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PCs aren’t just for work, you know. Oh you did know? Well then
log on to these sites for some fantastic lunchtime gaming.
Coffee Break Arcade
Any game round-up must include at least one
classic: if you favour low-resolution but bright-colour gameplay, then you’ll be
glad to know that Pac Man has been remade in a Flash format compatible with most
browsers. You can find it at
www.coffeebreakarcade.com/games/pacman/instructions.htm. Coffee Break Arcade
also has plenty of other classic time wasters as downloadable Flash files.
www.coffeebreakarcade.com/classic.htm Triplets And Us
This site includes a load of arcade game
favourites from the 80s, including Defender, Missile Command, Space Invaders and
Joust, available for download in Java and Shockwave formats. You can spend hours
reliving your favourite moments as a juvenile delinquent without the need for a
handful of 10 pence pieces. Hint: the Shockwave games on this site seem to load
faster than their Java equivalents.
www.tripletsandus.com/80s/80s_games More classic games
Here are a few more blasts from the past,
and there are plenty more games like these at Free Arcade’s main site,
www10.freearcade.com.
GameSpy Arcade
GameSpy Arcade is a good, free gaming site – one
of the more popular interactive ones around. Download GameSpy’s software and it
searches for the best game server, finds a match, negotiates the connection,
fires up the software, and gives you the go-ahead to start playing.
The program is free to use, although it is ad sponsored. To get rid of the
ads – and get priority tech support – you’re encouraged to register. The list of
games to play is seemingly endless and includes popular classics such as
Half-Life, Unreal, Quake and Descent, as well as Backgammon, Spades, Battle Zone
and Age of Empires.
If you already own the game, that’s okay – GameSpy just uses it. If not,
download trial or demo software from the site; even if you’re stuck with just a
few levels, the excitement’s in playing against others.
www.gamespyarcade.com LawnMower 1.4
Fans of maze games like Pac Man, Xonix and Worm can
rejoice at yet another twist on the genre. In LawnMower, you operate a two-speed
mower to cut your patch of grass as neatly as possible, collecting fuel and
bonuses along the way. Beware of enemies who try to steal your fuel and remember
you have only a limited amount of it, so don’t waste petrol running over already
cut grass. Use the left and right arrow keys to change direction and the up
arrow key to accelerate. www.terminalstudio.com MSN Gaming Zone
This Microsoft site offers plenty of free
games. We played around with Hearts, Bridge and Chess, soundly losing often and
early. But leave it to Microsoft to overload its site with ads, many of them
tacky. The worst? Casinos and those lose-weight-fast ads.
www.zone.com Battle.net
You might be addicted to Blizzard’s Diablo,
StarCraft, or WarCraft role-playing and strategy games. If so, check out
Blizzard’s Battle.net, which is designed specifically for these games.
www.battle.net/intro.shtml Space Haste
Most of us driving-game junkies want more than a
realistic driving experience – we want rocket-like speed that lets us blast
through the streets, defying the boundaries of realism. That’s why we head to
Dreams Interactive’s site to play Space Haste. Seated in a hovercraft modelled
after 50s-style cars, the Space Haste race has no speed limits. Adrenaline
junkies will love the fact that the maximum speed of the hovercraft increases
throughout the game as your skills improve.
What makes this even more challenging is that your reaction time decreases as
your speed increases, so hugging the curves of the track gets even more
difficult. Along the track, you can grab pickups – such as Cloak, Stun and
Shield – that add temporary powers to your vehicle.
www.dreams-interactive.com/spacehaste
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