A Review of GameHippo.com: King of the Freeware Games Sites
If you are like me, then you love playing video games. All kind of video games. And you also love free games. Who wants to pay $50 for a video game when I can download one off of the internet for free and enjoy it just as much?
Web site creators have long understood the desire of internet users for free video games. Type in freeware games into any search engine and you will get a minimum of hundreds of thousands of results. That’s a lot of web sites out there devoted to giving you free software!
The problem, is, the lack of quality on so many of these web sites. Sure, they will often have free video games available for download. But a large number of these web sites but shareware video games right next to freeware ones, and don’t make it easy to tell the difference. (For those who don’t know, shareware games are ones where you receive a portion of the game for free, and must pay for the rest). Sometimes they will even include demos that are only playable for a short while!
This can be very frustrating for the aspiring player of completely free video games. So it takes quite a bit of searching out before you find good, quality freeware games, and good, quality freeware games sites.
Then, once you find a decent site, you often find that half of the links are dead. When you go to download the game, all you get is an error message. The place where the file used to be stored on the net is no longer there. And the frustration continues.
GameHippo.com is the freeware games site to beat all freeware games sites. They’ve been up and running since 1999, and have made a name for themselves as the best in freeware video games. They simply can’t be beat.
All games available from GameHippo (And they have over one thousands) are 100% complete freeware. No shareware, no demos. On top of this, the vast majority of the games are actually located on the GameHippo server, rather than available through a remote link. So you’ll never have dead links, because as long as GameHippo is there (and I hope it will be there forever), then the games are still there.
Each game on the web site is meticulously reviewed by one of the operators of the site. These aren’t just brief descriptions, these are actual quality reviews that gives the pros and cons of each game, as well as describing in depth the graphics, gameplay, etc. Not only are you getting free video games, but you are making informed decisions on what to download. User reviews and ratings of the games are also readily available.
The GameHippo site itself is exceptionally easy to navigate, and is made with muted colors and basic graphics that make it appealing but at the same time non-invasive. After all, it is the games that are on display here, not the web site.
All of the games are put into their own separate game category, to make them easy to find. An added bonus is that not only is there a best of the site listing (giving the games that have been most highly rated by the reviewers), but each individual category section also has its own best of selection, so you can look just for the highest rated FPS’s or RPGs. There are also Top 20 lists so that you can go straight for the best of the best.
GameHippo also offers an excellent in-site search engine. This can be useful as while the site is easy to navigate, there are quite a few games and it can take time to wade through each one one by one (although I have done that myself more than once and found myself pleasantly rewarded with games that I would have otherwise missed).
Beyond the games themselves, the site also offers some freeware utilities (although they are obviously not the focus of GameHippo). Aspiring game developers can also find great information and downloads for game creation software. (Most of the games on the site have information on the development system used to create the game for added interest). And finally the community section, where freeware gamers can get together to chat, post on the GameHippo message board or learn more about the people behind GameHippo.
All in all, if you are looking for freeware video games, there is no web site out there that can compare to GameHippo. I have been a devoted fan of GameHippo for five years now, and can’t imagine what I would do without them. (I also can’t remember when the last time I actually paid for a video game was either). GameHippo is an amazing site, and a must for any fan of video games and especially freeware video games.
