If you’re interested in finding great free PC games then you could just start browsing the many gaming websites and forums available online. There’s a lot of competition, though, so it may take quite some time.

But a smarter option, at least initially, might be to use the portable Game Downloader, a tiny client which provides easy point-and-click access to more than 100 of the best free PC games around, with more being added all the time.

The program organises its games into many different categories: Action, Arcade, First Person Shooter, Real Time Strategy, and so on. And initially you’ll just select one of these to see what’s on offer.  Some of the categories are a little under populated – “Fighting” only has 3, in Paintown, Super Vampire Ninja Zero and Tonibash – but there are many big names to be found elsewhere. Turn-Based Strategy includes games like Advanced Strategic Command, Battle for Wesnoth, Freeciv, Scorched 3D and UFO Alien Invasion, for instance. And as the game list is held in a server-side database, the authors are able to add more on a weekly basis.

Choose a game and you’ll see a little more about it, including a basic text description and a screen shot. If you need more information then a click will send you off to YouTube looking for game videos, or to the game website. Or, if you’re already intrigued, then simply clicking Download Game will grab a copy of the installation file for you.

Game Downloader does have various issues and irritations. There’s no search tool to help you locate a particular game, say. The program uses a small window which can’t be resized, so there’s some unnecessary scrolling.  And Game Downloader makes pointless use of a system tray icon. So, for instance, to find out the size of a download you must click a button, and have the icon display the file size as a tooltip. And the program Settings box is only available from the icon, so unless you go looking you’ll never realise it even exists.

Still, if you’re just looking for an easy way to find and download great free games, then Game Downloader certainly delivers. Quirks aside, there’s an excellent selection of quality games here, and with its regular updates the program should help to keep you entertained for a very long time.