Do you remember Snake on those old cellphones? Well, to be honest, the default mobile games never got much better. Now we often find Bejeweled spin-offs and Frogger fakes.

There’s a whole different story with Windows Mobile phone games. Because it’s almost like a tiny computer, there are a ton of gaming possibilities. Add that touchscreen, and let the games come in.

Standard free Windows Mobile games are still mediocre, but downloading additional ones is hardly a hassle. Today we’ll present you ten fun games for your Windows Mobile.

Skinz Sudoku

Sudoku is a free Windows Mobile game that should be present on all mobile phones. Although it’s possible on a standard keypad, things become infinitely more fun when using a touchscreen.

Skinz Sudoku both looks good and is an incredible time-waster. You can play sudoku on 4 levels – easy, normal, hard and insane. The puzzles are generated on the spot, so don’t be afraid to run out. For the die-hards among us, it’s also possible to make small number annotations – almost necessary when playing hard or insane.

Tangled Bugs

Tangled Bugs is an incredibly fun game. The concept has previously been pursued in a number of flash games, but it never gets old.

The goal of the game is to make sure none of the threads cross each other. You achieve this by moving around the bugs and rearranging the pattern. Don’t be fooled at first, this game gets incredibly hard – the right screenshot above is merely the fourth level.

Pocket Gravity

I’m not sure if Pocket Gravity can be considered a game. It was actually more of an experiment. But it’s fun to play around with, and that’s what matters.

Pocket Gravity is a mobile physics simulator. Build free, anchored or pivotal shapes and let the laws of nature come into motion. Look at the screenshots above for some inspiration, but the real fun begins when you start making cars and muppets.

Pipes

Most of you puzzlers will recognize Pipes. The objective is to make sure that all tubes are connected in a close circuit, accessing all the little blue nodes. Make sure that water can flow through your structure unhindered, and you clear the level.

Again, there are multiple difficulties; very easy, easy, normal, hard, very hard and insane. Be sure not to overestimate yourself. This game shows you why plumbers deserve their paycheck.

DoubleSkill

DoubleSkill is one of my personal favorites. It’s a combination of a brickless breakout and an unnerving balance act.

With your touchscreen, you both move the top- and tilt the lower bar. Although you have to catch the falling objects every time, you need to be very careful not to drop the lower ball. DoubleSkill is a fitting name, and high scores are a matter of long practice.

Binary

Not generally regarded as interesting for most people, Binary is a game designed for programmers. After all, you need to be able to compute binary (pun intended).

Click on the bricks to switch their value. You can make a line disappear when the Byte’s value is the same as the line number.

3210

3210 is a very original game. Instructions were originally not included (the developer thought they’d confuse the user more than just ‘finding out’) but I’ll give it a shot.

The lower cannon shoots balls in the air. The balls bounce off the surface until they lose their momentum and stop mid-air. Hovering around, the ball will grow until it touches any other surface. By hitting them with other balls, you decrease their value. If you manage to hit them thrice, they disappear.

Score points by making as much balls disappear as possible. You die when a ball crosses, or grows back over your dotted line.

Aquella Ball

Aquella ball is another very familiar free Windows Mobile game. The objective is to ‘clear’ more than 75% of the playing field.

When striking you stylus – horizontal or vertical – a barrier slowly grows until it touches two sides of the field. Have a ball touch your growing barrier is fatal, but a finished barrier is lasting.

BlackFlip

The goal of blackflip is to coat the whole field in a single color – black or white.

Switch colors by tracking a path over the squares. You can track back or cross your path, but doing so will wipe out all progress in between.

Chain Reaction

Hitting the screen anywhere sets off an explosion. Reaching any of the white dots will set off consequent explosions. The goal is to ignite as many of the 50 balls as you can, with that one hit.

Each game consists of three rounds, with the points adding up. How to win? Try to reach 150!

These are just ten free Windows Mobile games. Visit XFlib Games for ten more! Do you know any other cool mobile games? Tell us in the comments section below.

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The Atari 2600 was the console that popularized cartridge-based game systems as well as helped spur the emergence of third party game developers for consoles.  Its legacy is with us today and in its heyday, the Atari 2600, also known as the Atari VCS, was one of the longest living consoles ever made.

Thus, it is no surprise that collectors and enthusiasts go mad for the console and games made for it, even today.  Because of the console’s influence and timelessness, there are many sites on the web devoted to it, but which are the best?

AtariAge

Though not strictly devoted to the Atari 2600 (the site provides information on 2600’s brethren like the 5200, 7800, and the like), AtariAge provides a huge amount of information about the console and should be the starting point for any budding collector or anyone who just wants to know and love the 2600.

The main feature of interest at AtariAge is the Rarity Guide, a huge database of pages profiling 2600 games.  The Atari 2600 Rarity Guide can be navigated to by selecting “2600” on the homepage’s navigation side bar.  One there, you can search AtariAge’s ample database for any game you desire.

Each game’s profile provides valuable information for the collector and enthusiast alike.  Things like rarity ranks, scans of cartridges and manuals, as well as links to eBay and other online auctions make AtariAge almost a one stop shop for a collector.

If you have little to no interest in actually owning the game and just want to play, then there is information for you too.  Links are provided to reviews, tips and tricks, hacks of the game, as well as links to download the ROM of the game for play in an emulator.

As would be expected, information is more complete for more popular games, but on the whole, profiles are usually pretty comprehensive and are getting more so every day.

AtariAge is also a common stomping ground for homebrewers, people who make games today for the console, so if you want to get on the cutting edge of game design for the Atari 2600, AtariAge is a must.

The website also provides tons of information about other aspects of the system and the culture that surrounds it.  There is a nice list of available hardware, information for people who would like to program the console, the history of the console, and a forum.  The forum provides even more information with some very dedicated posters providing seas of information about all aspects of the console.

Atarimania

Like AtariAge, Atarimania is not exclusively for the Atari 2600, but does have many helpful tools for people who love the console.  Some of the coolest features include a bunch of old 2600 commercials, under “Video,” after clicking “2600” at the top, and scans and photos of all sorts of Atari 2600 related paraphernalia.

Another big draw of Atarimania is the nice ROM collection provided by the site.  You can get there by clicking “2600” at the top and then on “ROMs” in the navigation bar just below.  It claims to be the best and most genuine collection on the internet and is in fact rather good.

The site also provides a nice database of game profiles, similar to AtariAge, for your viewing pleasure. Just click on “Games” after “2600,” like above.  One nice leg up the Atarimania pages have over their AtariAge counterparts is the ability to play the games online through a Java based emulator that can run in a webpage, in case downloading and installing a third party emulator isn’t your kick.  Other than that, pretty similar information is provided.

AtariAge seems to be more useful for people wanting to get into serious collecting or programming of the Atari 2600 while Atarimania is geared more toward the casual gamers that want to try games made for the 2600 without putting in a huge monetary or time investment.

The Atari 2600 will not go away any time soon, making this as good a time as ever to take advantage of the thriving community of gamers and collectors devoted to creating new content and providing accurately ported old content for and about the console.

