Tower Defense

Okay, so this one has already been all over Digg and everywhere else, but somehow I missed it until recently - I may have passed it over because the graphics looked kind of cheesy and the gameplay didn't seem very exciting. But...well, I actually kind of like this game. It's very simple, you just place these towers and they stay still shooting at the line of baddies that are trying to get you. You get gold, which you obviously use to build more towers. It gets hard after a long stretch of easy - perfect lunch break game, you'll probably finish your second attempt at the game right about the time you need to go punch back in or go to class.

By the way, there is also a sequel to the pictured game, called Flash Circle TD, which looks pretty cool. Have fun!

Gamma Bros.

Oops, it's been almost a week...sorry, I've been busy lately. But I'm back, and I'll be better from now on, I promise! Anyways, I guess I've been feeling in a retro mood lately as far as gaming goes; last time I suggested you play Zork, which was actually an old game, and this entry I suggest you play Gamma Bros, which only seems like an old game. The folks over at Pixeljam Games have decided to take the graphically challenged space shooter thing and run with it, and they've miraculously put together quite a great game!

You know that I really like simple games that are just about the gameplay, and Gamma Bros delivers - the controls are merely the arrow pad and WASD. It's a vanilla space shooter, with the usual assortment of bad guys, powerups, and weapons, but it's strangely compelling, I don't know why. Give it a shot, you'll probably spend far more time on it than you intended to! Just a warning - it does start off a little slow, but trust me, if you hold on for a few minutes you'll really start to like it.

Zork!

Ah, Zork...if one game reminds me of my youth, this is it. Back when DOS was as high tech as it got (and it seemed that IBM was the one calling all the shots, not Microsoft!), Zork was it as far as gaming. Yes, there were other games to play, and some of them brought me lots of enjoyment, but frankly, none of them could make me waste as much time staring at the screen as Zork could. Back then there was no web, so you couldn't very easily look up the answer if you got stuck - you actually had to puzzle your way out of each one of the roadblocks the game threw in front of you. Unfortunately the series went downhill quickly once graphics became a necessity (not that I didn't waste several hours on that 3D one, too - would have been a lot more impressive if The 7th Guest and Myst hadn't come out at around the same time and stomped it), but hey, it was a good run anyways.

Anyways, I know it seems quaint to suggest a text adventure now, what with physics processing units beefing up our consoles to ridiculous levels of realism and real time raytracing but a few years off the mainstream, but hey, it never hurts to look back at the games that enthralled us 20 years ago - you might be surprised how many of them are still great by today's standards!

Check out Play.vg's adventure section for Zork II and Zork III if you're itching for more after fighting through the first one - warning, you're in for quite a commitment of time if you start digging into this stuff!

Britney's Pain + POSGOTD

[Britney's shame - Egotastic]
Sorry, this is completely and utterly off-topic, and has nothing whatsoever to do with games, but come on, this is too classic to pass up - why would anyone, ever, under any circumstances, shave their head and then go out in public with that ridiculous looking clown wig on? Especially when their career is already in the dumpster because they've finally completed the transition from attractive dirty untalented strumpet to ugly dirty untalented strumpet!

Everyone with me now, revel in Britney's pain for a moment...there, done it? Good. Now, for our POS game of the day, head over and check out Knife Throw 2, an uber-lame game where you can throw knives at all your least-favorite celebrities. I don't know who makes this crap, but whatever...if you go into practice mode, the game doesn't end when you kill them. Yay!



We're all done here. Go do something productive, now.

Ellipsis

Ellipsis: great fun for a few minutes. Not anything too surprising, but this is a nice point-click-destroy game that will entertain you for your lunchbreak. Here's a tip - whenever you clear the field, click a few extra times, because the new enemies tend to spawn right under your mouse, and if you can get rid of them before they scatter it makes things much easier.

As far as these types of games go, this one is pretty well done. I really like the shrapnel effects, although they're a little processor heavy. I'm not sure I'm such a fan of the overall genre - I mean, basically, the difficulty here is that the little squares are kind of small and mouses suck as fine motion instruments - but it amused me enough to load up my screenshot taker and write up a blog entry, so it's worth a play at least.

Fancy Pants Adventure

Fancy Pants Adventure is not a new game, but I haven't mentioned it yet, and it's definitely worth playing. It reminds me a bit of the Sonic the Hedgehog flash game, in that it has very nice graphics, similar gameplay, and (unfortunately for both) is a bit slower than it should be - in these types of platformer games, you don't want to have to wait too long for each jump to happen after you hit the button, or it really bogs down gameplay. Nevertheless, Fancy Pants is really one of the highest quality Flash games out there; I only wish the author would write another level or two!

Slime Games

The Slime games are a set of fun, basic (= graphically challenged) Java games, the original version of which was written by Quin Pendragon several years ago. Since then, they have been modded, rewritten, and altered in many different ways. Slime volleyball is the classic (here I've linked to the one player mod, by Wedgey - the original was two player only, and thus not that much fun if you're alone...), and you should also check out Slime soccer, Slime basketball, and Slime hackeysack (full disclosure - Slime hackeysack is a Flash game that I wrote to test out a more realistic physics engine for these games).

I'm considering creating some more of these games if I ever get a chance or someone shows any interest. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any ideas that you'd like to see come to life!