Pure Geekery
Not much explanation needed here – it’ll be pretty obvious when you get into the game. But I’ll explain anyway :) Just click on groups of two or more “Qbeez” to clear the grid before the timer runs out.
Uses flash, and has sound – though you can put the sound off without losing much of the experience.
Enjoy!
You know, I used to love playing Dune 2 on the PC. What do you mean you’ve never heard of it? It was a realtime strategy game based on the Dune books – and the forerunner of the entire top-down realtime strategy genre. Seriously, Dune 2 is where it all started before the developers, Westwood Studios, went on to make Command & Conquer.
You can still get your hands on plenty of Command & Conquer games, but if you’re after a bit of in-browser gaming there’s a version for that too: Command & Conquer Alliances.
You’ll play against other people, or form alliances with them and, while it lacks some of the flair of the realtime games, it’s still fun to play. You won’t be building an army of Mammoth Tanks and rushing a NOD base, but there’s plenty here to keep C&C fans happy.
One word of warning, this is not a quick game. There’s every chance you’ll keep coming back for a long time.
OK, you need sound (and Flash) this week… today’s Friday Fun is a song all about the halcyon days of 16k computers.
I was talking to one of the parents at nursery the other day about how tech has changed since we were little… how we lived during the time of black & white tellys, before the World Wide Web, and when the remote on the video recorder was attached by a cable.
And, of course, the computers :) Ah, they were great… I learned to program on a C64. So turn up the sound, play the video below, and enjoy the nostalgia!
When I was little, half the fun of building a castle out of cardboard boxes was the joy of knocking it all down again. This week’s Friday Fun lets you knock down castles to your heart’s content – just line up the cannon, set the power and POW!
Unless you miss, of course, in which case the opposing king will take a shot at you.
Think Angry Birds with cannonballs… and no pigs. Come to think of it, just forget about the Angry Birds and enjoy the game ;)
You’ll need Flash and there is sound.
Magic Pen is a surprisingly fun flash-based game where you have to get a red circle to roll to a flag. You do this by drawing elements on the page… ramps, structures, hinges, and circles… to push, hit, and roll the ball to its destination.
This is great fun, and there’s something nice about drawing your course in fake crayon :) Of course, if you’re looking for a more serious angle, this is also a great way to learn about physics, but I’m guessing you’re here to play, not learn!
Have a look, and enjoy some Friday Fun. Requires Flash.
I’ve mentioned on this site previously that, on occasion, I’ve wondered what it would be like to manage a Formula 1 team (see my review of Grand Prix Story). I’m still feeding that desire to know, and have recently started to play a browser game called Grand Prix Racing Online (GPRO).
GPRO is a racing management game – let’s make that clear from the start. There are “live” races, but they amount to the browser refreshing every couple of minutes, at which point you get to see how your car is doing. Forza 4, it isn’t, but it’s not meant to be. No, the point here is to train your driver, train your staff, improve your car and facilities, and try to work out the best strategy for winning races. That’s where your skill comes in, not on the track itself.
There’s a heck of a lot to think about. You obviously want the best driver you can get, but at the start of the season the drivers market is crazy with managers looking for recruits. So do you put up with a mediocre driver and come back when it’s all died down, or do you carry on and end up paying a silly salary? Which parts of the car do you upgrade… which parts can you afford to upgrade? And when parts wear out are you going to replace them with new ones or go back to some of the old ones you took off the car earlier?
Race day strategy itself is, I think, the hardest part to get right. You need to set the car up… wing angles, type compound, gear ratio, and so on (fortunately it’s all done on a scale from 0 to 999 rather than getting too technical). You need to decide how much fuel you will have on board, and how much you will put in at each pit stop (yes, there’s still refuelling in this game). And you have to hope your driver doesn’t make a mistake or you get a random failure on the car. All of this combines to make the races rather interesting – what they lack in fancy graphics they make up for in personal investment in seeing your team do well. Or, in my case, not do so well.
Grand Prix Racing Online will appeal to those who enjoy management games – and particularly those who enjoy Formula 1. It’s completely free to play, works in your web browser, and there’s no harm in having a look… unless you count getting addicted :)
One of the earliest games I remember is Breakout – I’m not going to explain it… if you don’t remember it you need to swot up on your gaming history ;)
Smash 2 is much the same as Breakout, but with a slight twist. You can move the paddle up and down to “smash” the ball and get a much more powerful shot. If it’s powerful enough, the ball won’t bounce off blocks but will break through them instead.
