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You don't have to spend time in Roswell to have to deal with aliens. Just fire up Spheres of Chaos, and you'll have more extraterrestrial enemies than you know what to do with, as well as a light show that just won't quit.

As you work through the various levels of play, you will encounter progressively more enemies that you have to eradicate before you can progress to the next level. Keep an eye out for black holes that can attract or repel you, and if you don't complete a given level soon enough, the bad guys will come looking for you.

Even on lower-end systems, the graphics are impressive. With that many bright colors and patterns, you'll wonder whether somebody spiked your Gatorade.

Spheres of Chaos works as a single-player game, or supports up to eight players at a time in multi-player mode. It's a free download, and it's available for Windows and Linux systems

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Did you ever think that maybe there just weren't enough dead aliens out there? Did you want to do something about it? Alien Arena may be right up your alley.

A first person shooter in the tradition of Quake III and Unreal Tournament, you'll be up to your ankles in blood-n-guts in no time. You can run Alien Arena in single player mode, server mode for playing against others, or even start up your own dedicated server.

There are several different game modes here, including Death Match, Capture the Flag, and others. The carnage is configurable, so you can have just the experience you're looking for. With the ability to reset everything, you can't break things in the configuration screen.

The lead developer claims that the game has been downloaded over half a million times in the last couple of years, so there's a big installed base out there. There is a large online game forum so whether its a configuration issue, or just a chance to gloat over your accomplishments, there's a big group of folks out there eager to hear what you have to say.

Alien Arena is a 3-D game, so you'll want to make sure your system has the horsepower required.

Alien Arena is available for both Linux and Windows systems.

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Are you an air guitar aficionado? Do you lust after that sunburst Strat hanging in the music store window? If you've got a computer keyboard, this may be your lucky day.

Frets On Fire is a keyboard-based guitar playing game. Using a combination of Function keys and the the Enter key, you play along with individual notes and chords to rack up a big score. You can start at Easy level to learn the moves; graduate to Medium as you gain confidence, and eventually you'll be at Amazing, shredding with the best of them. There are tons of songs available, or you can import from Guitar Hero, or even create your own songs.

It may not be time to quit your day job yet, but with Frets On Fire, you'll feel like that big recording contract is just around the corner.

Frets On Fire is available for Linux, Mac (x86 processors), and Windows.

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Whether you're a Human or an Alien, you'll enjoy Tremulous, an exciting multi-player first-person shooter that incorporates elements of real-time strategy. Based on Quake 3, the goal in Tremulous, of course, is to wipe out the opposition. This is accomplished not only through killing them, but also by destroying their "spawn structures," effectively keeping them from replenishing their ranks.

Humans advance by receiving credits that allow them to purchase new weapons and upgrade their arsenals, while Alians evolve into new classes of beings, each more powerful than the last. Start as a Dretch and do your job well and you may soon evolve into a Basilisk, Marauder, or Tyrant. The game ends when all players on a team have been killed and all of their buildings have been destroyed.

Tremulous is a free, open source project that is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows. With a large support community and an active forum, there is a lot of interest in this exciting, award-winning game.

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Neverball is a fun game with an odd name. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Neverball can be enjoyed by Mac, Windows, and Linux users alike. This is a game truly trying to build bridges within the gaming community.

At its most basic, Neverball is a game where you roll a ball around obstacles by tilting the floor around it. The game is controlled by either your keyboard or mouse. More than that, though, it's a game of stunning and unusual graphics, as the game seems to take place in some three dimensional alternate universe. The colors are bright, full of reflection and movement. As you try to move your ball around obstacles, you'll encounter coins that you need to collect in order to progress to the next level. There are 75 levels total, so you might be playing this game for the next few years. If you do a web search, you'll find a few sites which keep track of high scores and maintain "The Neverball Hall of Fame".

The Neverball download includes another program called Neverputt, where you use the same principles from Neverball to play miniature golf.

