FMX Team is a motocross game where jumping and pulling off tricks to rack up your score is the name of the game. It's a typical side-scrolling motocross game, but is executed quite well and is fun to play. Unfortunately, the points system in the game is a little bit simplistic, so the best way to rack up your score is to consistently pull off the highest number trick that your rider can do, over and over again.
FMX Team has one gimmick, which is that you have a stable of three riders to choose from, and you can not use any one rider twice in a row. I found the #2 and #3 riders to be the most useful due to them both accelerating faster than the #1 rider, even though rider #1 has a higher top speed.
To get a high score, it seems that you need to find a jump where you can sit and perform flips and tricks over and over again without advancing through the level, but then make sure to make it to the end before the time is up. But if you're not too worried about getting a high score, and just want to have a fun quick time waster, FMX Team is worth your 15 minute coffee break.
Some time wasters seems sort of dumb when written out, but when you play them, you realize how fun they are. This one might be one of those. BoomBot is a game where you place bombs to try to blast your robot character to the goal door on each level.
While it sounds simple, and it starts out simple enough, soon enough the levels start to get pretty challenging. You'll have to interact with various materials and objects, such as rubber blocks, boxes, and even explosive things like oil barrels and boxes of TNT, each of which have their own unique properties.
When placing your bomb, you have full control over where it goes, as well as how strong the blast is. To control the blast strength, hold down your mouse button and the bomb will get bigger and smaller, corresponding to the size of the blast. The challenge comes when you're trying to time a blast for a specific moment, but need it to be a specific size blast. For me, at least, I could never seem to time things so that my blast size was correct at the moment I needed it. But that's the fun of it, right?
If you're a Mac user, did you know that Tetris comes with your Mac? Have a look through your Applications folder - you won't find it there. Thanks to Cory over at TUAW, I now know that Tetris is an Easter Egg that can be found in the Terminal application.
Here are the steps to get the game going:
Open Terminal, which you can find in the Utilities sub-folder in your Applications folder
In the Terminal window, type "emacs", then press Enter
Wait for the Emacs screen to load (you'll see a bunch of welcome information for GNU Emacs)
Press the Escape key, then type "x" then type "tetrix" (no space between "x" and "tetris") and press Enter
If you've followed the instructions exactly, you should now be looking at a working game of Tetris. Controlling the blocks is done with your arrow keys.
Yes, this game of tetris isn't the best implementation you will find. It's very narrow, making it quite frustrating to play. But hey - it's free Tetris, and it's built in to your Mac!
Yet another "tower defense" game? These games are very derivative, but the thing is, they're extremely fun to play. Whiteboard Tower Defense uses a whiteboard metaphor for your battleground, which works insofar as it gives a excuse for a new version of the game with different towers and enemies to deal with.
The graphics are predictably sparse, consisting only of single-color towers and enemies on a white background. The sound effects are cute, but maybe a little annoying - though since most people will likely be playing this at work, make sure to hit the mute button at the top-right of the window. Armor Games seems to consistently produce high-quality browser gaming, and this game while not a standout certainly fits in with their stable of games.
The game play in Whiteboard Tower Defense is surprisingly challenging, with the Easy level providing significantly more difficulty than Easy on the original Tower Defense game. I shudder to think how difficult the higher levels are.
If you get seasick when looking at three-dimensional games, this time waster might not be for you. Coign of Vantage is neat little game that uses your vantage point in three dimensions to change how something looks. The game presents you with a bunch of seemingly randomly scattered blocks, but if you move the cursor on the screen, shifting your vantage point, you can find a point at which an image takes shape.
It might take you a few tries to catch on, but luckily the game gives you hints on the first few. One tip is to always start with your cursor in the center of of the game screen, then move it slowly. Usually, you can look for where the pieces trail off to a point, and try to bring that around to the front. If this doesn't make any sense, try the game and come back, and I bet it will then.
The game is to try to reveal as many of the images as you can in 5 minutes, and you earn back time for quick identifications. Perfect for your next coffee break.
I'm sure Prevention magazine is not the first place you would look for time-wasters but, they have a pretty good variety of them. You can choose to play "fun games" or "brain games."
The fun games offer sudoku, word search, mah jongg, and a fun little thing called Spliterature. In Spliterature you are given a jumbled batch of letters and you have to create two words that fit into a certain category. And you have to do it as fast as you can. The word search is extrememly easy until you get to the bonus round. Then you have a category but no word list and must search for words you think might fit the category.
