? 634
Lumpy writes "I am giving several new PC's to a local charity that will be giving them to needy kids this Xmas. They are not powerful, basically baseline Dells that have Intel graphics and Celeron, but more than enough to do homework and other studies on. They are going out with XP on them, an Ubuntu CD, and a bunch of OSS software like OO.o and the others. I would like to include some games for the kids. Strategy, fun, etc. Great freeware games that are fun to play. What would be the best games that a 13-16 year old will like to play that are free and legal to give away, and will run on this lower-end hardware?"
Re:Classic console emulators: (Score:5, Insightful)
Freespace 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
BZ FLAG!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why noone mentioned some of the classical games (Score:3, Insightful)
While I used to beat my dad at chess starting from my high school years (15 to 18 years for those not from the U. S.) he kicked my ass at checkers up until the weeks before he died.
Ditto for my Uncle Obie.
I'll bet there's a bunch of old coots sitting around just waiting to teach you a thing or two about checkers.
Oh, and for what it's worth, Go is really simple too.
GTA and GTA 2 (Score:1, Insightful)
http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/index.html
Re:Why noone mentioned some of the classical games (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? So they'll be competing with us for women? We need to make a socially illiterate next generation, so there will be young women available for us!
BZFlag (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why noone mentioned some of the classical games (Score:2, Insightful)
Do the kids a favor and install an instant messenger, Skype, and help them sign up for Myspace and FB accounts so that they develop some social skills
IM, Facebook and MySpace are as useful to the development of social skills as a horse is to playing water polo. Sure, some of the syntax is the same, but it's just a really bad idea.
Re:Couple ideas... (Score:2, Insightful)
I personally don't think those things are a big deal. To the social conservatives I work with, it would be and the situation is common. My objective isn't pointless prudery but to warn those who do have to deal with it. UQM isn't beyond a bright 8th or even 5th grader. A 60 year classroom teacher in red state coming across those scenes would definitely wig out and want someone in trouble.
Public school classrooms aren't libertarian geek paradises as many us know all too well.
Re:Why noone mentioned some of the classical games (Score:1, Insightful)
+4 _insightful_?
Re:Why noone mentioned some of the classical games (Score:2, Insightful)
The question is about games only. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you need to bring the "holier than thou give them something useful" nonsense if the poster is not asking about that?