Robot Renaissance

Continuing the recent trend of selling old but good games for very low prices, the announcement was made late yesterday that MechWarrior 4 will be released for free. Playing one of the greatest robot war-machine games ever might be the perfect way to purge the bad taste of Transformers 2 out of your mouth. And it is hard to argue with free.

Granted, this amounts to little more than a publicity stunt to drum up press for the recently announced brand new MechWarrior title. And, hey look, it worked! Regardless, it is always a good thing for the great games of yesteryear to be made available for free or on the cheap. These games are not any less fun for being old. MechWarrior 4 still has a lot of play left in it.

There are still some answers to be given on this release. While I assume the free version will be tweaked to make sure it plays well with Vista, I cannot confirm that yet. Even if the free version is just chucked online as is, though, I do not imagine it will be long before the community hacks any Vista bugs out of it.

No firm word on release date, but it is said to be soon. In the meantime, let's hope this trend continues. There are a lot more great old games out there that could use a new and cheap release.

Battlefield for Free

Been wanting to sample one of the free-to-play online titles, but suffer from an allergic reaction to all things anime-ish, including the anime-inspired MMOs? EA has come to your rescue.

Well regarded shooter / role playing hybrid Battlefield Heroes no longer requires a beta key. This game is free to play, albeit with some ad support and with some micro-transaction action on the side. While the artwork may not be what you expect from a title called Battlefield, reviews so far are looking pretty good.

The price is right and it is said to be fun, so check it out. The more high quality non-subscription online games there are floating around, the better.