So, have you played Atari today?

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Chess is a historic example for a play-by-mail board game. The game known as correspondence chess even kept the greatest figures of history entertained. A match was said to be played between King Henry I of England and King Louis VI of France in the early 12th century. Also Voltaire and Frederick the Great were engaged in play-by-mail chess during their time. In 1943, the FBI allegedly suspected Humphrey Bogart to be sending secret enemy codes to correspondence chess players overseas.

Today, eMail and websites make play-by-mail games quicker and more convenient than ever before. However, eMails play only a minor role. However, play-by-mail remains a fun way to find fun games to play online throughout the day, without devoting too much time to it. Besides, you don’t have to be online at the same time your match partner is. Here is a small selection of online games.

SoundChess

The SoundChess website is the link between you and your partner. Either one of you can set up the game and make the first move. With each move you can also include a message to your partner. The site shows the current board and provides some resources on possible chess openings.

After you made your first move, you will see the history of exchanged messages on the very right of the site.

ItsYourTurn

Here a hub for play-by-mail games, including Backgammon, Halma, Checkers, Jamble, and many more. There are 13 standard games, and dozens of variations to many of the games. To play, you must sign up.

You can get into a game in several different ways. You can start a new game and post it to the waiting room. You can also go directly to the waiting room and see which games are seeking a partner. A screenshot of the waiting room is posted below. The time limit refers to the time each player has to complete one move. The minimum is 3 days.

If you already know who will be your partner (they must be registered), you can start a match with a specific player.

Finally, you can be auto-matched for up to 5 different games of any type and at the same time.

Communication happens through ItsYourTurn’s internal mailbox. However, notifications of new messages are sent to your eMail. All games and standings are listed on the game status page.

For my example I picked Halma. All moves are recorded and shown below the board. With each new move you can add a message for your opponent.

With the free account you can play up to 20 games at once and make 15 moves per day.

Phoenix

Phoenix is an incredibly complex play-by-mail strategy game.

Due to its complexity, the game has a very steep learning curve. However, sufficient material and an active community is available to guide players through each step. If you don’t mind reading and communicating with other players through forums, this game is for you.

After signing up and defining your mission preferences in a short questionnaire, you start out with your own ship. Head over to > Turns > Access and access your ship. It will then appear under > Turns.

To get familiar with your ship, its options, and available orders you should start a training session. Carefully read the mission, then head over to > Orders and give the first orders, so your ship takes off and heads to its first destination.

My mission was to dock in Balmoral on the planet Shiloh and issue a special action applying for the job as courier for the reserach labs of EEM Balmoral.

After making your orders you have to wait for the mission to progress.

When you play games via email you hardly ever know your partner personally and you cannot control how fast the game will progress. The advantage is that you can sit down and continue with your moves whenever you have time.

Have you ever played games via mail? Let us know in comments!

Image credits: lusi

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Driven by nostalgia, I went on a search to look for Worms-like games for Mac on the Internet. It sure took me a while but I did find three clones of the game I used to love. In my article “16 Free, Fun, Simple & Addictive Games to Take the Edge Off“, I touched on Wormux – but since then, there have been quite a few updates so I’ll tell you all about it again.

If you don’t know what Worms is, it’s a turn-based 2D shooting game. Each team comprises of several players and everyone takes turns to select their weapon of choice to eliminate the opposing team. For more information on the Worms lineup, visit the developer’s webpage.

So, here are the three Worms clones that I found and they’re all cross-platform!

Wormux

The latest version of Wormux was released in September 2009 and to be quite honest, I found it to be probably the most refined Worms clone available. Instead of earthworms, the characters in the game have been replaced by avatars of popular free apps like GIMP, Pidgin and a few other random cartoon characters.

The selection of weapons is slightly modified from the original and tweaked to be different but the general gameplay feels about the same.

The game is still turn-based, no changes there. Network gameplay through LAN is an option, and so is playing online via the Wormux server. However, the server isn’t accessible if you connect via a proxy or if you don’t have the port 3826 forwarded to your computer.

Hedgewars

I’m actually very surprised at how much this clone resembles Worms 2. The map design, weapons selection, voiceovers, as well as the overall feel of the game is uncannily similar to the original game, it’s hard to believe until you actually play it. The only real noticeable change is in the characters.

In Hedgewars, you play a pink hedgehog dressed up in all sorts of different costumes. It may look weird, but once you’re over it, you’ll be absorbed by the game itself. If I am allowed one complaint, it’ll be about playing online. They didn’t really put much effort (I think) into designing the GUI and as a result, searching for an available game online is such a pain. But as I mentioned earlier, once you’re in a game and start to play, you’ll be totally immersed and eventually forget about its shortcomings entirely.

By comparison, Hedgewars isn’t as refined as Wormux. However, it does offer more original “Worms” gameplay.

Teeworlds

I have to state for the record that Teeworlds is a little different from the original Worms game in the sense that it’s not turn-based — it’s real time. This means that instead of one player controlling a character at any given time, everyone is allowed to play at the very same time! It’s chaos!

The motif is still the same — eliminate the opposing team. However, the gameplay and weapons are modified. There are three types of game modes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture The Flag. It takes a little getting used to because again, gameplay isn’t classic Worms but to be brutally honest, I have to say that I prefer Teeworlds when I’m feeling like a bit of fast-paced action — I don’t have to wait my turn, I respawn after being shot dead, and I just play until the timer runs out or a team wins. Then the game starts again.

Worms purist may not enjoy it though. But who cares? These games are just for fun.

Wormux – Download
Hedgewars – Download
Teeworlds – Download

I hope that you find these games entertaining and a bit of fun on a dull, autumn evening. Are you a Worms fan? Which clone did you enjoy the most? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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A war cry that wouldn’t need much urging, because gamers have a clannish streak in them. You will find them in dedicated groups in every online game community worth its name. You come across a name like League of Shadows or Terran Warrior, and you know that there’s a hardcore gamer hiding behind it.

Gamers are a large community and they tend to find their own, especially with the rise of multiplayer games. The seriousness with which people pursue this hobbyhorse has given birth to the term Electronic Sports or eSports. You have amateurs and professional pitting themselves against each other.

An amateur, I wouldn’t bracket myself with the term “addicted”, though once upon a time I came pretty close. Occasionally, I do try to clear the dust and answer The Call of Duty. But gamers who are still in the thick of things now have a new hangout.

Playfire is one of the coolest free online game communities exclusively for the gamer. The online social networking application is still in beta, but by the sleek looks of it, can soon jump out.

Playfire – What’s it all about?

As all free online game communities on the web go, Playfire is also about networking with the likeminded. Only in this case, the banter is about games. The homepage says that the site is home to 245,000+ gamers. It also boasts of being a talking point for 40,000 game titles on every conceivable gaming platform. If you are feeling left out then it’s time to signup.

The First Level – A Signup and a Profile

Signup is simple and the profile setup is also easy but with a twist. In three steps, you let the site know your gaming platforms, what games you have played and then a bit about you – your level of gaming interest. But that’s just for starters. To complete your profile, you have to furnish a few more details like your profile pic, describe your gaming rig, choose your gaming genres etc.

