I’m so old that my older brother and I used to have to go to the mall in order to buy cartridges for our Atari 2600, or have our parents buy them from the Christmas catalog from store that have pretty much all gone out of business by now. This doesn’t include the “Super Pong” game consul that we had prior to it that had 6 pong variations in it. In any case, the Atari gave way to our Commodore 64 which used 5 ¼ floppy disks that we went to computer stores to buy. In the late 90s, I bought a Compac-Windows 98 computer that used CDs, almost all of which I bought from Fry’s Electronics & Wal-Mart. In case any of you haven’t noticed yet, you can’t walk in and buy PC games from either of these stores anymore. So, I have been forced to join the 21st century and start buying downloaded games.
The following is a list of places for legally downloading games in order of which has the best selection of games that I actually like.
Chrome Web Store: It may have usable apps for your computer, but their gaming selection in almost non-existent.
Facebook: Metaphorically speaking, looking for games here is like going into a mom & pop dollar store. It usually takes me less the 5 minutes of walking the store before I get board & walk out the store. Furthermore, my feelings towards FB is the same as King’s towards the city of Cleveland because their game “Farmville” ruined 1 of my favorite gaming genres, RTS (Real Time Strategy). I refer to the “RTS” games that have come out since as “Farmville Goes To War.” I’ll explain more at the end of this post.
Google Play Store: Metaphorically speaking, looking for games here is like going to a national chain “dollar” store, a better selection of mostly junk. That’s not to say there aren’t decent games for my smart phone for when I’m board and can’t use my laptop, but very few of them are good enough for me to download onto my laptop.
WildTangentGames: The best thing about this site is that you can try games for free before purchasing them. If you do decide, can spend few coins for a single game play, or you can purchase them out right. I like playing the last 2 installments of Fate (old fashion “hack & slash) & the Rescue Team series (completing tasks as proficiently as possible so you can rescue survivors of natural disasters).
Microsoft Store/Xbox Live games: This includes top quality games that you have to pay for. Unfortunately for me, I signed up years ago using my old yahoo account. Since they had the security breach, they have overcompensated to stupid extremes that make it difficult for me to sign into my account.
Steem.com: I signed up for them because it is the exclusive place to buy the latest version of Civilization (which is currently Civilization 6). Having browsed through their catalog, I have found several other games that I’ve since download, or will eventually download. This includes all of the games that are offered by Microsoft Store/Xbox Live games for the exact same price.
Included are a couple of pre-Farmville RTS games: Age of Empires I & II, Rise of Nations, etc. I’m still wanting to find the games that I consider to be the best of the genre: “Command & Conquer: Generals” & the original “Empire Earth.” What differs them from the “Farmville Goes To War” RTS games of recent years, the last of these games that I tried playing was “Boombeach”:
1) You don’t have to sit around for longer and longer periods of time waiting to level up before you can do anything. This is the attribute that I associate these games with Farmville. When I have time to play, I want to play at that time. I don’t want to play for awhile and then have to wait as much as 2 hours to level up. Yes, I can buy tokens in order to speed up the game, but there comes a point in which I might have to spend more money on a game that I consider inferior then what I would otherwise spend on a superior game for the remaining reasons.
2) The games micromanages you, especially in the early parts of the game in which the game “advisor” is “tutoring” you in how the game works by dictating to you what you need to do next.
3) The games do not make it possible for me to develop my own strategy, using the units that I like best, and then command curtain units to attack the targets they’re best against while other units attack other targets that they’re best against.
If anyone know were to get real RTS games, please let me know.