The games industry is in the throes of its traditional summer drought, with new releases slowing to a trickle, forcing many players to return to previously played titles or – perish the thought – venture outside. Yet those saving money for the winter silly season could do worse than take a look at the wealth of free titles available.
There can be few better ways to avoid the sun's rays than to sit in a darkened room playing Valve's tactical shooter Team Fortress 2, relaunched as a free-to-play title on PC and Mac. It's hard to imagine a more charming and well-balanced multiplayer game. Its appealing art style – not a million miles from Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles – is a breath of fresh air in an arena rife with ultra-realistic guns and gore.
Smaller studios are also producing fascinating content: Sweatshop, funded by Channel 4 and developed by Brighton-based creative agency Littleloud, is a gently educational and oddly charming browser-based strategy game that tasks players with managing underpaid and overworked employees on a factory production line.
Other independently developed gems include Fotonica (Santa Ragione, PC/Mac), a hectic, first-person sprint through abstract environments, requiring dizzying leaps between wire-frame platforms; Dead Cyborg (Endi, PC), an impressively crafted and beautifully presented adventure; and Don't Take It Personally Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story (NaNoRenO, PC/Mac), an exceptional anime-styled visual novel dealing with sexuality in the internet age, penned by Ontario-based writer Christine Love.
In mobile circles, meanwhile, the latest trend is the "freemium" pricing model, with developers offering free downloads in the hope that satisfied customers will shell out for additional content – commonly in-game credits or unlockables that make progress quicker and easier. The addictive Monster Mayhem (Chillingo, iPhone) is one such title, with players using a variety of weapons to hold back advancing tides of zombies, werewolves and assorted menaces.
Relentless Software, the developer behind the well-liked Buzz! series, recently made its App Store debut with the terrific Quiz Climber (iPhone), with players competing against Facebook friends to answer as many multiple-choice questions in a row as possible. The element of one-upmanship makes this ruthlessly addictive. A description one could also apply to Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint (Zee 3, iPhone), which throws out the rulebook and benefits greatly from it, as well as a level of design polish all too rare among its mobile peers.