After doing the basics, go into your profile page and deck it up. You can select Themes, showcase your game collection on a visual bookshelf, do a bit of microblogging, add videos and also connect through Meebo with your online friends.

Climbing To the Next Levels

The site is designed like a video game. To rise up, you have to complete certain activities. The completion stages help you garner points and the points in turn, help you rise up. The formula is, the more you participate socially, the higher you rise up with your points.

Your Activity Feed page is the dashboard of all your activities (or lack of it). The highest points are reserved for bringing others into the Playfire fold by sending out invites. Submitting games, rating them and volunteering answers to game related queries also make you a popular member of your clan.

The best way to get a bunch of points and shoot up the charts is to get a Playfire award or two. Answer 100 quiz questions correctly and you become a ‘Smartypants’. Answer 1000 and you are a ‘Gaming Genius’.

The Gaming Communities

Playing is never fun alone, is it? So you have Playfire Groups, gamers who share a common passion, like a particular genre of games. Like The Final Fantasy group with nearly 1,175 members. There’s also Girl Gamerz Rawk! (it’s written that 40% of all gamers are female – I believe it!). Each group has a page of its own. Request membership by clicking on a blue button and then you can take part in the forum discussions.

Clans are the other more narrowed down social circle. Clans on Playfire are group of players who play together regularly on multi-player games. You can search for a clan and join it or start one of your own. Clans again have their discussion boards and a request membership link.

The community is a continuous gaming talkfest with Events thrown in. Events are gaming sessions between members…create one and announce it to your friends. You have Game Planners to co-ordinate all your online meet-ups.

Discussions are all about shooting from your mouth but if you really want to walk that talk as a serious gamer, then take the Quiz and see how you fare against your pals.

There’s a lot to do on Playfire. For a diehard gamer it can be a port of call after playing a few rounds. In the few days spent there, Playfire felt like a complete gaming community. Some pages I think are still being worked out as told by a few broken links. That’s like a single frame’s glitch in an otherwise slam bang effort.

Join up, and let us know your shout’s worth on Playfire.

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I hope I am not alone in reminiscing about these games but this is what I grew up on!

Now when you have some time to kill you can browse on over to the authors home page here or his software company’s webpage here and play a similar Asteroids arcade game called Luminara.

Luminara plays in your browser using flash 10. All you have to do is go to their website and start playing! When you arrive at their site you will see this:

Click on the word Play in the center of the screen and you will be off and ready to play.

The premise is the same as the asteroids arcade game – you shoot using your mouse button and spin using your mouse. You break or destroy the asteroids that are coming at you. But the twist is addictive music, colors and awesome looking icons. There are 50 waves of colorful enemies and explosions ready to draw you in…

But as they always say it is better to show you then explain it to you. How do you explain pretty colors other than slipping someone a hit of acid? Well without further ado here is a 6 minute video walk through that will get you amped for this game:

So now that you see a little bit of what I am talking about, let’s see what the game has to offer. As you play you will be offered different power-ups like lasers and companion players. Those friendly assistants help you clear out those hard boards. Use your up and down arrows to guide your ship around the screen and collect those power-ups. Here I am after grabbing my first companion ship. They sure help!

And the author named the companion players after the regulars in his forums! That sure is funny. I bet they love playing this game. Hit the P key on your keyboard to pause the game and bring up your options as you can see below:

You bounce off the sides instead of going through and out on the other side like the classic game. Your bullets also bounce off the walls and can continue killing after they bounce. My day is seriously screwed as I tried to get this game in between doing my duties! I am addicted.

We would love to hear about your high scores and your other favorite (FREE!) games. Leave them in the comments so all of our MakeUseOf readers can benefit.  Do you have a game you cannot get through the day without playing? Then hook us up, put us on and we might just do a full review of it here. Remember we are writing for you, the readers, so let us know what you want to see more of (or less of!)

Ok that’s enough for today boys and girls I umm have to…you know…get back to work. No really I have stuff to do

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By building your own system, you will be able to suppress these costs, saving up to a couple hundred bucks.

But what you’re planning to do isn’t easy, and we’re not talking about the actual building. First you’ll need to gather all of your components.

MakeUseOf presents its latest PDF release - How to Build a Gaming PC, written by our very own PDF Manual Editor, Simon Slangen. In this guide, we’ll familiarize you with all the different computer components, from a gamer’s point of view. Instead of telling you what to buy, we’ll teach you how to weigh and judge these individual components.

In 27 illustrated pages, get to know your RAM from your CPU, and learn how to pick a decent graphics card. Go from zero to hero in no-time, and you’ll be able to buy the right components for your soon self-built PC. In the final chapter, we’ll be seeing additional hardware, and how to take extra advantage out of it as a gamer.

Don’t wait, download the the How to Build a Gaming PC guide now as a free PDF, or read it online on Scribd.

If you enjoyed this release, check out our other MakeUseOf PDF Manuals.

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Utilizing the Wii’s built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi or connecting through a USB-to-Ethernet adapter, you can gain access to the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service. From there, a slew of great online connectivity features are available, including the Virtual Console for downloading games, Friend Codes for connecting with other players, WiiConnect24 to stay connected to the Internet while on standby, and various channels like Forecast for weather reports and News for current headlines.

All that and much more is up for grabs, but first you’ll have to get your Wii online. With access to your broadband connection, there are currently two ways to connect your Nintendo Wii console to the Internet: through a wireless router or a wired access point using the Wii LAN Adapter.

Ready to get more out of your Nintendo console? Let’s get right to it and find out how to connect your Wii to the Internet.

Wireless Connection — Search For An Access Point

Probably the easiest method to get your Wii online is through a wireless router. Nintendo has information on choosing a router compatible with the Wii here.

First, you’ll need to search for an access point. On the Wii main menu, click on the Wii button, located on the lower right-hand corner, to get to the settings screen. Then, hit Wii Settings and click on the blue arrow on the right side to go to the second page.

Select the Internet button and go to Connection Settings. Click on one of the buttons to create a new connection.

From there, click Wireless Connection and then hit Search for an Access Point. The Wii will start searching for any access points nearby. Once it’s finished, click OK to continue and view the found access points.

Choose your access point from the list. The closed padlock icons mean that a security code is required and you have to input the password or key.

Continue to save the settings and the Wii will test the connection and then perform a system update if available.

Wired Connection — Wii LAN Adapter

Since the Wii doesn’t have a built-in Ethernet port, you’ll need something called the Wii LAN Adapter. Available from Nintendo and third parties, the USB-to-Ethernet adapter is used to connect the console to your home router.

First, plug in the Wii LAN Adapter to a USB port in the rear on the console. Connect an Ethernet cord from your modem or router to the Ethernet port on the LAN Adapter.

Then, turn on the Wii and follow the same steps of going into Wii Settings and clicking on Internet. Go to Connection Settings, create a new connection, and click on Wired Connection.

Click OK to initiate a connection test and you can then perform a system update if one’s available.