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So you like DOS, do you? You really miss all the crackpot memory issues with UMB’s and expanded memory and extended memory and TSR programs? Well, here you go: DOSBox is a DOS/x86 emulator which has been ported to all sorts of systems: Windows, BeOS, Linux, Mac. It also runs 286 or 386 emulation, both in real and protected modes. It includes support for all manner of sound and video cards, such as Tandy and Hercules. Truly the past revisited! It’s true that when we upgrade from one system to the next we likely lose things that worked well and that we’d really like to keep; DOSBox is a solution to those losses, although it was primarily developed so that old games could be executed under more advanced operating systems.

DOSBox was written by four Scandinavian programmers. There is a lively user community hosted on Very Old Games on New Systems and the on-line support is extensive and complete. It’s totally free and is Open Source software.

Really, you’ll either be tickled or turned off by the whole idea of DOSBox. But in defense of those who do like it – there’s no shame in working with what works!

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I've written about StepMania, the very fun, free Dance Dance Revolution clone, here before. Dance games are fun and are great exercise. Kids love them, and I know adults who have cancelled their gym memberships to play 20 minutes of StepMania each day instead.

To play StepMania the way it was meant to be played, you need a dance pad. It turns out that Kraft is giving away dance pads for free: you just pay $6 for shipping. The pad is intended to be used with the four free games that you can download from Kraft's Active Gaming web site — there's a dance game, a soccer game, a "whack-a-mole"-type game, and a martial arts game. All four of the games are pretty good (for Windows only.)

But the cool part is that the $6 dance pad works perfectly with StepMania — and not just on Windows, but on MacOS X, too. (I haven't tried it with StepMania for Linux, but have no reason do doubt that the pad will work fine with that version too.) The pad has a standard USB connector — just plug it in and it works. All I had to do was configure the pad one time in StepMania's options page.

I received my dance pad about a week after I ordered it. (And although Kraft says there's only one pad per household, I've just ordered a second one, because StepMania has a two-player mode.)

Advanced Strategic Command is a free, turn-based strategy game: players can battle against other humans in multiplayer mode over the Internet or through a LAN. Or, you can go solo and duke it out against the computer in a single-player campaign. This freeware is heavily inspired by the successful “Command and Conquer” PC games, where players can manage various types of soldiers and tanks as well as build factories that produce new units.

Distributed under the terms of the Gnu General Public License, the future of this game has been left in the hands of, well, the general public. As a result, graphics are a bit outdated and there is no game demo, tutorial or tech support whatsoever. Nonetheless, almost anybody can get the hang of the game pretty fast and enjoy the experience. It is svailable for both Windows and Linux.

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Even if Playstation and Xbox are the rage, there are still some old-style games that can keep the game adventurer in you more than interested. Scorched3D, a turn-based strategy game based on the DOS game Scorched Earth, is a perfect example.

The objective is the same: blow up the other players who are equally armed. However, this modern day battle takes place in a 3D environment and probably as a sign of the times, a trove of weapons are available at your disposal (after you earn them). While you still can't actually move your tank (a holdover from the game’s DOS origin), Scorched 3D allows some room for strategy. After each successful round, you can purchase new missiles and weaponry with money earned from your battles. To give you a semblance of real battle, you will have to deal with a variety of changing environmental conditions and terrains. Best of all, you have an option of playing the game over a local area network or on the Internet with up to twenty-four other players.

This classic “blast-‘em-up” game is available for both Microsoft Windows and Unix (Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Solaris etc.) operating systems, giving you no excuse for not downloading it.

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Starting today, Friday is Avoiding Work Day at Free Download A Day. We launch Avoiding Work Day with MAME — the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator.

Do you remember the first time you played a video game in an arcade? Joust, Time Pilot, Street Fighter … The graphics might have been a bit chunky, but you had a blast. MAME beings back the video games of yesteryear with a free, open source program. The application emulates several different arcade platforms — thousands of games — with just one program. The player is free, but it is important to note that the game ROM files generally aren't. You can get some ROMs for free from MAME's ROM page and Legal Arcade Games. In addition, you can purchase many game ROMs from StarROMs. So if you long for the days of Pac Man and Frogger, look no further than MAME for a dose of nostalgia.

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