The Best Free Online (in-browser or downloadable) Games

Brutal: http://www.kongregate.com/games/IcyLime/multitask

http://games.adultswim.com/cardboard-box-assembler-puzzle-online-game.html

once again, somehow adult swim is on the forefront of experimental games

(that game is great)

The levels are limited to six sides of a box, so it never gets super-'throw-the-controller-at-the-wall'-frustrating. It does my head in, but in a totally enjoyable way.

that game is very good

101 Free Games 2011 from 1UP.com

they got this thing where they break up their feature articles into 19 pages now. kind of sucks but then again it's another 101 list

Pretty easy way to lose a few hours in your afternoon: http://games.yahoo.com/game/all-we-need-is-brain

yeah, that is for real clever

(spoiler) the stage where you have to shoot the brains is inspired

SPOILER
Man, that took forever for to discover -- and I'd actually almost figured out a way to beat that level without shooting the brains.

PS -- I'm getting a lot of these games from NPR, believe it or not: http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=127036078

http://armorgames.com/play/10606/elephant-quest

Achievement Quest RPG, sort of

Special for Mordy: "Digital: A Love Story" sequel "Don't Take It Personally Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story" just came out.
http://scoutshonour.com/donttakeitpersonallybabeitjustaintyourstory/

two strikes make me not want to try it, just from the screenshots - a)fake facebook gameplay b)"weeaboo"

i doubt anyone will even remember that word in 2027

somebody else be the guinea pig!

ugh i feel horrible for playing that elephant quest RPG for like a half hour, damn my compulsive RPG addictions

i hate you for getting me hooked on that elephant game too

ugh i feel horrible for playing that elephant quest RPG for like a half hour, damn my compulsive RPG addictions

Somewhere, a WoW addict just emerged from a 36-hour poopsocking fest and read that, and shed a lonely tear

i'm gonna play the weeaboo game. i will report back

ok, i got distracted by and beat Elephant Quest first. now onto the weeaboo game.

so uh -- there are definitely some interesting parts and i'd say ludically (syntactically?) the game is really interesting wrt to how it's structured (real life narratives running alongside basically digital narratives and you kinda have to flip through both and it can be frustrating and distracting, much like irl!). however: the plot feels really half-baked and the very first plot point is about an underage girl trying to hook up with you (a male teacher). the whole conceit - that you can basically read all the private messages of your students - is pretty disturbing, and the game feels even more on the rails than Digital. Digital was quiet and melancholic. This has a scene where you (the gamer) realizes that a student is going to kill herself long before the PC realizes. And then you're basically helpless to intervene in any way. irl I had a student who I had a similar concern about and I dropped everything to talk to admin/other ppl of authority to make sure there was an intervention before anything actually happened. So it's very frustrating playing this game and realizing that there's basically nothing you can do.

So i'd say there's some really interesting stuff and the designer is - imho - someone worth paying attention to. But this particular game is really uncomfortable to play in apparently unintentional ways and unlike Digital which was really understated, the themes in this one feel WRIT LARGE and super obvious, maybe even cloying.

I'm sure someone could say something interesting about how it's paying homage to all those late 90s Japanese bishōjo eroge without quite crossing into that realm (re: music cues, visual style, that kind of aesthetized sense of longing/youth/etc), but one reason games like True Love worked was bc you were a student (and when I played it, I was a similarly aged student) and this ethical stuff wasn't even present. Here it is and it's really uncomfortable and feels poorly thought out. If the writer is trying to illuminate the ethics inherent in those games -- that seems a little redundant at this point.

Oh, one more thing -- the writing here is much sloppier than in Digital. Digital really caught the voice and tone of BBS's and - like I said - the writing was really understated. This writing makes Braid's look restrained.

I played it yesterday too. I think Mordy hit every nail on the head. Liked the frustration of the parallel fb/rl conversations, thought that was novel and I thought it'd be really neat if it "punished" you for over- or -under-reading the messages in time -- like in real life how you can look like a real dick if you mid-convo bruck out yr iphone, or, alternatively, miss out on something time-sensitive on yr phone -- but i suppose it wasn't really about "control"/"consequences" -- i mean, there was no game to it, it is a visual novel (I am new to the medium).

I thought that the idea of 4chan as a sort of Greek chorus was a GENIUS idea what wasn't carried out as effectively as I thought it could be, I felt I spent too much time trying ot figure out which anon was which student instead of "getting" that it didn't matter. TBH I didn't even get the greek chorus thing until I saw someone mention it on a board later and I was like "ohhh, that was the point." Maybe that's me being dense and uneducated.

Yet to play Digital, really can't procrastinate on these papers anymore though so... in the summer I suppose!

Also, the fucking conclusion in this game was trite as FUCK, v v disappointing. Not that the lead-up wasn't, but... you know.