Using either of these two ways to get your Wii online, you should be all good to go. It should be noted that there’s also a device called the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector. The accessory establishes a Wi-Fi connection via a broadband-connected PC, but it has since been discontinued. You can learn more about it on Nintendo’s site.

How do you connect your Wii to the Internet? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credit: Apeture

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There’s a way to automate these actions, to initiate a sequence of mouse and keyboard clicks that’ll do those actions for you. These are called macro’s, or trainers if they’re game-specific.

Watch out. These trainers should not be used unconditionally. Using an automatic mouse clicker for games (MMORPG’s and the like) is not only unfair to other players, it’s criminal. By breaking those games’ Terms of Service, you can get a permanent ban, and no refund. There’s a very special place in hell for online cheaters.

Making Simple Macro’s – AutoIt

Very simple games will allow the use of simple macro’s. These are little pieces of code that execute, or repeat specific mouse-clicking or key-pressing sequences. If you ever learn to code these macro’s yourself, the possibilities are endless but for this purpose, we will still keep things simple.

Note that there aren’t a lot of games that’ll allow you to take advantage of an automatic mouse clicker for games. Macro’s will remember where on the screen to click, not on what to click. If you’ve got a character that moves around, and a constant need for reorientation in your surroundings, this will not work.

Before you go on, I highly recommend you to read Guy McDowell’s article on AutoIt. In it, he’ll explain where to go, and how to record a personal sequence. More importantly, he explains this in a lot more detail than I will.

Stubborn, are you? You can start by opening SciTE. This application is located in the AutoIt folder under the Start menu, and we’ll use it to “program” our macro.

In SciTE, you can open the recorder under Tools->AU3Recorder. In our case, this little tool will completely remove the need for programming wizardry.

The concept is incredibly simple. After you press the blue icon, AU3Record will map all the places you click and all the keys you press until you stop the recording. Whatever repetitive gaming action you need to have done, do so now.

Once done with recording, you’ll be left with a (very complicated) script. Note that this recording will only play once when initiated. If you want your recording to repeat, you’ll have to tweak some things yourself.

To add a longer, but finite loop, you’ll need to nest your script into the following code. Simply said, replace <script> with your recording, and <stop> with the number of times you want your sequence to be repeated.

For $1 = 1 to <stop>

<script>

Next

MsgBox(0,”", “Finished Macro”)

The first line says that the sequence can repeat, until it reaches the value of <stop>, every time running <script>. If the sequence tries to repeat after that, it’ll be referred to Next; a message box telling you that the macro has finished running.

To add an infinite loop, you’ll need to nest your script into the following code. Again, replacing <script> with your recording.

while 1 = 1

<script>

wend

Remember, you’ll only be able to use this with very simple games.

Downloading Advanced Training Algorithms

For more advanced games, there’s another option still. On the internet, you’ll be able to find more complicated algorithms and applications that’ll be able to flex themselves to find relevant objects on the screen, instead of just hitting a fixed point in the air. Obviously, most people won’t be able to code something like this themselves, but these applications, labeled ‘trainers’, can be found on the internet.

You’ll be able to find a limited number of them on GameCopyWorld. There are also trainers that simply ’speed up’ the advancements, instead of doing those actions for you, but we won’t be discussing those in this article. Another possible source is MegaGames.

For all other, you’ll have to hit Google. Mind, you shouldn’t try downloading trainers for World of Warcraft, Runescape, or the like. If you go off breaking their Terms of Service and get a ban, it’s your own fault. Hell, it’d be nothing more than justice.

I hope you’ve had some use of this post. Do you know any other tips to make gamers comfortable? Let us know your suggestions in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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What you need are Hand Games! Everyone with hands can play them, and we all have hands! OK, most of us have hands. Those that don’t can referee or be enthusiastic spectators! Don’t know what a hand game is? Sure you do. We’ll start with a classic hand game. Rock, Paper, Scissors.

The World RPS Society

The sheer magnitude of the Rock Paper Scissors world is beyond comprehension. I couldn’t believe what I saw at this site. Did you know that there is a $10,000 World Championship sponsored by Yahoo!?

The World RPS site is a lot of fun and little fact. They talk about how using RPS was made a legal way to make a binding decision in London, England in 1842. Not true. Entertaining, but not true. Apparently, RPS had its start in Japan as Jan Ken Pon. That’s from Wikipedia, so that might not be true as well. For some reason, it seems more logical to me though.

Nevertheless, if you are looking for a definitive guide to the Ro Sham Beau hand game, this is the site. Study the Great 8 Gambits, look into the psychology of the game and some of finer details such as ’shadowing’ and ‘broadcasting false tells’.

There are also very detailed rules for the game that you might want to incorporate into your daily play. Does someone doubt the validity of a move? Maybe you can’t decide to throw on 3 or do 3 and then throw. The rules will guide you, my hand-jiving friend, the rules will guide you.

Monochrom’s Massive Multiplayer Thumbwars

Maybe RPS is too hard to get a hand on. Maybe you’re just all thumbs when it comes to hand games. If that’s the case, I’m sure you’d excel at the latest in thumb wars – multiplayer! No more one on one, with your cousin with the freakishly monkey like thumb that reach your thumb even while it’s still in the air. Level the playing field by bringing in the rest of the mutated family and friends.

There are oh-so-many ways to thumb wrestle, I’m surpised there isn’t a world championship for this as well. Check out the basic four-player situation:

Got a few more people to play with? Maybe your at a family reunion and all the moonshine is already gone. Uncle Bob is looking for a fight and Great Aunt Marcie is willing to give him one, so all the cousins jump in. Why have that same old fist fight again? Settle with a thumb war a la the ‘Down Under’ configuration. Everyone has their hands together so they can’t start swinging AND they are in a prime position to aspirate without starting another fight.

Seriously though, I think wearing shoes like those demands fisticuffs.

Mercy

I would rather be in a fist fight with a multi-armed Indian god than play mercy again. Certainly this hand game is responsible for more broken and/or dislocated fingers than all the car-doors and nose-picking accidents combined. If you’ve never played – ignore what I just said. Read up on the rules and play with a friend. It’s jolly good clean fun!

The point of the game is to interlock fingers as though you were intimately holding hands, and then try to crush your opponents knuckles and inflict carpal tunnel syndrome until they bellow with their last breath, “Mercy!” Apparently there are some regional differences in what is said to signify your submission: “Peanuts!” or “Danny Stavros Buck”, “Pinochle” or “Uncle”. All of which make no sense to me except “Uncle”. Who the heck is Danny Stavros Buck? By the time I spit that chestnut out, I would have lost several fingers indeed!

For your entertainment, I present one of the most unique games of Mercy that I have ever seen.

So now that you and your gameless buddy’s have used your hands to the limit for fun and pleasure, you might want to consider some Aspercream or Voltaren Emulgel. The Voltaren seems to work especially quick. Honestly.

Once you’ve got your fingers working again, drop us a line and let us know about your favourite hand games. Maybe you had a particularly epic one. Give a shout in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Being portable, none of them require installation and can easily be run off a USB stick. These portable games for flash drive are fairly simple and straight forward so don’t expect any World Of Warcraft types of game. But that doesn’t make them any less fun to play.

