here's some of the best abandonware/freeware games i've found that i've liked

these are all free of course.

abandonware takes me back. waay back. i used to play the abandonware games on my dad's OLD, OLD cpu bc we were too poor to afford any entertainment systems, so i had to play all these old games that phil used to just copy from his friends onto those HUGE, HUGE, 5 in, black diskettes. if i took the time to list all the ones i played back then, this post would be too long. our old cpu's spacebar and return key broke way too fast because of that. oh yeah; it was funny when i'd load games where i didn't know what keys controlled what(we didn't have a manual for every game), and then just press EVERY KEY on the keyboard seeing what it'd do. or loading a game and HOPING that we didn't need to type a password to play it.

BBQ - just an easy break game; not too long; kinda funny premise, but hey...
madness interactive
N - one of the best freeware games i believe i've encountered; like lode runner, except you're a ninja; very fun, but i guess can also get pretty frustrating. great game overall though.
meteor - one of my all-time favorite freeware games; tremendously fun. great top-down shooter, lots of things you can do.
the real mah jong - rare gem; a mahjong game that actually plays like mahjong, not the stupid tiles game.

jordan vs bird: 1 on 1 II for its time, it was tremendously deep gameplay; if you tap diagonally up-forward in either direction b4 you dribble, you'll jab step. holding shift while moving enables you to run, but gives you more vulnerability to a steal. steal can be done by tapping shift twice. there's some game issues imo though, hard to explain, but sometimes when you want to do something, the doesn't enable you to do it properly, like you press S or zero to rebound, but your character jumps in the wrong direction? or press shift twice to steal, but your character takes too long before doing it. otherwise, good, good, game.
operation wolf - great FPS; very hard, but i'd say, very, very, fun. hard, b/c, it's inevitable you're going to be taking damage. need to run the game by the .bat file first if you want to play w/the mouse. 1st button's shoot, 2nd button's rocket grenade. i used to play this w/cheat mode, but i can't find the cheat mode anymore, so you'll just have to play the game w/o cheats. still fun though.
test drive - the 1st and 2nd game take me back. waay back. we didn't have 3. but i like how the 1st game is actually in color(we only had the 4-color version back then; the one in purple and cyan). and i like how the 2nd version has more than 2 cars(ours only had the porsche 911 and ferrari F40). shifting in td1's done by a and s; shifting in td2's done by holding down acceleration or brake b4 tapping return.

anyways, i'd list more, but these are just the ones off the top of my head; enjoy.