The brain games page has just as many fun choices which supposedly sharpen your memory and you mind. It's not going to help any of us do Jedi mind tricks any time soon but, the games are fun. You can choose from Street of Dreams where you have to match words into categories - simple until some of the categories are hidden from you.
Pandara's Boutique offers a variety of items and prompts for you to spot the identical items or pick out the one that is different. All as quickly as you can. Heraldry is a memory game where you look at a coat of arms and then recreate it from memory. Other options are Busy Bistro, another memory game and Secret Files where you have to catch falling words in specific folders to organize them.
None of these are games that I would play for hours and hours but I do enjoy a good word game now and then and Prevention offers that and a bit more to keep you busy. The games are good for a quick break and if they exercise your brain in the process, well, that's even better.
This is a strange one. Jacob Seidelin has taken Wolfenstein 3D and Flickr, and created a mashup out of them. WolfenFlickr 3D runs in your browser, and allows you to walk around a floor of Wolfenstein 3D looking at images taken from Flickr as art on the walls. You can choose a Flickr search to use for the in-game images, or use a specific user account.
The graphics are understandably low-res, but the concept is very cool. There is no combat in the game - this one's just a proof of concept that allows you to look at a few photos on the walls. You'll notice quite a number of repeat images, or images that failed to load. Obviously this is still a work in progress, but for a few minutes of distraction give it a try.
I never finished Oregon Trail. I got stuck at the top of a ravine and couldn't figure out how to get my wagon to the other side. But ThuleRoadTrip is a different story.
The graphics, the sounds, and the game style of ThuleRoadTrip are just like Oregon Trail. The difference? You're trying to get to the Atlantis Music Festival and you can get there in an SUV, a hybrid or a turbo charged station wagon.
You buy bags of food and magazines, games and CDs to keep car passengers entertained along the way. You have the opportunity to stop and compete in kayaking, snowboarding and mountain biking races. You can choose to pick up some hitchhikers or leave them on the side of the road.
You can even hunt for food - except instead of deer and squirrels you see pizza and sodas hopping by. The most fun, just like in the original game, is naming your travel companions. The game throws out random comments, like "All the fast food isn't agreeing with Lee, somebody crack a window!" I snickered every time I saw a friend's name come up with a remark like that - just like I was in middle school again.
A few tips: try the hybrid, and make sure you stop along the way and see some of the sights. You actually lose points when you arrive too early.
I spent a lot of time playing Oregon Trail when I was a kid. My Mom even played! ThuleRoadTrip totally made my evening.
Here at Download Squad we've known that International Talk Like a Pirate Day was coming. So we've been practicing our pirate talk. But, if you haven't, check out the Pirate Translator from Pirate Monkeyness so you can talk like a pirate too.
All you have to do is type in your normal message, hit translate and shiver me timbers, your words are turned into pirate-speak. You can choose varying degrees of swashbuckling for your translation so it can be light, peppered or doused with pirate-y interjections.
There are several options for pirate translation -
Finding a good pirate game is not easy. You know, where you can sail around in your pirate ship killing sea monsters and flying the jolly roger and all that good stuff.
SeaFight is an ok pirate game. It's even pretty decent for a free game. Once you get the hang of it and have enough ammunition, you can have a lot of fun. And once you move up a few levels and you can fight other pirates, it's way cool.
First and foremost, make sure you pick a good pirate name when you choose your user name. Try this pirate name generator if you are out of ideas. Once you are all logged in click Take Me to the Battle and start harpooning sea monsters and attacking ships.
When you run out of ammunition you have to log out from the battle map and go back to the main screen. You can bid on ammunition in the bazaar, upgrade weapons and purchase ammunition in the weapons tab, pick up quests in the pub or upgrade your ship in the shipyard.
You can join a crew, or become part of a guild. All the general role-playing game stuff is there. Play for free or upgrade for a premium account. The free stuff should keep you busy for a few days at least. Til all your pirate urges wear off. So, check out SeaFight and play like a pirate today!
If you can't figure out why everyone is so into fantasy football and think sports in general are like, totally lame, you might be interested in the Fantasy Fashion League. And no, I'm not kidding.
Instead of "drafting" football players for your team you choose various designers and celebrities. Maybe you think it's going to be a really hot week for Jessica Alba and she's been wearing Calvin Klein lately. Mark it on your line-up card and hope she earns In Style's Look of the Day or gets mentioned on Women's Wear Daily. That's the way you can rack up some points and show your mad fashion skills.