So, let’s take a look at 5 portable games and see which ones are best.

Jooleem Portable

Jooleem’s appearance reminds me a bit of Bejewelled (a.k.a. Diamond Mine). In Jooleem, you have to click on four marbles of the same colour to form a rectangle. They then disappear, the remaining marbles rearrange themselves and off you go again. It takes a while to get the hang of the whole rectangle thing but eventually you are whizzing along and the whole thing is really addictive. Guess what I’ve been doing today! Still, I prefer Bejewelled and I wish it would be brought out as a portable app game.

Atomic Tanks Portable

Another addictive time waster!  In my opinion, Atomic Tanks is the best of the bunch. You are a tank, pitted against another tank and you take turns firing potshots at each other. You use your arrow keys to aim your gun at the right angle then fire with the space bar. The first one to destroy the other one wins.

I spent literally hours today playing this. The best and fastest way to win is to destroy the ground around the enemy tank which makes the tank sink lower into a hole. This makes it more difficult for them to aim at you properly. Once you have them deep in the hole and you have the right angle for your gun, then you have them at your mercy.

L Breakout 2 Portable

Maybe I am just being a bit slow today but it took me a while to figure out how to play this game. I eventually worked it out. You launch a ball and then, just like tennis, you have to move left and right hitting the ball again towards the bricks until all the bricks are destroyed.

This is actually a really difficult game to play – it requires lightning fast reflexes as the ball comes back at you really fast. You don’t have any time to hesitate or think about it. Just keep moving left and right with the left and right arrow keys, trying to catch that ball before it gets past you (and it got past me MANY times!)

Tile World Portable

This one is a maze puzzle. In the middle, you have Chip and you have to guide Chip towards the exit so he can proceed to the next level. Trouble is, there are many things in Chip’s way, such as blocks and hostile creatures. You have to successfully navigate the maze and bring Chip out without bringing him to any harm.

Poker TH Portable

I am currently trying to learn Poker (blame it on my repeated viewings of James Bond’s Casino Royale!). This portable version of Poker Texas Hold’em is a good opportunity to play poker with 6 networked or computer players. It also has custom avatars, custom cards, online chat and sound.

There are many other portable games for flash drive in the Portable Apps Games Section but these were the ones I found to be the best. Which ones do you like the best? Let us know in the comments!

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Things have changed a lot over the past few years and there is plenty of eye candy available on the Linux desktop. Today however we are going to look at the gaming side of the spectrum and particularly at applications and resources you can use to find and install Linux games on your box.

Synaptic(or any other) Package Manager

A package manager lists various software that you can install on your computer. As an example the package manager in Ubuntu is called the synaptic package manager and it lists tons of applications you can choose to install from.

You can find it under System > Administration. In the sidebar you will find a special section dedicated to Linux games and amusement. Choose from official, multiverse and universe and you will see the games that are available via the repositories. You might have to enable universe and multiverse repositories from within System > Administration > Software Sources if you don’t see them listed by default.

Playdeb (for Debian/Ubuntu based distros)

Playdeb is a gaming repository. They mention Ubuntu specifically but you should be able to use playdeb with other Debian/Ubuntu derivatives just fine.

To use Playdeb you have to install the playdeb package (technically you should be able to install Linux games without the package, but it is a recommended installation to avoid further complications). You can download the package’s deb file or configure the repository. The details are available here.

Once you have installed the required software you are good to go. Browse for games that are available on the playdeb website. There are plenty of them out there. You can browse your favorite genre from amongst fps, education, dungeon, simulation, mmorpg, music, space, action, strategy and more.

Each Linux game listing consists of the necessary details along with a link to a Youtube video.  You can have a look at it to see if you would really like to install the game. If you like a game, installation is super easy and just a click away. Click on the big “Install this now” button and set the ball rolling. Soon the game along with all the dependencies will be downloaded, installed and ready for use.

djl

Inspired by Valve’s steam distribution setup, djl is a game manager for the Linux world. djl is not available in repositories so you would have to take the longer route for installation. Download the tarball from here. Extract the contents, and then run the included djl script. In case you are wondering here is what I mean:

1. tar -xvf <djl tar.gz file name>
2. cd djl
3. sh djl.sh

You would have to specify certain configuration settings the first time you run djl and then you will be able to view the djl game manager. With that out of the way you can browse the repository of about 120 or so games, read about them, view screenshots and install them at the click of a few buttons. You can view recently added and recently updated Linux games from the news tab, join the chat at the djl IRC channel and install plugins to extend djl’s functionality.

You can find hundreds of games that you can install on your Linux machine using the applications mentioned above. If you are a gaming enthusiast chances are you will find one matching your taste.

Have you tried games that are available for Linux, besides the obvious solitaire games? Which ones are your favorite? Let us know in the comments.

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Agreed, cheating is an honorably questionable thing to do, but for those who are absolutely stuck, a little pointer can do wonders.

That’s why we’ve got walkthroughs, gaming guides that’ll take you by the hand and tell you what to do. Just don’t overuse them, because they can be incredible spoilers.

Nintendo Wii Game Walkthroughs

Most Wii games don’t need as many pointers as their PS3/Xbox/PC counterparts, but that doesn’t mean they’re not needed. A lot of people still get stuck in puzzles or adventure games and need someone to point the way.

Below, we’ll be taking a look at the best sites for you to find Nintendo Wii game walkthroughs.

IGN Guides

If you’re serious about gaming, you should’ve heard about IGN. If you haven’t, I’ll tell you all about it.

IGN is one of the top sources for everything related to gaming – and has been so for a while. It’s a great place to grab a hold on the latest gaming reviews, news items and overall know-how, but it’s also one of the best places to go looking for a review.

Unlike the other sites we’ll be discussing, IGN offers a separate direction of walkthroughs – no useless searching, it’s there or it isn’t. Many of the more recent guides are extremely high quality, and written by, or in order of IGN themselves. This site should definitely be present in your bookmarks – it’s the first place to look for a more-than-decent walkthrough.

GameFAQS

GameFAQS is a project of GameSpot. For a long time GameSpot enjoyed a much more prominent place as a game source as well. It still does, although it has been under fire for some time, on the grounds of accepting money for improving their reviews.

Even if you don’t trust their reviews anymore, you can’t look past the sheer quality of GameFAQS. You’ll find a ton of info here, including planned release dates and – of course – Wii game walkthroughs.

You can browse games by alphabet, or use the search box. If there are any – and most of the time there are plenty – your walkthroughs will appear on the game’s overview page. The biggest batch of guides are written by users, and although extremely helpful, aren’t on the same level as the official IGN guides.

For plenty of games, however, you’ll also find an official GameSpot walkthrough.

MyCheats

MyCheats is the cheating/walktroughs part of 1UP, our third major (print and online) gaming sourcebig UP, you’ll be referred here for all yo. Whenever you’re browsing games on the ur less honorable gaming needs.

