Free Ride Games Blog

I know I’m not alone in singling out the Holidays as a favorite time of year. I think it’s because the Holidays are synonymous with that special festive “something” in the air that you can’t quite put your finger on, but that you know everyone looks forward to.

That special something that I can’t quite put my finger on overwhelms me every year. I find myself being grateful for all the good things in my life, and in particular for the people in my life whom I love and who love me (yes, I know, mush-central. Sorry…).

The mushy feelings even permeate to my job (which I happen to love), and what I do is all about our Free Ride Gamer community, so I find myself being grateful for the opportunity to do what I do every day. And in my stupor of Holiday mush, I’m relishing the thought of yet another year – an even better year – of many more new free games and sweepstakes events to make 2011 even more fun than 2010.

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Amazing Heists: Dillinger tells the exciting true story of the infamous John Dillinger, an American gangster and bank-robber who was at the height of his “career” in the era in which Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd and Bonnie & Clyde were on everybody’s “Most Wanted” list.

Dillinger robbed two dozen banks and four police stations and incredibly managed to escape jail twice! While doing time, he became resentful towards society and hooked up with other criminals, preparing himself to dive right back into criminal activities when he was released. The game tells the story of his life after being released from his eight and a half year prison sentence.

This hidden object game begins as you join the gang at their hide-out at Little Bohemia Lodge, looking at potential banks to rob and casing joints. Each level of the game has a different bank to rob but each bank robbery has the same structure:

• Casing the Joint
• Block the Egress
• The Robbery and
• Breaking the Bank.

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I’m Michelle Casey, Director of Promotions & Programming at Free Ride Games. You might be surprised to learn though, that my passion for casual games developed quite by accident!

There I was, in my mid-thirties, looking for a new career challenge with Email Marketing already under my belt (by the way, if you haven’t managed it yet, I encourage you to subscribe to my weekly newsletter “Rider Insider Plus”) when an opportunity arose at Free Ride Games and I jumped at it.

Having mastered “Spider Solitaire” and “Minesweeper”, a couple of the games that come bundled with Microsoft Windows, I fancied myself quite the online gaming expert. Pretty funny in hindsight now that I realize how ignorant I was

To think that at this very moment, millions of people around the world are STILL playing primitive bundled desktop games – because they’re simply unaware of other options – when in reality there’s a world of amazing, entertaining, high quality casual PC games out there that they could be getting for FREE.

The thing that drew me to Free Ride Games was not only the fact that they offer such a great variety of top PC casual games from the industry’s leading publishers, but that this is the only service where you can download these premium, full version games on to your desktop and play them forever, with no time limit, for the bargain price of $0. All you need is an internet connection!

I’m no dummy. My parents taught me well. Nothing worthwhile in life is ever truly “free”, so of course I was skeptical about Free Ride Games’ premise too. But then I learned how come the games really are free: Thanks to our advertising based business model, which essentially means that we stream ads from our sponsors around your game play area, you don’t have to pay a thing and you get to enjoy the best of both worlds: Free premium games and cool offers that might catch your eye while you play.

So there you have it. With inside knowledge of the coolest FREE premium games and a burning desire to educate the people of the world about all the hours and hours of fun they’re most likely missing out on as long as they’re unaware of Free Ride Games – I, Michelle Casey was reborn with a new purpose.

What else can I tell you about me? Let’s see: I’m not a particularly inspired cook (my friends often refer to me as the “Take-out Queen”). I’m a dog person. I’m not a morning person. I’m a Leo, although I don’t have great faith in astrology, when you consider that the world’s original astrologers – who relied on mapping the stars with great accuracy as the basis of their science – lived in times when space telescopes amounted to something resembling a hose with a medieval magnifying glass attached to it at one end.

I’m a great believer in the notion that regular fun, relaxation and a good old mind-bending challenge is essential to recharging both your spirit and your cognitive function. But mostly, these days, I’m just chuffed to have a blog, a Facebook Fan Page and a weekly newsletter that allow me to communicate with Free Ride Gamers regularly.

And in case you’re wondering what “the woman behind the blog” is playing these days, I can tell you that I’m a little bit addicted to Mahjongg Artifacts and Aqua Pearls at the moment. I also get withdrawal symptoms if I haven’t played  Treasures of Montezuma in a while, so that’s also a staple.  Of course my favorites change often since we’re constantly adding new games to the Free Ride Games website.

So until my next blog post, newsletter, Facebook post or  tweet – hope your week is full of fun & games!

Michelle

I love casual PC games (surprise surprise) so I often find myself using gaming lingo in my day to day banter, even when conversing with friends and family who most likely don’t understand the references at all and probably just think that I “talk funny”.

Nevertheless, if you’re reading this blog post then I’m guessing that it’s with a sympathetic gamer’s eye, and that if I say that sometimes, come Saturday or Sunday, I seem to encounter “The Mysterious Case of Michelle Casey’s Vanishing Weekend”, you  know I’m not talking about the latest Hidden Object release, but about my actual weekend.

Some weeks are such a drag. You’re so busy with work, obliging a neighbor, colleague or friend with precious chunks of your time listening to whatever it is they need you to listen to, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, doing the family thing, calling tradesmen, phone companies and other pesky people whom you occasionally rely on to fix this and that, etc.

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