You can even earn extra points if celebrities and designers you choose for your line-up card appear on the E! pre-show for the Emmys or the CMA awards.
Think this is the stupidest thing ever? Well, it might keep your significant other busy while you enter your fantasy football picks at least.
Everyone loves free games. Everyone knows ninjas are cool. And Flash with physics is pretty sweet, too.
Roll it all together, and you've got N: a simple but addictive platformer that is very reminiscent of the old Loderunner games. You mission is to navigate 2-D levels and collect all the gold you can. You'll have to be careful, however, because the game's ragdoll physics can play havoc with your tiny ninja self.
The controls couldn't be simpler: left and right arrows to move, shift to jump. Hold shift to jump higher.
The environment seems fairly tame at first, but some rooms contain I Wanna be The Guy -style booby traps. You've got to keep your Ninja wits sharp, or some springy block will shoot out and trampoline you to your doom. There are tons of rooms to explore - including a number of user-created levels - and it's insanely addictive.
N is Flash-based, and downloads are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux so everyone can enjoy the updated old-school action. Hell, you can even get versions for Xbox Arcade or your Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. Awesome!
If N's not enough to quench your thirst for gaming, don't forget to check out some of our previous posts!
So, you're still looking for just the right way to waste some time? Not enough to keep you busy in your cube? FunOrb should keep you busy for a few hours. Those hours might be spent playing a lot of games to find one you like, but, hey, you're still wasting time, aren't you?
There are lots of little, simple puzzle games, think Bejeweled and the like, as well as Pool, arcade games and strategy games. All of the games have music and sound, so turn down the speakers before you get started.
As a kid, at family reunions and holidays like Thanksgiving, my cousins and I used to play a variation of Super Mario Bros. that we liked to call, "Suicide Mario." The goal of the game was not to complete the level as directed, but to find the most creative way to kill our Mario or Luigi character. Bonus points were awarded for quick, hilarious and extra sadistic acts of hara-kiri. It was a great way to infuse new life into a game that we could all beat in our sleep, and the idea eventually spun off into other variations like, "Suicide Zelda," "Suicide Starfox" and in later years, "Suicide Golden Eye."
This is why [adult swim]'s Five Minute's to Kill (Yourself) easily earned its place as one of my favorite Flash games, well, ever. In that game, you are an office worker who has five minutes to kill yourself. You inflict damage upon your character by annoying co-workers, microwaving metal, stapling your head, running yourself through the shredder, that kind of thing. It's hilarious and awesome.
Now, the game team at [adult swim] has released a sequel: Five Minutes to Kill (Yourself) 2. This time, instead of trying to kill yourself at work, you are trying to kill yourself at a family reunion. Even before I played the game, I was already in love based on the concept alone.
In the original game, you used your keyboard to move around and select objects to inflict self-injury. The new game uses the mouse instead, which offers better mobility, and I dare say might make the game a bit easier. There are also several "areas" to explore where you can slit your proverbial pixelated wrists, each area has its own unique death trabs -- the beach has sharks and life-guardless pools, the pavilion has drunken relatives and hot oil, the park has fire-ant hills. You get the drill. To get certain injuries, you have to first collect items that will trigger their release. This makes the game a bit more challengng, as you have to find what someone might want before they can hit you with a baseball bat or hug your out of drunken fervor.
Real suicide is not funny. Pixelated suicide, however, is hilarious.
You can play Five Minutes to Kill (Yourself) 2 at [adult swim].com
Snake is a quickly played, easily addictive game. It's just like the Snake games of old where you have to control your snake around a box, picking up things along the way. You can't touch the sides or yourself or the game starts over. The good part? Much better graphics.
Obviously the longer the snake becomes, the more difficult it is to maneuver. And those darn mice always pop up in the most tricky places.
But, if you're like me and played Snake when you were a bit younger, your fingers may remember what to do quite quickly. After running into walls about four times I was able to play a much longer game.
It's a nice little flash game that is good for burning off a few minutes at a time without sucking you in for an hour.
FMX Team is a motocross game where jumping and pulling off tricks to rack up your score is the name of the game. It's a typical side-scrolling motocross game, but is executed quite well and is fun to play. Unfortunately, the points system in the game is a little bit simplistic, so the best way to rack up your score is to consistently pull off the highest number trick that your rider can do, over and over again. 
If you're a Mac user, did you know that Tetris comes with your Mac? Have a look through your Applications folder - you won't find it there. Thanks to Cory over at TUAW, I now know that 