This is a great diversion – it won’t keep you for long (I beat the marathon mode pretty quickly), but it will entertain you while you’re playing.
Needs flash and has sound – you can put the sound off without losing any vital gameplay elements
It’s Robert Moog’s birthday! Who’s Robert Moog? He was the founder of Moog Music, and inventor of the Moog analog synthesiser. Moog synths are something of a revered item in the electronic music world… somewhat like a vintage Les Paul guitar or a Steinway piano are in their respective fields.
If you want to have a bit of synthesiser fun, check out today’s Google doodle – a fully functional HTML5 synth. You can record, play back, and muck about with the settings to change the sound.
If you want more Moog goodness, and have an iPhone, check out Animoog for iPhone.
I originally thought this was going to be some alternative version of the classic game Out Run, but no. The story is that nuclear war has broken out, and you have no way of responding. What do you do? Run, of course! Make your way through the level in your truck, using a variety of weapons to clear obstacles like crates, furniture, and nuclear-mutated zombies (there have to be zombies, don’t there?).
The higher your score, the more upgrades you can buy to make your journey that little bit easier. You will need Flash to play, and there is sound but you can turn it off and the game remains playable.
This is a guest post by William Judd
This week, Activision announced the latest version of their popular Call of Duty entertainment property.
This spin, we’ve landed back on the sub-series of the year before last: Black Ops! The first game was set in the 60s in the thick of the Cold War. The plot dealt with Alex Mason, a CIA special ops soldier who was being forced to relieve past operations whilst being held prisoner. The time-hopping plot was fun but a bit nonsensical, just like the Call of Duty franchise itself.
The multiplayer proved as popular as ever, with the inclusion of an in-game currency that could be used to unlock weapons and attachments somewhat nonlinearly. The game also included a well-crafted Zombies mode, where up to four players tried to survive a zombie horde.
The most obvious difference in the sequel is that Black Ops 2 takes place in the near future, 2025 to be exact. That’s when the ‘new Civil War’ has kicked off, with terrorist groups taking advantage of the United States’ increasing reliance on drone-based fighters by subverting them. You play as David Mason, the son of the first game’s protagonist Alex. You’ll also be able to step into Alex’s shoes for a few flashback missions in the 1980s. Both are fighting against Raul Menendez, a mysterious antagonist tied to the Regan-era conflict in Nicaragua.
The game’s singleplayer campaign will be for the first time changed by well how you do. You’ll be able to play Strike Force missions in order to change the outcome of the game, similar to how Mass Effect’s 3 multiplayer affects that game’s finale.
These Strike Force missions are non-linear campaign missions performed by groups of operatives across the world; each time you get to a choke point in the storyline you’ll be able to choose a mission to perform. That group’s success will affect the game’s story. The missions themselves allow you to switch between different members of the team – both drones and humans – in order to accomplish your goals.
Multiplayer has also been overhauled. On consoles, it’ll be at 60 FPS, but as a PC player this isn’t exactly an exciting development. The graphics have also been upgraded to allow for much more realistic details – that’s more like it. In terms of gameplay, there’s not been much yet revealed.
Zombies will make a reappearance as the cooperative mode of choice – Spec Ops and Survival will not. There’ll be new modes and worlds here, but nothing concrete than the fact that the mode runs in the multiplayer engine rather than a jury-rigged singleplayer engine. Woo?
Overall, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The setting looks intensely interesting and the Strike Force missions sound great, but the traditional favourite multiplayer mode doesn’t really sound that different to its predecessors – something that’s sorely needed in what is now the 7th ‘modern’ (i.e. starting from Call of Duty 4) title. Modern Warfare 3 was the first game to sell less copies than its predecessors, and Activision can’t just keep riding the coattails of games past.
Robots definitely sounds like a good start – but will they be balanced in multiplayer? Will we be able to get a tablet in the game as a special weapon? Will we be able to get a cool iPad case as an upgrade for it? Only time will tell – it’s taken Activision seven titles to stop the grenade launcher from being overpowered, so I don’t fancy the balance team in trying to make giant robots fair and fun — or the art team for having to draw terrible iPad covers!
Recent Comments