I love music, and I love video games. This makes rhythm games perfect for me. And the best part? I don’t have to pay for some of the great ones! This is a list of my three favorite rhythm games, in no particular order.

Frets on Fire

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This is a Guitar Hero like game for Windows, Linux, and OS X. A great thing about Frets on Fire is that it lets you rip songs from your Guitar Hero games! The downside to this is it’s really slow. It’s usually faster to just download all the songs. But that’s probably illegal. It comes with three songs and a tutorial. You can also download songs from the community. If you don’t have a Guitar Hero controller to hook into your PC, you can use your keyboard.

Stepmania

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This is a DDR like game for Windows, Linux, and OS X. It’s been around for a long time, and is still being worked on. It is also the only game on this list with a multiplayer mode. You can use a dance pad or just use you arrow keys. Much simpler than most rhythm games (if you’re using the arrow keys, that is) and is still just as fun. It doesn’t come with any songs, but you can download some here.

Osu!

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This is a game I pretty much just found out about. Gameplay is similar to Elite Beat Agents for the DS. This game is very nice and it makes installing songs easy. You can download songs here. You have to register to download songs, but it’s a good idea to do it anyway. The game keeps track of how good you do and you get levels for it! It’s hard to explain the gameplay if you haven’t played the game it’s based on. Luckily, there is a good tutorial and you can check out a video of me playing a song (very poorly) on Easy.