Okay.
I’ve been doing ALL of my computing on an Atom-powered netbook for the last two years.
My old desktop machine died, and I just switched over to the netbook and a big external monitor.
I’ve got an i7-driven laptop about to be delivered to my house, with a GeForce GTX 660m graphics system embedded.
In the past, I’ve enjoyed the below games.
Oblivion
Dungeons and Dragons Online
The ill-fated Auto Assault MMO
Supreme Commander (Total Annihilation Sequel)
Spring RTS
I won’t have new game money until Tuesday.
Suggest ways to enjoy my new rig 'til then, please!
This thread begins and ends with one recommendation: Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters.
Simply the greatest space RPG ever, and it is just a damn fine game. Please give it a chance! You owe it to yourself. You won’t find a better free game.
I should clarify that I’m looking for something that will let me appreciate the capacity of my new system vs the capacities of the old one.
So… stuff I can’t play on a 1.6 GHZ Atom netbook, please.
That being said, yes, Star Control II is awesome. I’d actually already played it, but you had no way of knowing that.
I don’t have any specific recommendations, but if you want a polished, professional & modern gaming experience for free, you might want to download some demos and use them to get an idea of what you’d want to buy.
Here is Steam’s Demo list. Someone else may have suggestions on which ones give an entertaining play experience in of themselves.
I enjoyed Super Monday Night Combat - it’s a MOBA-style 3rd-person-shooter.
You can sign up for the DOTA2 beta on Steam and hope for an invite. It’s my game of choice right now.
There are tons of freemium MMOs out there. Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and Star Wars Old Republic (I believe went f2p recently) are all fairly recent, fairly good-looking games.
If you enjoyed Oblivion and D&D Online, I’d give Lord of the Rings Online a try. Still a modern era MMO, has a strong solo-quest driven component so you can essentially play it as a single player game if you want and its “freemium/cash shop” model is considered one of the best in the F2P MMORPG industry.
Warzone 2100, for RTS. Battle for Wesnoth for TBS. NAEV for RPG.
A bit outre, but the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy text adventure of many years ago is still available somewhere on the internet, as is the Colossal Cave Adventure.
and Skyrim
Mostly that first one, because it comes in bit-sized 5-30 minute chunks.
ON EDIT:
Also, Battlestar Galactica online for a couple of months. MMOs are kind of time sink, though, and… it seemed like cheating was a factor, which makes it un-fun.
If you haven’t installed Steam, do so now. You can get some great deals and as mentioned previously, they have a free-to-play section.
If you like games like Battlefield, try Planetside 2. It’s a free to play massive FPS. The only things you can only buy with real money is cosmetic items.
It’s like Battlefield 3 or 4, but with hundreds of players and no “rounds.” The battles are seamless and ongoing all across 4 large continents.
Also I know you said you have no money but Skyrim is on sale for $5 for the next hour. If you liked Oblivion you should like Skyrim, it’s very impressive and tons of mods.
Unturned is free on Steam and it’s the only free to play game I’ve found that’s not pay to win.
There’s a one time upgrade to “Gold” for $5.00 if you really want to.
It’s basically a zombie survival game like Day Z but with funky block-like almost Lego graphics.