Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe

Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe (or OpenTTD) is based on the classic game Transport Tycoon. You can build road and rail networks, as well as airports and docks and then instruct your vehicles to carry cargo between destinations. There are several AI opponents to play against, or you can play online against the community of players who have probably devoted way too much time to the game. OpenTTD has just reached a milestone in its history as version 1.0 is finally available. Apparently the game ends in the year 2050 but it would take about 24 hours of playing for me to find out, so I haven't... yet. Overall this is well worth a download if you enjoy micromanagement games.

Red Alert

As well as the link from this post's image it may also be helpful to see this page about how to play Red Alert without burning it onto a CD. Red Alert is a great old game, that was released as freeware to mark the release of Red Alert 3. I spent many days playing it when it was first released, and since rediscovering it I have spent many hours more. Compared to some of today's games standards the AI can seem quite stupid, but I think the range of units and buildings in this game still makes it one of my all time favourites.

Zombie City Tactics

Zombie City Tactics is a turn based strategy game themed around a zombie infested city. It plays a little bit (but not much) like chess - with the humans and zombies taking it in turn to move their pieces around a grid. There are three types of humans - bog standard one square per turn, soldiers who take a piece without moving, and slayers who can move two spaces per turn. They can be dropped into the playing field, but cost different amounts of energy to summon. The energy is gained by holding land against the zombies and so there's a balance to find between all out offence and simply staying put. Overall the game is nicely put together and the 3D layout is pretty cool.

ASCIIpOrtal

ASCIIpOrtal is a 2D ASCII version of Valve’s Portal. Run around, fire portals, jump through portals, dodge barrels, push switches and enjoy the company of your companion cubes... all in wonderful text format.

Interestingly (or not really) the character set used isn't ASCII - for instance the green player character (see Wikipedia). Also the game's author lists his inspirations as "Increpare’s Portile game, Super Serif Bros, and Valve’s Portal". So it's not ASCII, nor is it just Portal, but it is definitely awesome.

NetHack

If you're more a fan of game play than graphics and you like games that need you to explore and think and explore some more, then NetHack could be a game for you! Filled with far too many different weapons, potions, creatures, tools, clothes and ascii characters NetHack is probably impossible to complete, but very fun to die trying. You have a choice of thirteen different rolls (Wizard, Archeologist, Tourist, Knight, ...) in five different races which all play very differently from each other. Admittedly learning the keys takes a few games, but you can see a list of the keys by pressing '?'. I've been informed that there are a lot of spoilers on the web, but have been quite content playing the game for the last two weeks without looking beyond the guidebook text file it comes with. NetHack generates a new world each time a new game is started - so no two games are ever the same.

I Wanna Be The Guy

An awesome game, but incredibly hard. If you were a fan of games from the early 90s then you may well also be a fan of the aptly titled "I Wanna Be The Guy". I have put maybe an hour into playing this, and I'm up to the 6th or 7th level now, but I did have to resort to a walkthrough for a couple of hints.

On the downside you have to download it to play it, but on the upside it's very entertaining if you like very frustrating games!

Turbo Risk

Continuing the line of board games turned into computer games, this is TurboRisk. The game of Risk converted into a very playable game. If you have the skills you can even write your own computer opponent! By watching the computer players it seems like Australia and South America are the places to be.
The only downside is that you have to download this game. However it seems to be fine on my computer and I've had it for a while now.

FreeCiv

So this isn't by any scope of the imagination a quick distraction. This is a huge life-time of a distraction. It's a download game, which instantly spells out long, but it's also amazing. If you've ever player Civilization, then this game is very similar (verging on the same). It's much more customisable, and is also much more free.

I can't possibly hope to sum up the whole game here, but basically the aim is to take charge of a civilization and lead them through the ages, keeping up to the times with military, economic and scientific advances. You start in 4000BC and the game goes all the way up to the present day.

This game is also multiplayer, and I'd love to organise a multiplayer game some day in the future, if only so everyone can see how bad I am at it!

ReadPlease

I hate to do this, because it's a shareware program, not freeware, but this is a tool which I've found most useful for 'reading' excessively long blog entries (*cough* Sarah *cough* Laura *cough* Naomi *cough* Paula *cough* etc...) Just copy and paste the text, and away you go! The woman has an annoying american voice, and sounds like a bit of a harlot, but you can download a British add on pack.