Again, you won’t be able to browse an index of walkthroughs. Instead, look up the game you’re interested in – alphabetically, or through a query – and see if there’s one present.

Still nothing? – Google is your Friend!

Tried all three sites and still couldn’t find anything? Don’t despair just yet, you’ve still got Google!

Nothing fancy like index pages or game overviews, but if it exists, you’ll be able to find it on Google. Just hit up the search box and be sure to use the right keywords – title, ‘Wii’ and ‘walkthrough’ or ‘guide’. If your search returned blank, you can finally let go of all your hope and start to despair.

Hopefully this guide was of help to you, and you’ve made some fresh bookmarks. What walkthrough sites do you use for the Wii? Tell us in the comments section!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Are you curious? Or do you think SL is crap? What is SL anyways and what does it offer?

SL is a 3D virtual reality, it’s an interactive graphics chat world, SL is a game and a playground, it’s all about sex, it’s a role playing game, people in SL have relationships and families, it’s an online community, it’s all about money, SL players spend real money, people with various skills make real money, SL can be experienced for free, SL is for geeks, SL allows the “socially handicapped” to connect, SL supports charity (e.g. Relay for Life), and that’s just a small selection. Maybe something caught your attention and interest here. Curious now?

Getting started in SL takes some time and patience. The initial learning curve may appear steep, but isn’t that true for everything new you try? With a bit of common sense it’s not that hard. The following Second Life step by step how-to guide should help

1. Start Slow!

Go to the Second Life website, sign up, download the client, install, and log in.

Your first login will take you to Orientation Island. Take your time to go through all the tutorials and get familiar with the software. It will help you tremendously in your future Second Life experience. You will also have to pass some tests before you may proceed to Help Island.

Help Island is restricted to fellow newcomers and mentors. Pick up all the free stuff you can find and play with it. Don’t hesitate to chat with passers by or ask for help from a mentor. You never know, you might as well meet your first SL companion. In any case remain open-minded.

2. Drop the Newbie Look!

Everyone starts out looking more or less the same. There are different female and male avatars to choose from when signing up. These avatars are only good for the first couple of steps and are frowned upon by advanced residents.

To blend in you should demonstrate individuality in shaping your individual character. Start by editing your appearance and sculpt your avatar until you like what you see.

In the store at Help Island you will find a few alternative outfits, try them on and also browse the public Library, which is part of your inventory, for more clothes. Later I will show you where to find more free stuff, including shapes, skins, hair, shoes and clothes.

3. Work on your Profile!

Your profile gives everyone an impression of who you are. It’s part of your character. Leaving it empty doesn’t make you mysterious, it makes you look like the noob you are.

When in SL, right-click on your avatar and select > Profile… from the pie menu. Go through the different tabs and fill in some details about yourself. To view the profile of another avatar, just right-click on their body or name-tag and select > Profile… from the pie menu.

4. Work on your Skills!

Help Island offers tutorials on building and inventory management. You’ll find a sandbox, an area where you can drop items from your inventory or start building. Use it to get familiar with the tools you have, it’s free!

To start building, right-click on the ground and select > Create from the pie menu. From the menu that comes up you can select the type of object you would like to create, then click onto the ground again and the item will apear. Now go ahead and play with it.

5. Know what is Expecting you!

On Help Island you will also find a lot of posters. Some give out information in the form of notecards. Just left-click them, accept the inventory offer (blue menu in the top-right of your screen) and keep the notecard that is being given to you. All of this is valuable information that you should not pass up on. My advice: read, read, read!

6. Explore

What is the first thing you would like to see in Second Life? A club, a park, people, a shopping mall? Whatever it is, by now you should know how to find it.

Use > Search button in the bottom of your viewer, jump to the > Classifieds, > Events or > Places tab and proceed to discover your first destination. > Showcase features some of the hottest locations in SL.

When you think you’ve found an interesting destination click the > Teleport button to leave Help Island. Alternatively, you can use the Exit at Help Island which will send you to a welcome hub on the mainland.

In the next hour or so take some time to explore. Visit the landmarks you received on Help Island or find other adventures. Walk, run, and fly, collect impressions of land and people, and don’t worry too much about still looking like a newbie.

Remember to keep a landmark (> World > Create Landmark Here) of the places you might want to check out again later.

7. Collect Free Stuff

After seeing what is possible, you might want to pick up some new clothes and a nicer skin. Search the > Classifieds for “free” stuff in the > Shopping category. Many stores offer freebies for L$0 or Dollarbies at L$1. For now you don’t want to spend any Lindens, so go with the L$0 stuff.

Many stores have special offers for newbies 30 days old or younger. This is your chance to lay your hands on high quality apparel and body parts for free. So watch out and take advantage of this opportunity.

In > Groups search for lucky chairs or dumpster diving to find groups dedicated to sharing places where you can pick up free stuff.

8. Collect Linden Dollars

Search for “money tree” in the Classifieds or even better the Places tab. While you are 30 days old or younger you can pick up Linden Dollars hidden in money trees. Other residents leave them there for new players.

9. Get Involved

Talk to people around you, make friends, if you have some more time browse the events calendar (> Search > Events) and visit a party, join groups and try to have a good time. Meeting people and making connections or friends is the best part of SL. You never know where these encounters may take you. In the end you might open a SL business.

10. Get a Job

Unless you have met someone who has offered you a job, your quest starts with searching again. Browse all available jobs in the > Employment category of the > Classifieds section and reply to those that sound interesting. Remember to tick the “Include Mature content” box if you’re ready to explore all there is to offer.

And that’s it, welcome to Second Life!

What is your experience with SL or other virtual worlds? Did you find this little guide helpful for your start into a Second Life? What’s missing? Leave your feedback in the comments!

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Sure, you could go out and buy that official strategy guide, but be honest now! That money is better spent on stuff that’s actually meaningful and fulfilling to your life, like more games. Help doesn’t have to cost you a dime and it’s all just a few keystrokes and clicks away.

Don’t smash your poor handheld to the ground just yet. Here’re the top 3 sites for Nintendo DS walkthroughs.

GameFAQs

GameFAQs is one of the best websites for guides to virtually every video game, including DS titles. Its collection is simply the biggest.

The site’s members submit their own text-based Nintendo DS walkthroughs of the game and they’re all hosted by GameFAQs and made available for everyone to view for free. There are usually even multiple guides to popular games written by different gamers, so you’ll be sure to have many takes on how to get through challenges or levels.

Other great features on the site include in-depth FAQs, with guides packed full of information just for specific aspects of the game, as well as helpful maps and charts.

IGN

The guides at IGN are always well-written and the site boasts a great collection of Nintendo DS walkthroughs to lend any gamer in need of help a hand.

IGN’s DS walkthroughs are just as good as the ones you can find for console games, providing plenty of detailed information and images to go along with it. Additional features include helpful extras like item lists, secrets, and tips on extra missions and challenges. Along with the complete walkthrough, it’s always nice to see these little things included as they can come in handy.

Also keep in mind that IGN does offer video tips, downloadable PDFs, and PSP-formatted guides, however, you must subscribe to the website for access to them.

