Okay, so today we've got Tank Ball, a shooter that's also (surprise!) multiplayer and 3D. Of course, it uses the Shockwave player, which to webgame developers is generally considered a Cheap Way Out, since it provides you with automatic 3D and physics capabilities, yet is only installed on some people's browsers; nevertheless, if you happen to have the player installed, this game is actually kind of fun. If you have a fast connection, you might as well install it anyways, because it might even be around to stay unless Macromedia beefs up the Flash player quite considerably. [that's a rant for later!]
Like most webgames, very little detail exists in the modeling, so you're just shooting balls at each other across a simple landscape, but hey, the multiplayer game actually works, which puts this above most browser games. I say good job!
There are some other interesting games at Maid Marian to check out, too, such as Sherwood Dungeon, a free MMORPG (in a browser? I know, I don't like the idea either...) that is quite a bit more complex than the tank game, even if the gameplay gets old a bit quickly.
[Begin Shockwave rant]
I've got to say, regarding all these 3D Shockwave games out there, I can't say I like them, generally. You'd think, hey, great, we can make 3d stuff in the browser, and Shockwave will even do the physics for us! But to me, the resulting games tend to come off a little cheesy. I never get that feeling that the physics is good enough to make the games feel right, although I can't really see what's wrong with it...I suspect a large part of this is that Macromedia has made it too easy to throw any old crap together, add the 3D, add the physics and call it a game, so a lot of people do just that without considering the best way to handle everything else. Controls and camera work tend to be severely lacking as a rule - I don't know if that's because it's very difficult to do, or because nobody's done it right yet. But either way, in my opinion better games have come out on Flash and Java than Shockwave, despite it being the most featureful of the three...
Don't take my word for it, though, decide for yourself. Here are a few Shockwave games (in addition to Tank Ball) that have made the rounds on the web, some decent, some not:
- Pipedown
- Vertigolf
- Vertigolf 2
- Roll On
- Alien Abduction
- Formula Fog
- Super Bike
- Snowboarder XS
- Fowl Words (this one's probably my favorite, though it's neither 3d or a simulation)
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