A few years ago, a game came along that got pretty great reviews. It also had pretty steep system requirements, as is often the case with AAA first-person shooter titles. I knew my rig at the time wouldn't run it well, so never did have a chance to check it out. As years went on and I got a new system that could handle the game I kept meaning to go back and revisit it. Time has passed and it is one of those games I just never did get around to playing.
Until now, that is.
Ubisoft has apparently decided to try out ad supported gaming, and to kick it off they are releasing four full games for free. The one I mentioned above is Far Cry. The other three are Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Rayman Raving Rabids, and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I certainly wanted to check out Prince of Persia and Far Cry, and Rayman looks like it could be fun as well. Through in that they are free, well, I can't pass them up.
Sure, they are ad supported (I have seen a screenshot from Ghost Recon with a big McDonald's ad on the mission briefing page), but at the very least worth a look. You can get them through Fileplanet (which, frankly, I loathe), but at the SlickDeals.net discussion page you can also find links that don't require you to have a Fileplanet account or wait the 30-60 minutes in line. The trade off is I am not getting download speeds above about 30 kbps, but hey, I can leave them running. PoP is done and RRR will be in a few minutes.
It does sound like you may need an Ubisoft account, but this should be free as well. I will post some thoughts after playing, but I thought others might enjoy some free gaming as well.
Some updates:
Installed both Prince of Persia and Rayman. Fast, simple and easy. I did need to set up an Ubi account, but that was quick and easy. Fired up Prince of Persia. There are some McDonald's ads in loading screens and such, they are a little annoying at times, but the ads don't seem to intrude on actual gameplay.
Most importantly, you can find the files in torrent format over at Gameupdates.org. Much faster and allows for stopping and starting. That's the way to go.
I tried Rayman Raving Rabids the other day, and I have to say that the advertising really kills the game for me. When you're playing a series of minigames, and you have to sit and go through a 30-second ad spot after a 1.5min minigame, it breaks momentum.
There's a better way to do ads in games such as placing ads in the game world, and not forcing the player to take a break from the action. I died so often in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, that if I had to go through a 30 sec ad spot after playing for 20 seconds, it would be enough for me to shelve the game and never play it again.
I think they just need to work at a better medium between the need to make ad revenue (which is on-going, whereas a sale is one-time) and the ability to keep gamer's hooked and playing. A method that I think would be interesting would be to award players with coupons or other store incentives when reaching certain goals in a game. That way you're rewarding, not breaking up gameplay, and encouraging patronage of the company being advertised.
So, I agree with you Zoomba. Rayman was pretty much unplayable for me. Some of the minigames were not even as long as the commercial. That one unded up uninstalled.
So far, Far Cry has been pretty inobtrusive, so it might not be too bad.
Gid, have you been playing 9Dragons? I downloaded it a bit ago, but never actually got around to playing. I also tried out 2Moons, but didn't give it a go.
What are your thoughts on 9Dragons? Worth checking out again?
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