StrategyWiki

For those who still can’t find the guide you’re looking for or feel compelled to contribute your own tips and help other gamers out there, StrategyWiki is the place to do it. As a collaborative and freely-licensed wiki, the site’s Nintendo DS strategy guides and walkthroughs are very well done and in-depth.

Along with the games’ complete walkthrough, other helpful bonuses like lists, maps, and a guide to getting started are usually included. One of the best things about StrategyWiki is that there’s only one definitive guide for each game, so you won’t have to sort through multiple plain text FAQs. The content never dies and can be updated by anyone, so feel free to contribute yourself.

If you desperately need a video walkthrough of a DS game, try searching YouTube. Some gamers have actually recorded the dual screens with a camera for gameplay footage. The quality usually isn’t very good, but it’s better than nothing.

For more resources, check out the Top 5 Sites With Free Strategy Guides For Gamers.

Where do you go for Nintendo DS walkthroughs? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credit: Gadgeteer

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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This new world rests on the shoulders of a new network, allowing interstellar communication. But a mysterious techno-biological plague rides this network, infecting anyone connected, and creating ravenous cannibals.

As an android, you’re not infected by the plague. Uninfected, it’s your task to set things right, whatever the cost.

Blood Frontier

Blood Frontier has been in development for the past two years. It’s a complete remake of the Cube 2 engine, also known and previously mentioned as Sauerbraten. For the production of this free first person shooter MMO, the developers have tried working closely with both the gaming- and the rest of the open-source community alike.

Still in the first Beta, one mustn’t expect any graphical wonders from the game. Visuals are sufficient, but not mind-blowing. Our main point of interest is – especially in this phase – gameplay.

Although there’s still a long way ahead, Blood Frontier has great ambition. The experience available today is just a fraction of the total envisioned picture. In the future, Blood Frontier has also planned on deepening out other playing modes, as well as a complete single-player campaign.

That’s something for a future review though, for now we’ll focus on what’s already here – an already awesome multi-player campaign.

Gameplay

As it is today, Blood Frontier can be best described as an MMOFPS – otherwise Mass Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter. Even though there is a third-person mode available, this is sadly still to be perfected. Instead of hitting the currently popular road of upgrade-overload and micropayments, Blood Frontier goes more in the direction of Unreal Tournament-like arena shooting. Most traditional game modes, such as deathmatches and capture the flag are covered.

Blood Frontier’s gameplay is characterised by the overload of weapons spread around the level and a mixture of new features. The very low gravity is not extremely original, but makes for great shoot-outs. Add a redesign of the double jump to the mix – jump once, and hit space a second time to get a horizontal jet pack boost – and you’ll understand my enthusiasm.

The developers have also made game environments extraordinarily flexible – and plan on keeping to do so in future releases. Map-makers have the ability to tweak game-settings (e.g. player vulnerability) to the finest detail, to create a unique experience in every map.

Gore is Optional

If you like in-game gore, and need your daily dose of overkill, you’ve just come to the right place (not entirely surprising for a game with that name). With great bullets, and overpowered grenade simulations, you won’t be given short. If you’ve got gore turned on, you may occasionally see pieces of your adversaries fly by. How do you like your steak?

That doesn’t mean that the game is unsuitable for and can’t be enjoyed by a younger, or weaker-stomached audience though. Blood frontier comes with a kid-mode, which allows you to turn off all blood and gore. You’ll have as much fun, but won’t be bothered with any obscenities.

All Platforms

The Blood Frontier beta is now available on Windows, Mac and Linux. No-one will have to miss this one out because of OS-incompatibility! Doesn’t that say something about open source? You can download the game here.

If you’ve got any remarks, or questions related to this, or other free games – please direct to the comments section below. We’d love to hear about the free games you enjoy playing!

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If you are a believer that a game is only fun if you beat it without any help then save your time and move on to the next great Make Use of article! Here comes the cheating!

The first website up is called CCC Cheat Code Central but they also have other sites for other systems so keep that in mind when you are looking for XBox 360 cheat codes.

Once you find yourself at CCC’s website you will see 6 menu options: Cheat Codes, Reviews, Videos, Game News, Release Dates and a place to trade games. Today, we are only interested in the first item.

The Cheat Codes menu will either list All Games for you by alphabetical order by hitting the link that says All Games. Or you can click on the letter matching the first letter of your video game’s title. In this case, I was looking for Zelda Twilight Princess so I hit the link labeled Z.

Z only returned 2 entries and the second one was what I was looking for. I clicked on the Zelda: Twilight Princess link and was taken to a page for just that specific game.

Once I was on the game’s sub-page, I could scroll down and find cheats and hacks galore! Zelda does not have Cheat Codes per se but there are lots of awesome tips, tricks and ways around things here.

Next up is a game called The Simpsons Game – it is no secret that I love me some Simpsons! Matt Groening is a genius! This game does have a cheat code along the lines of that old contra code. Here you see you can get Infinite power for all characters’ by hitting Plus Left Right Plus Minus and then you will hear a tone and blamo – full power and it won’t deplete!

I normally do not go a’looking for cheat codes until I have beaten a game or otherwise given up! Don’t ruin your fun but you can add to it when you would be bored of it and would not normally pick it up. Think about Grand Theft Auto.

The second website on my list is called GameSpot and their Nintendo Wii game cheats are available for you at this URL.

There is a search feature at the top but they have links on the Wii Cheat Page’s home screen for the hottest games with cheats. You will probably see a few you want to click on. Under each title, they break down what they have for your cheating pleasure. They can be unlockables, glitches, easter eggs, secrets, FAQs and more. Check them out.

I clicked on through to Super Smash Brothers Brawl and scrolled down to some awesome unlockable features from the game, as you can see below:

They tell you what the feature is and how to unlock it. Next up is their easter eggs which are always cool! Here are some mid-battle conversations key combinations – say that 3 times, fast!

Then we have our full on password cheats. They open some new exciting places for you to check out!

What sites do you use to find Nintendo Wii game cheats? We would love to hear from you. Do you use Homebrew? What are you favorite Wii Applications? Share with us in the comments, young gamer!

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This time we wanted to try something different.

Some time ago, an acquaintance of mine wanted to know what the most popular free online logic puzzle games were. I decided to find out.

Armed with Opera 10 and the latest version of Flash, I went to Kongregate, one of the most popular flash game communities. The following games were those of the highest rating in the puzzle category (at the time of writing). In descending order, here they are.

Red Remover

Red shapes are miserable, it’s up to you to release them from their suffering. Kill them, that is. Green shapes, on the other hand, are lovely, try not to hurt them. Finally, blue shapes are neutral. You can do whatever you want to them. Easy, right?

You need to remove all red shapes from the screen without losing the green ones. Things get a tad harder when the game introduces moving objects and different shades of gravity.

This game certainly won’t exactly make the biggest intellectual challenge, but it’s easy to imagine why it’s currently at the top of Kongregate. It serves a lite snack of braintainment and manages to keep the fun  up. With cute sound effects, solving a free online logic puzzle like this brings even more of a smile on your face.

