Computers Are Cheap

If you're viewing this website on your phone or on a Chromebook or some other nonsense, this blog post is for you. I think it's a common misconception that you need to spend thousands of dollars to be able to have a computer you can play games on and do stuff with. Sure, if you have a bigger budget, you can afford to build a really nice computer, but there are still a lot of good games you could run on, say, a $200 used ThinkPad.

Hardware

I'm not sponsored or anything, but generally I'd say to get the most bang for your buck, I'd recommend buying a used ThinkPad off of eBay or something. Here is a good guide to show you which models are worth considering and the pros and cons of each.

Free Games, Emulators and Other Applications

Now I'd like to list some things you can download to this hypothetical $200 Thinkpad for free. These are things that I've personally used and enjoyed.

Free Games

• Clone Hero

  Guitar Hero clone for PC. You can find recreations of charts from every Guitar Hero game, as well as completely fan made charts, so there's plenty of content.

• Halo 2: Project Cartographer

  Halo 2 PC with restored online multiplayer and some added quality of life features. Thanks to Digital Cheese for introducing me to this.

• I.RULE

  Combines the gameplay of Plants vs. Zombies with items, enemies and familiars from The Binding of Isaac.

• Mari0

  The original Super Mario Bros., but Mario has a portal gun. Includes other features like 4 player co-op, extra map packs and a level editor.

• Mega Man 2.5D

  Mega Man fan game in the style of the NES titles with a perspective change gimmick. Also has a 2 player Co-op and Vs. mode.

• Not Tetris 2

  Tetris fangame with physics and a 2 player Vs. Mode. This and another game on the list, Mari0, both come from the same developer and you can find the rest of their games on their website.

• ⭐osu!

  The most feature rich and polished rhythm game I've ever played. Contains 4 game modes, each with their own leaderboard and ranking system. Features include online multiplayer, a beatmap editor to chart your own songs, custom skins to change the look of the game, modifiers to change songs and usually make them more difficult, etc. You can learn more about the game from this blog post I wrote in 2023.

• Puyo Puyo VS

  Online 2-10 player multiplayer version of the classic puzzle game with a ranking system.

• Sonic Project '06

  A fan-made remake of one of the worst Sonic game, Sonic The Hedgehog (2006). Unlike the game it's based on, it's actually really fun and plays nicely. Apparently the guy who made it hadn't even played Sonic '06 when he started it. The download is in the video description.

• Sonic Robo Blast 2

  A classic Sonic fangame made in the DOOM engine, but you probably wouldn't be able to tell by playing it. Includes local and online multiplayer modes. I really like this interpretation of Classic Sonic in 3D.

• ⭐Sven Co-op

  A free, co-op version of Half Life on Steam. Despite Half Life being a paid game on Steam, the full Half Life campaign can be played through this game, as well as other user generated GoldSrc maps and levels. There have been some truly creative levels made by other players, such as Japanese "uboa" maps like Pizza ya san and Uboa Rampage II. Other GoldSrc games have been recreated in full through Sven Co-op, which is how me and my friend played Half Life: Decay for the first time.

• ⭐Team Fortress 2

  The greatest class based first person shooter. Despite having not been updated for years, it still has an incredibly active and rabid fan base. Instead of adding 8 quintillion classes, Valve added only 9 classes with swappable weapons and items, so you can customize your mercenaries to fill more specialist roles and change their gameplay so completely that they become "sub classes". For example, the Demoman can ditch his grenade launcher for a sword and become a Demo "Knight". Aside from PVP, the game has a PVE mode and some fun modded community servers, such as "shounic trenches", which supports up to 100 players in one match.

• Undertale Yellow

  The greatest Undertale fan game ever made.

A few of these games actually used to be on my links page, but I removed them because they all require downloads and I wanted everything on the links page to be able to be used and enjoyed in your browser. Speaking of which, I have a good collection of browser games in my links section which I recommend checking out if you're interested in more free games.

Emulators

• Dolphin

  The greatest GameCube and Wii emulator, bar none. Includes online netplay and RetroAchievements support.

• RetroArch

  A frontend for emulators, with pretty much every retro console emulator you could need. Also includes netplay and RetroAchievements support.

Other Applications

• Obsidian

  A note taking app that can be synced between devices. You can pay 5 dollars a month to sync your notes, or just use Syncthing like a normal person.

• Plex Media Server

  Instead of Netflix, I just "legally" obtain massive amounts of TV and movies to hoard on my NAS and add them to my Plex server. You can view your content on any device in your network, but can pay a fee to be able to port forward and view your content outside of the network.

• qBitTorrent

  Popular torrent client.

• Visual Studio Code

  Code editor which I use for this website.

Outro

I hope this inspires someone without a computer to get one, or at the very least check out some of the games and other software that I've listed. Thanks for reading.