Blizzard may be known for huge fantasy titles like Diablo III and World of Warcraft, but back in the 90s they dabbled in many different genres. Back when they were known as Silicon & Synapse they released a handful of games on the 16-bit consoles (SNES and Genesis), two of which were The Lost Vikings and Rock n' Roll Racing. They soon changed their name to Blizzard Entertainment and created games like Blackthorne and The Death and Return of Superman before hitting gold with Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft, and never looking back.
But they haven't forgotten their past! Thanks a tip from Gameranx, it appears that both The Lost Vikings and Rock n' Roll Racing have been made available for free to anyone with a Battle.net account. (If you play games on a PC and don't have a Battle.net account, you're doing things wrong.)
The Lost Vikings was innovative for its time, as it allowed you to control three different vikings. It was a puzzle/action title that saw you utilizing each of their unique powers in order to escape rooms and fight off enemies, and still holds up today. Fun bit of trivia- the Lost Vikings actually appear as NPCs in World of Warcraft during a quest in the dungeon Uldaman.
Rock n' Roll Racing hasn't held up as well but it's still amusing, basically a more violent version of RC Pro-Am. It lets you fight it out in a race by shooting missiles, dropping mines, and collecting other prizes and power-ups.
if you want to get the free games head on over to Battle.net and click on your Account Management page. Note that they're only available for Windows PC.
While you're there you'll also notice that Blackthorne is available for free as well. Their classic platformer has been available for free for around a year now, although it has disappeared before, so while you're grabbing these other titles you might as well get it too!
The Lost Vikings is a mere 2.57 Megs and Rock N' Roll Racing is 15 megs, so get to downloading and you'll be playing them in seconds.
