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Posts with tag arcade

Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Time-Wasters

5 Sites For Old-School Gaming in Your Browser -Time Waster

Enough of this practical advice and useful downloads! I know you've been working hard, and you're probably itching for some fun and excitement. If you've read some of my previous Time Wasters, you'll know that I've got a soft spot for old school gaming.

Grab your browser, and get ready for some classic, low-fi action!

Neave Games
specializes in making flash remakes of classic games, and has a few tasty selections for you. Among them are Frogger, Space Invaders, Tetris, and the old Nokia cellphone game Snake (pictured). Rad.

c64s.com
is dedicated to my first computer and gaming system, the Commodore 64. It's been on DS before, but they've added a lot of great new games over the years. Packacuda, Wizard's Lair, Crystal Castles. It's hard to believe how good some of the games were for the trusty old c64.

Read more →

Filed under: Fun, Games, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Time-Wasters

Knuckleheads - Time Waster

Knucklehead TIme Waster shotHave you ever felt like a really colorful, but inexplicably ticked off tiki-head chained against your will to another tiki-head? Did it upset you that the only way you could get through your tiki existence was to work with the head to which you were chained, like it or not? If so, stay far away from Knuckleheads, today's Time Waster. We don't want you to get flashbacks.

If the idea of manuevering little heads on chains around an arcade world reminiscient of those of your childhood (but with better graphics), Knuckleheads might be the escape from the month end paperwork you were looking for.

The idea is to move your heads forward while hitting as many desirable targets (little star capsules, to start with) as you possibly can. Using your keyboard, the left and right arrows move your heads backward and forward, and the up and down arrows allow you to lengthen and shorten your chain. The game gets progressively trickier, calling upon your coordination and patience to hit correctly colored monsters with the matching head, avoid spikes, and adhere to some really unsavory sounding sticky blocks.

A minute to learn, a lifetime to master? Yeah, well, maybe not. Nevertheless, Knuckleheads is entertaining, and even when you've pretty well mastered it, there's something really pleasing about the squash of a tiny grimacing head against a sticky block.

[Thanks Jason!]

Filed under: Fun, Games, Freeware, Time-Wasters

Rolling Madness - Today's Time Waster

marble madness clone rolling madnessMarble Madness is hands-down one of my favorite arcade games of all time. That said, I really stunk at it. Rolling Madness is a clone of Marble Madness, done using OpenGL and other open source tools... It looks great, and plays perfectly. Unfortunately, I'm just as bad at this as I was the original. The author appears to have used the same music and sounds from the original game, which I hope doesn't cause any trouble, because this one really takes me back. I can almost hear that pocketful of quarters jingling. One of the neat features in Rolling Madness is that you can switch from a true perspective (possible with today's machines), as you see in the screenshot here, or you can use the old perspective from the original, which was really an isometric view. Either way, hours of frustrating ball rolling is yours to be had. I tried using the keyboard controls, but the mouse is a nice change of pace. This has definitely secured a spot in my MAME cabinet (which does not yet exist). The only negative I can find is that it's Windows only. Thanks to David for sending this in!

Filed under: Fun, Games, Freeware, Time-Wasters

The Last Starfighter - Today's Time Waster

last starfighterThis is all too sweet. Some lucky dudes got a replica of the arcade cabinet used in the movie The Last Starfighter, and they are preparing to load a copy of the game used in the movie on it. Well, the game Starfighter is also a replica... But it's fun! And it's free. And with a little soldering know-how and a few spare weekends, maybe you too could build such a replica. The one they bought was used in a documentary on the movie (which is odd enough in itself), as the original was destroyed. And as one astute digg'er noticed, these guys have also given us a replica (mostly) of the game Jeff Bridges plays in his arcade in Tron, Space Paranoids! Now if they would slap together the Global Thermonuclear War game from War Games, we're all set...

[Via digg]

Filed under: Fun, Games, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Freeware, Time-Wasters

Guimp: Tiny arcade games - Today's Time Waster

Guimp gamesBreak out the magnifying glass or be prepared to squint: Guimp is almost certainly the world's smallest arcade. It has more than a dozen games, most of them classics, all of them fitting in a square with 18 pixels to a side and playable in your browser. Among the classics you'll find clones of Pong, Breakout, Pac-Man, Asteroids, and Space Invaders. Some of them are astonishingly fun despite the squint-factor, which I is a testament to the originals' solid design.

[Via GameSetWatch]

Filed under: Fun, Games, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Time-Wasters

Burger tyme - Today's Time Waster

burger tyme today's time wasterJust the other day we were bouncing ideas around for the "next big game-to-movie franchise" and I happened to blurt out Burger Time, the classic arcade game. What game was more perfect to sit in your mom-and-pop skating rink than Burger Time? I mean, here's a game that entices you to a) put in more quarters, and b) eat more burgers. Awesome! Well it worked on me apparently, because burgers are my favorite food. Almost. Anyway, I found a great Flash port of the game, called Burger Tyme. No sounds, but the gameplay is pretty accurate. Unfortunately, I am just as bad at this version as I was with the original, so I have no idea if it apes the arcade version beyond level one. Post high scores in the comments, as we saw some killer times with Escapa... Does anyone see Burger King appropriating this someday soon?

Filed under: Fun, Games, Windows, Freeware

Torus Trooper - Today's Time Waster

Torus
Trooper

Oh, my lord. Torus Trooper is the sort of game I should not be allowed to play before bedtime. Torus Trooper is a fly-through-infinite-space-and-kill-the-baddies top-down shooter for Windows that reminds me of Galaga and Tempest but I'm sure will remind younger gamers of more recent console fare. It's an extraordinarily fast-paced game with gorgeous wireframe graphics and a frenetic techno soundtrack, and not only do you have a constant barrage of baddies and projectiles to contend with, you also have to navigate a twisting, turning playing field that zooms past at lightning speed. Best of all, even on my lousy 32MB video card, Torus Trooper runs at full kick, even at 1280x1024.

[Thanks, Jonathan!]

Update: Reader AMD writes in to tell us that Torus Trooper is also available on Linux and Mac OS X. Thanks, AMD!

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

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