holy crap, elite! i loved that game on the c64. i'll be getting that for sure. and the cinemaware games too, that i loved on the amiga. awesome.

firesign

Elder Scrolls Arena. Before Oblivions and Marrowind, there was Daggerfall and Arena.

dan_l

Starsiege: Tribes - This is where it is at!!!!! Best FPS of all time. The community here is still alive but hasn't seen much growth. If you have never played it will take a little getting used to but, once you learn how to ski, and how the chaingun and disc launcher work it is one of the most fun games ever!

utch

FREESPACE 2

Very possibly the finest game I have ever played.

NineTailedFox

I've been killing silly amounts of time on Kongregate. It's a huge collection of flash games with a social layer woven in. Also, the site rewards you with badges and XP for trying new games (just the sort of reinforcement that I fall for). It's like a meta-game of playing games.

Here's my referral link, but here's a vanilla link too.

Johnny Pneumatic

Also, you can find many free emulators that mimic the hardware of just about any old console that you can think of. A search for 'emulators' and/or 'ROMS' will get you started very quickly. The file sizes for the apps that emulate the older hardware (Commodore, Intellivision, Atari, NES, SNES, etc.) are small enough to fit on a jump drive with plenty of room to spare for an entire library of all your favorite games.

Ramses

You people should check out Abandonia too. Its not freeware per says. It more about games that have been "abandoned".

These are the orphans of the game industry:

[www.abandonia.com]

Also check out Abandonia Reloaded. Its about remakes of old games:

[www.reloaded.org]

Ozeki

^^ Same here. Home of the Underdogs is a great site.

kli6891

The best site I ever found for free games, and those commercial games which transcended into freeware is Home of the Underdogs. They have an amazing collection of games going back all the way to 1979! They also have great reviews and their Hall of Belated Fame is well worth a look.

Sadly it doesn't look like the site has been updated since the beginning of 2006, but it's still a great place to get those vintage classics you never thought you'd see again.

charlie13

Also, if you can get your hand on Psychonauts, seriously, do it. I'm currently playing it (paid for it on Steam about 2 weeks before I noticed it was for free on Gametap) and it is extremely fun. The game was created by Tim Schafer, who was also responsible for the first two Monkey Islands, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. Basically, worship this man, or else play his games and then worship him.

Amarth

Also worth a mention: Liberated games at [liberatedgames.com]

Reccomendations from the WP page:
Abe Lincoln Must Die!
Beneath A Steel Sky
Wolfenstein: ET
Marathon (although I'm not sure how it works on recent OSes)
Star Control 2 (featuring THE ULTIMATE EVIL!!)
Warzone 2100

And there's a few classics between them (C&C, Ground Control, One Must Fall, ...) that those interested in games should try, but they're a bit outdated by now.

Have fun.

Amarth