Real Time Strategies - page 2. Best Free PC games without micropayments
Table of Contents
OpenRA
- Developer: Westwood Studios ( game) / OpenRA Developers
- Genre: RTS
Under the name OpenRA, there is a new opensource engine, developed to allow players to play Westwood's classic RTSs on contemporary PCs. The design not only provides compatibility, but also allows high-definition resolutions, a modern interface, added war fog, a unit experience gathering system, and many other beneficial changes. In addition, it offers fully functional multiplayer and an option to record the matches.
The project currently supports three Command & Conquer games: Tiberian Dawn, Command & Conquer: Red Alert, and Dune 2000. For this list, we are only interested in two initial titles, as Electronic Arts long ago made them available for free. This allowed OpenRA authors to implement the full content of both titles. When installing the game, we can simply download all the missions and maps directly from fan servers, and then enjoy this classic in a modernized release.
Currently, OpenRA has competition in the form of EA's Command & Conquer Remastered Collection. Professional development is certainly in favour of this edition. On Steam, however, this pleasure costs about $18. Decide for yourself.
MechCommander Series
- Developer: FASA Interactive
- Genre: RTS
The best-known game series set in the Battletech universe is the MechWarrior combat simulator series. Conceived in the late 90s, however, the studio FASA Interactive rebranded to something else – RTS series called MechCommander. The game was released in 2001 as MechCommander 2, and both were made available for free by Microsoft some time ago.
The games are primarily oriented towards combat. We command a small force of large moving robots, each of which has a lot of firepower and is hard to destroy, but once that happens, the loss is very severe. Moreover, a wide variety of machines and upgrades for them provide considerable tactical freedom. The game features exquisitely developed campaigns, with very diverse missions and interesting storylines. In all, we have two very good productions that will appeal not only to BattleTech fans.
MechCommander Gold has some problems running on Windows 7 and newer versions of this system, but they can be worked around. If you encounter installation problems, create a folder for the game on your hard drive (e.g. MCG), and then copy all the files from the mounted ISO image.
Then create a shortcut to the MCX.EXE file and in its properties set Windows 95 compatibility, 256 color mode and select "Disable screen scaling to high-resolution DPI settings".
Finally, run this modified shortcut as administrator.
