6 posts tagged “online games”

Back in college, I used to waste a whole lot of time, and even more quarters, in the video arcade in the basement of the student center, mostly on two games.  The games were Lethal Enforcers, a basic shoot-'em up, and Rampage, a monster-eating-a-city game that was great for working out stress.  Of course, plowing through a roll of quarters usually meant that the laundry had to wait, but sometimes, that was worth it...

Anyway, while I was surfing around www.freewebarcade.com, I found Rampage again.  It felt like a breath of my misspent youth, coming back to tap me on the shoulder.  Before I wax to poetic, here's the direct link so you can share the joy: http://www.freewebarcade.com/game/the-hulk-rampage

This flash version is much simpler than the arcade classic.  You don't get to choose your monster, and there's a strict time limit.  You play as the Hulk, and try to do as much damage as possible in 4 levels.  Each level has three buildings plus assorted vehicles to smash.  The vehicles get tougher in each level, moving from streetcars, to HumVees, to tanks, to attack helicopters.  When your time runs out, you revert to David Banner and the game ends.  The game will also end if you win the fourth level.  When you finish the game, it tells you the dollar value of the damage you've done.  The controls are simple, so I won't explain them.  Try the game, and read the instructions.

Overall, I really liked this game.  It was a nice trip down memory lane.  Have fun!

Here's a game I had some fun with recently:

http://www.freewebarcade.com/game/strategy-defense-3/

It's called Strategy Defense 3.  The objective is to defend your own castle while attacking the enemy's castle.  You can build two defensive towers, and lots and lots of offensive/defensive soldiers.  The enemy (always a computer player) gets an identical setup on the other side of the screen, and the game is on.

There are three routes between you and the enemy: a land route, a sea route, and an air route.  As the game progresses, you'll be able to to build ships and planes in addition to soldiers, and to attack on each route.  Your soldiers will first attack any enemy units they encounter on their road, then the enemy towers, and finally the enemy castle.  Remember, this works both ways.

As games go, this one is exceedingly simple.  But it was fun.  The graphics are pretty good, and some of the units you can build are pretty creative.  I like that ships and planes are not ready as soon as you select them; they have some construction time involved.

One thing the game lacks, however, despite its title, is any sort of strategic component.  This is strictly a "go out there and shoot 'em up" battle game.  On that level, I thought it succeeded.  Try it out for yourself.

This game http://www.freewebarcade.com/game/stick-rpg/ is a fun little piece of work.  It's called Stick RPG.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the lingo, RPG is 'role playing game.' Stick, of course, refers to stickmen, those every present targets of flash gaming abuse.

In this game, however, you're not abusing the stickman.  You are the stickman.  The purpose of the game is simple: to have your stickman acquire as much wealth as possible, as quickly as possible. You start with very little money, small amounts of intelligence, charm, and strength, and a job as a mcslave at McSticks restaurant.  The rest is up to you.

You can walk your stickman around town, and see the sights.  There are about 12 buildings you can enter, people you can talk to in alleyways, and different tasks you can accomplish. I won't spoil the game by giving away all the tricks, but I will say that it's rated R, at least, for violence (one of the ways to increase wealth and strength is by killing your opponents in bar fights) and drugs (another way to increase wealth is by buying and dealing cocaine).  There are also plenty of pitfalls.  You can lose a bar fight, get beat up by girl scouts, take too many caffiene pills, die while trying to rob the bank or convenience store...  Or, you can play it honest.  You can go to work, go to school, get promotions, deposit your money in the bank and watch compound interest do its magic.  The choice is yours, and that's the beauty of role playing games.

Have fun!

A few posts ago, I talked about a fun little game called 'Revenge of the Stick.'  The premise was simple, and silly: you are defending the world from those usual targets of computer game mayhem, stickmen, who are upset at behing used by game-playing geeks and are intent on vengence.  And they're crawling out of your monitor to wreak their havod on humanity.

To save the world, you have just the loyal office supplies in your desk: a motley collection of pens, paperclips, cell phones, calcualtors, rulers, and staplers, who will help you keep the stickmen from reaching the window.

I'm talking about this game again because, under its veneer of cuteness, it's a pretty good tower defense game, and I've really fallen for the tower defense genre.  The playing board is blank, which is an interesting variation of the genre; normally, the creeps in a tower defense game follow a set path, but in this game, as in some others I've seen, there is no path; the player has to make a maze using the towers.  It adds another dimension to what is, at heart, a pretty silly game.

Anyway, enough about the review.  You can go play it, and see for yourself.  Make sure that your flash player is updated, and that you close the other windows on your desktop, though, to get the best animation out of this one.

And, before I forget, I'm talking about this game now because last time, I forgot to give the link.  Here it is:

http://www.freewebarcade.com/game/revenge-of-the-stick/

Have fun.  I'll type at you later.

My review can be summed up in just a few words: This games rocks!

It's a standard tower defense, but with plenty of action, plenty of creeps, lots of turret types, and plenty of upgrades.

You're defending Area 51 from hordes of creeps, which enter the maze in waves of 10 at a time.  You've four types of turrets to defend with: cannons, lasers, rockets, and tazers.  They have different strengths and weaknesses, and can be upgraded in three ways: firepower, range of fire, and rate of fire.  There are other features, too, such as combinations, which allow the turrets to work in tandem after getting all the upgrades.  Basically, it's full of bells and whistles in all the best ways for a game to be.

You can choose from various mazes, in varying levels of complexity, when you start the game, and if you want a faster pace, you can click the little clock in the lower right hand corner to bring on the next wave right away.  I don't recommend fighting more than 4 waves of creeps at once, if you want to stay playing long.

One last word of warning: Do not play this game at work.  It is highly addictive, and will cut deeply into your productivity time.  This has been known to have a non-salutary effect on management types of people.

So go out and play, and have fun!

Well, normally I don't check out sites like Yahoo Games; I figure I'd rather go searching for free games, and the best games on Yahoo are pay-per-download.  Since I wouldn't be caught dead entering my credit card number onto the Internet, that sort of shut it as an option for me.

But, every rule does have an exception.  I was browsing through Yahoo today, just to see what games I was missing, and completely at random, I clicked on a link for a game called Miss Management. 

While I was reading it, I noticed something I hadn't seen before: a download for a free trial version.  Since I am never one to skip a free trial version, I downloaded it...

It wasn't my usual sort of game.  Miss Management puts the player in "Denise's" shoes; she's a brand new office manager, and has to figure out how to get the best productivity out of her staff while balancing their personality quirks with the incoming work.  The staff's goals are simple: hang out in the kitchen, chill by the water cooler, take a nap, "chat up" the ladies, doodle on the whiteboard, etc...  The company goals are even more basic: get the jobs done.  The office manager is stuck in the middle, and also has to keep the employees from each others' throats.

That last is vital; if an employee gets too stressed out, he'll break down and leave, and none of his goals can be accomplished until the next day.  Fortunately, coffee and donuts will help to reduce employee stress levels.  They'll also lure breaking employees back to their desks.

I usually prefer action games, but this one was cute.  I liked it.  I'd even recommend it.  At least, the trial version, if you're a cheapskate like me.