Ahhhh: http://www.pixeljam.com/dinorun/

http://worldsbiggestpacman.com/

http://chrome.angrybirds.com/
never got around to playing this, guess it's finally time.

hey this game is not very good; it's like every other flash game ever

Pretty much! It's... there.

it sucks ass

yeh, this isn't great. why has everyone in the world gone nuts over it again?

COS YOU TOUCH IT?

...& it touches you

...angry birds

well the advantages over castle crusher or whatever the originator of this style was, aaare:

i. not non-nerd-exclusive graphic design
ii. this particular schtick feels a lot less boring with touch control
iii. the level design & progression is actually thought through pretty well

iv. makes a lot more sense as a 5-minutes-play-on-each-commute phone game than as a laptop/desktop game.

iv. makes a lot more sense as a 5-minutes-play-on-each-commute phone game than as a laptop/desktop game.

Yeah I played a lot of it on the train for a couple of weeks but the desktop version feels shitty in comparison despite being identical.

Lately, largely from following tips on this thread, I have had a go at some Kongregate games:

Desktop Tower Defense 1.5 & Pro - Hugely enjoyed 1.5, despite having to google for tips to beat some of the bosses. Possibly the most addictive game I've come across in years, making the only sensible approach to get 1 respectable score and quit4lyfe. Couldn't see the point of Pro. I mean, I'm sure everyone but me played this to death ages ago anyhow.

Cursed Treasure - Not bad if you're desperate for another tower defense game. The difficulty curve is bumpy.

Morningstar (http://armorgames.com/play/3814/morningstar) - Lovely little p&c adventure, 1 or 2 of slightly wtf puzzles whilst others were boringly obvious, but a great old-skool-sf atmosphere and a jolly way to pass a couple of hours.

Civilizations Wars - A lot more polished than I expected, given the spurious plurals. Very nice artwork and a pretty elegant interface. Gameplay wise this is not a million miles from Populous, on a much smaller scale. Unfortunately you have to grind through the levels several times to beat the bosses, and the variations on gameplay they came up with to make this more interesting I found deeply annoying (Play the game as if you have to look at the screen through a pinhole in the bottom of a sock! No, ta.) I abandoned it before I beat the last boss, but it's definitely worth a look.

Lately, largely from following tips on this thread, I have had a go at some Kongregate games:

Desktop Tower Defense 1.5 & Pro - Hugely enjoyed 1.5, despite having to google for tips to beat some of the bosses. Possibly the most addictive game I've come across in years, making the only sensible approach to get 1 respectable score and quit4lyfe. Couldn't see the point of Pro. I mean, I'm sure everyone but me played this to death ages ago anyhow.

Cursed Treasure - Not bad if you're desperate for another tower defense game. The difficulty curve is bumpy.

Morningstar (http://armorgames.com/play/3814/morningstar) - Lovely little p&c adventure, 1 or 2 of slightly wtf puzzles whilst others were boringly obvious, but a great old-skool-sf atmosphere and a jolly way to pass a couple of hours.

Civilizations Wars - A lot more polished than I expected, given the spurious plurals. Very nice artwork and a pretty elegant interface. Gameplay wise this is not a million miles from Populous, on a much smaller scale. Unfortunately you have to grind through the levels several times to beat the bosses, and the variations on gameplay they came up with to make this more interesting I found deeply annoying (Play the game as if you have to look at the screen through a pinhole in the bottom of a sock! No, ta.) I abandoned it before I beat the last boss, but it's definitely worth a look.

Argh, laggy browser. Sorry.

Morning star was fun.

Cool stuff.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/568517

frustrating/addictive

Civilizations Wars - A lot more polished than I expected, given the spurious plurals. Very nice artwork and a pretty elegant interface. Gameplay wise this is not a million miles from Populous, on a much smaller scale. Unfortunately you have to grind through the levels several times to beat the bosses

Yeah, I found this an absolutely infuriating design decision - the game was v. successfully making me feel like some kind of invincible wonder-leader whose cunning led his people to victory, and then it intentionally took this away.

pretty charming little game: http://armorgames.com/play/11371/the-i-of-it

So I am stuck in 1990 when it comes to video games. All I am looking for is any old, decent golf game I can download for free and play on my PC. Also, some sort of casino (poker, 21, slots, etc) game too. But all I know to do is google for "freeware golf game" or something and it's not giving me much (lots bs ad links). Is CNET a good place to find simple, free games, or is there any one site to find a bunch of this stuff? Thanks!

freeware isn't really a thing anymore. try these google searches with the word 'flash' instead (and look thru places like kongregate). sorry i don't know any specific games tho...

alrighty, thanks

There's the free online tiger woods game thats pretty fun. It requires you to register and stuff but it might be worth your time.

EA sports? cool, thanks.

Definitely second the mention of Perfect Cherry Blossom way upthread. Haven't really enjoyed too many video games for while now, but this is fun as hell:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtthnx9ptP8

I don't know if this has been posted: http://www.kongregate.com/games/mastermax/ultimate-assassin-3