Use Boxmen is a Flash game that requires you to solve each level by reaching the goal, which is a box that your Boxman must collect. You can run and jump like in most games like this, but your Boxman has an additional ability: he's able to spawn clones of himself which will continue to do whatever it is he's doing at the moment the clone is spawned. So, if your Boxman is standing still, the clone will forever stand in that place. If he's running to the right, the clone will continue running to the right.

The puzzles get fairly complicated, requiring multiple interactions between the clones in ways that are sometimes not intuitive.

Probably the nicest surprise of Use Boxmen is the soundtrack. The first thing I tend to do when trying a new time waster is look for the mute button for the game's music. In Use Boxmen, I found myself muting iTunes. That doesn't happen too often.

Graphics are Everything is a tongue-in-cheek name for a game that is anything but fancy graphically. The game involves bare-bones wireframe shapes on a plain white screen. You control a circle, and can make it bounce by clicking and dragging it in a direction. Releasing the mouse will send the ball flying in the direction of the cursor.

The goal of the game is to collect certain shapes while avoiding others. There are also special shapes that will interact with your ball by making it more or less bouncy, and other behaviors.

For such a simple-looking game, Graphics are Everything actually contains compelling gameplay, which I suppose is the point. It can be addictive trying to manage to writhe your ball through a small gap to successfully collect triangles or large circles while avoiding the squares. I realize how boring that sounds written out, but Graphics are Everything is worth a try.

Minim is a puzzle game where your goal is to deconstruct molecules until they disappear. This is done by sequentially clicking any two nodes of the same number that are linked by a single strand. The tutorial levels are deceptively simple, showing the mechanics of the games, but the puzzles become very difficult very fast. Luckily, the game is rendered in 3D, and allows you to freely rotate the molecule you are working on so that you can determine your best move.

Interestingly, Minim is the first free online Flash game that I've seen advertise that it has a companion iPhone version. This seems like a brilliant move - get people hooked on the free online version, then sell them a version they can take with them.

Minim is very pretty and quite challenging, two things that any good puzzle game must have. It's exceedingly satisfying to finish of a particularly complex molecule, and that is what will likely have you coming back again and again to play more Minim.

Mirror's Edge is a successful 3D first-person platformer where players take control of Faith, a runner who's job is to transmit messages without garnering the ire of government surveillance. If you're not familiar with the franchise, it doesn't really matter; Mirror's Edge 2D is still a fantastic 2D flash game based on Mirror's Edge.

In the 2D version, you control Faith by using keyboard keys to run, duck, slide, climb, wallrun, and jump. The style of the game reminds me of a classic version of Mission Impossible on the Commodore 64. The most charming element of Mirror's Edge 2D is the rapid yet smooth way that Faith moves. The game is all about maintaining momentum, and it's easily to see why after playing the game for only a few minutes.

Mirror's Edge 2D has both a story mode and time trial mode, giving it considerable replay value for a free online game. This game feels like what I wish side-scrolling platform games had been like in their heyday.