Insert Coin

Impressive stop-motion animation of coins on a black backdrop in a retro-gaming stylee; includes a brief explanation of how they did it at the end.



[Via Geekosystem]

Little Master Cricket

A 'rag-doll' style cricket batting game that works surprisingly well. You can either go out blasting or try for the slow and steady approach. My best score so far: 143 282 378 522.

Little Master Cricket

They fight crime! Well, orcs.

Caddoc, standing around seven foot tall and with axes seemingly emanating from every orifice, is good at knitting. No, wait, not knitting! Melee combat. That's it. His elfin buddy [E'lara], as well as possessing breasts of +3 later life back pain, is more of an archer, loosing arrows from her bow with a speed and accuracy that only comes from wearing entirely no clothes.

- Rich McCormick previews Hunted: The Demon's Forge, PC Gamer, May 2010

A newfound and unexpected admiration for Vin Diesel

Vin Diesel is such a Dungeons and Dragons obsessive that he's written the foreword to the 30th anniversary commemorative book. And while filming xXx he had a fake tattoo of his D&D character's name, Melkor, on his stomach.

He even took to introducing his castmates to the game. He would play with Dame Judi Dench after night shoots on the Chronicles Of Riddick and went as far as to show her his Dungeons and Dragons books and explain to her the different properties of Elementals.

- Popbitch

[Geek power!]

Dogfight 2

A simple browser game set in the skies of WW1, ideally designed to keep you occupied for a few minutes. Keep your eye out for the Hun in the sun, mind.

Dogfight 2

Sworbs

In this entertaining Flash game the usual 'match three' puzzle is complicated by extra powers that can be earned by collecting orbs. Watch out for the skulls...

Sworbs

Throw Me

Kate Russell, the BBC's Click website-hunter, included this game in her latest roundup, and she's right about it being *addictive*...  Swing the little guy round and round in big long loops to build up momentum at the start, then fling him into the sky and see how long you can keep him flying.  Clouds give him a boost, particularly the coloured ones, as do the construction cranes at ground level; you also have a set of balloons you can use for a certain length of time to give yourself a boost (spacebar).  For the record, my best effort so far is 5120 7748 feet (max altitude) and 35,978 59,969 80,128 154,895 feet (max distance).  Right, I'm stopping playing now, else I'll not get anything done. 

 

Throw Me

Warning Forever

If you fancy an old-fashioned space shooter game, try this freeware effort from Japan - not only are the graphics suitably old-school and crisp, the AI learns from your methods and sends increasingly more difficult boss ships down in an attempt to eradicate your gallant little fighter craft. This is one of those games where there's no need to decide when to fire: yep, just fire at everything, all the time.

Warning Forever

[Note that you have to download the .exe to play, so this isn't suitable to play at work]

Old-school gaming

Asteroids (1979, Atari) Of all the early monochrome classics, Asteroids was my favourite, because it's truly bleak. Rather than aliens or robots, your enemies are unthinking lumps of rock that are hurtling through space. Twirling somewhere in the middle of this cluttered void is your tiny, heartbreakingly fragile spaceship, armed only with a feeble electric peashooter. If Asteroids has a message, it's this: you are insignificant, the universe doesn't care about you, and you are definitely going to die. Brilliant.

Pac-Man (1980, Namco) Pac-Man himself may be an ultimately unknowable yellow disc, but his spectral pursuers had proper googly eyes and everything. And nicknames. And blood types. OK, not blood types. But this was one of the first games with identifiable characters, which goes a long way to explaining its success.

3D Deathchase (1983, Micromega) A Spectrum game in which all you had to do was avoid trees and shoot fellow motorcyclists. Simple, speedy pseudo-3D graphics meant suddenly you were starring in the bike section from Return Of The Jedi. Yes. You really bloody were.

Stop The Express (1983, Hudson Soft) A rare Japanese Spectrum game, this was an insanely breakneck combat/platformer in which you had to scamper along the top of a runaway train, fighting assassins and dodging obstacles. Best of all, when you beat it, your sole reward was a caption reading "Congraturation! You sucsess!"

 

- Charlie Brooker, 'The best videogames of all time (part 1)', Guardian, 5 April 2008

Memento cursor game

At first this minimalist little game seems all too simple. But soon all is revealed and the task becomes far more interesting, and even a bit conceptual. Am I playing a game now?

Cursor*10

Are Tauren a Republican demographic?

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul is reputedly staging a political march tonight inside the online RPG World of Warcraft in support of his campaign. Sounds like he's setting himself up for a Democrat - oops, I mean Alliance - raid if you ask me.

- Joystiq.com, 30 December 2007

Feeding baby: GOOD. Cat urine in hair: BAD

Parents 'played computer games as babies starved'

A couple in Reno, Nevada, have admitted child neglect after allegedly becoming so obsessed with online games that they left their babies to starve. The 22-month-old boy and an 11-month-old girl were severely malnourished and near death last month when social workers took them to hospital, authorities said. Both were doing well in foster care, prosecutor Kelli Ann Viloria told the Reno Gazette-Journal. Michael Straw, 25, and Iana Straw, 23, face up to 12 years in prison. Police said the girl's hair was matted with cat urine while her brother's lack of muscle development caused him difficulty in walking.

Associated Press in Reno, United States

Monkey Diving!

Oh it's been years and years since this completely took over my old workplace - - and it's still fearsomely addictive gameplay. Coax the monkeys to dive into the rolling surf, but make sure they hit the waves and not the evil rocks... and of course it gets harder and harder as you progress.

Monkey Cliff Dive

Burger contraption

Can you fine-tune the insanely-complicated burger-making apparatus to produce a decent meal? An entertaining brain-teaser to spend 5 or 10 minutes on.

Lunchtime

[Courtesy of B3ta. Requires plugins]

Tower defence game

This nifty little home-made game is a good way to spend 5 or 10 minutes blowing things up mercilessly. Place your towers along the maze route to ensure the invading beasties get blown to smithereens before they raid your treasury. Gets progressively harder, naturally.

Flash Element TD | Novel Concepts

[Courtesy of B3ta]

Bejewelled 2

If you've got a spare 10 minutes and fancy a simple but fun game, try Bejewelled on Popcap. Addictive Tetris-like fun, with colourful graphics and satisfying gameplay. The gems explode nicely when you line up a good chain-reaction combo.

Bejewelled 2

[Click 'Play Express' - it'll open in a separate window. The 'Action' one is the most fun, says I - can get quite tense near the end. Requires the usual plugins]

Notepad Invaders

Good solid clicky shooting fun from B3ta, which is strangely reminiscent of a rather familiar clicky shooting fun space game from the late 1970s. I'll wager you'll recognise it.

Use the mouse to control your ship. As a guide, in my one try I managed a score of 13,060. As you get an extra life for completing each level it can get a little bit easy until the faster levels.

Notepad Invaders

Trampoline man

The B3ta newsletter linked to this ad-game - shoot the daredevil chap from the cannon and land him on the trampoline to progress through the levels. It gets more tricky and entertaining once the 'bouncer' pads come in and you can carome the poor sod all over the place.

Trampoline-y game

[Managed 20,300 points in my one go at it]

Don't shoot your eye out!

Noisy shooty fun here - make your little kid ricochet the shots of his BB gun around the forest, and earn points for the number of bounces. Makes cool peeoww! noises. Try not to shoot yourself too often - although that's fun too.

Don't Shoot Your Eye Out!

[Courtesy of Louwrens, who managed 254. I got 242...]