Super Stacker 2, the second most popular game is pretty similar to Red Remover, which is why we won’t go too deep on it. The game uses the same cute physics style, but instead of removing items, you need to keep all of them in the level. Mad stacking skills are rudimentary.

Little Wheel

Little Wheel heads an entirely different direction. Wonderful artwork and great animation makes this point and click adventure one of the most compelling I’ve ever seen. And an adventure it certainly is, with the developer’s only pointer being “use the mouse”. Add a grain of dry humor to the mix, and you’ve got yourself a killer.

After playing for a while, my first impressions were confirmed. This game is a cult-hit-like flashgame – original and incredibly entertaining. The level of quality is enormous, which earns the developer my well-meant kudos. If you like a puzzle adventure, and something different to what you’re used to, this game comes highly recommended.

Fantastic Contraption

Lately, there have been a few games like Fantastic Contraption, better described as physics puzzle engineering. Nevertheless, Fantastic Contraption is one of the best in its genre. Because of the sheer simplicity of the interface, a lot of room is left for the levels’ difficulty.

One of the mistakes I made, being overconfident with ‘puzzle experience’, was to hop in somewhere near the end of the game, only to be stuck after a few seconds. Don’t skip a level — during the game’s progress, new ‘techniques’ will be revealed that you’ll need later on.

All in all, Fantastic Contraption is an incredibly fun game. Although graphically challenged, some of the levels are not to be taken lightly. Fantastic Contraption is the most difficult of these three games, but perhaps also the most fun if you’re up for a little engineering.

Which of these games stand out for you? Tell us your favorite logic puzzle games, the ones you’d include in a list like this, in the comments section below!

As I final note, in case you would like to know how to play these games offline, check out How To Download and Play Kongregate Games Offline.

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I have showed you FireNES in the past that works in your Firefox browser but now I am here to show you 2 more awesome sites that let you play old Nintendo games online in your browser. The first one is Java based and called VNES and the second one is flash based and is called PlayNES.

The first site had more titles but the game play was a little better on the flash site. But hey I will let you be the judge of that.

Next time you get that old school gaming itch you will know where to go to get your Nintendo fix.Thinking about Mario or Zelda yet? How about a little up up down down left right left right select start on Contra?

VNES – Virtual NES claims to be the largest website on the Internet that allows you to play your favorite classic Nintendo Entertainment System games online for free. VirtualNES.com is the official home of, and is powered by, the vNES emulator by Jamie Sanders.

VirtualNES also clams that it is able to provide you classic NES games without trampling over copyright laws. They say that they only upload NES games that they physically own and currently have at their offices. They operate off of donations so if you are feeling for them, cough up a few bucks for these old school gamers.

It might take you a few minutes to get the hang of the controls using your keyboard. But the arrow keys are your up, down, left and right buttons. You have B and A emulating the B and A buttons and control being select, and enter being start. You can see the controls and the legend below for the icons that appear on the game search screen.

If you hit the letters at the top it will take you to that listing alphabetically. I went looking for some Super Mario Brothers and hit the S key. This is what I saw along my way. Games going back as far as 1987. I was in gamers heaven and they are all available to play right here for free! Woot!

They show the game’s name, the publisher, the release date, how many players can play, the rom size and the icons to click on that you saw in the legend two screen shots above. They turn off the volume, show scan lines and shows if the game can be saved. I fired up Super Mario Brothers 1 and ran through the first board but I couldn’t hit that flag pole like I used to! Any one have any tips for me to get my mojo back?

I moved on to a little Simpsons vs. The space aliens which I loved playing in the arcade even before it came out on Nintendo. The controls appear in the upper right for your easy reference during game play

You can also check out these interesting sections of games you may have never seen or heard of:

• Pirate Original Games
• Unreleased Games
• Homebrew Games
• ROM Hack Games
• Translated Games

You can save and load your games just like you could on the actual NES. But you should note that it works with pasting long codes and context menus are unavailable inside vNES. To copy, hold down the Control (Ctrl) key on your keyboard and press C. To paste, hold down the Control (Ctrl) key on your keyboard and press V. To select all text, hold down the Control (Ctrl) key on your keyboard and press A.

Next up to play old Nintendo games online is the flash based PlayNes. This is what they have to say about themselves:

PlayNes.net is an online NES ( Nintendo entertainment system) emulator for which you do not need to provide the games. You can play over 800 of your favorite original games! For Free! Due to recent administration decision we have decided to expand the website to include thousands of flash games too.

Similar to the other site they have a listing of all of their games (here they list some non-nes ones as well) they have ratings, how many times the game was played, an added date and if there is  an online manual which is a very nice touch.

I went right to the L’s and found me a little game called The Legend Of Zelda 2. I fired it up and it started instantly. The game controls are shown on the right hand side while you play. You will see the start button is Enter, the select button is space, A is X and B is Z, Hit p to pause and C to save and l to load.

Hitting the S button will prompt you to which slot you want to save your progress to. I saved mine to Slot 1 and then hit the L key to load it back up. They show you each slot but not what is in it. If you highlight it it will show you a screenshot of where you are in the game. This is a VERY nice feature.

And talking about saving games they also offer save states where you can play someone elses saved game at cool points in a game. For instance play Zelda with 99% completion so you can go and do as you please in the game…

Oh well back to work (hmm but an hour break might be what I need to get my Nintendo fix on!) Do you know of other sites that you can play classic NES games online with? Share them with us in the comments won’t ya?

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With new questing systems, exciting worlds and hideous monsters. Oh, and it’s based on one of the biggest nerd phenomena in existence – Dungeons and Dragons – need I say more?

Read our review of Dungeons & Dragons Online – Eberron Unlimited, and give it a shot. Yes, it’s most definitely worth it.

Dungeons & Dragons Online – Eberron Unlimited

The digital spin-off of the popular (old school) D&D role-playing game was originally released three years ago in February 2006. The game, then still working under the monthly subscription strategy, didn’t live up to expectations. Even though gameplay was great, the anticipated user-mass stayed out and the under-populated servers were not the MMORPG place to be.

Three years later, Dungeons & Dragons Online relaunches with Eberron Unlimited. The hefty price? – zero USD per month to access this Dungeons & Dragons online free server!

A success is the least we can say about DDO – Eberron Unlimited. Only a few days in the running, new sign-ups to this Dungeons & Dragons online free server are rising greatly. This time it’s not too hard to see DDO reaching the top - in my personal expectation, it’s only a matter of time.

Gameplay and Quests

Similar to most MMORPG’s, DDO focuses on quests for game progression and rewards. Nevertheless, do not expect solely monster-bashing gameplay like in World of Warcraft. DDO is filled with exciting puzzles and the like and often the creature-killing isn’t even central in a quest.

At the start of the game, low-level quests can be played solo. However, as the game progresses, it becomes necessary to work in teams of up to 6 characters, usually with multiple roles, like tanks (melee), healers and casters (magic).

Overall, quests can be played on 4 different difficulty levels – Solo, Normal, Hard and Elite. Solo is only available in low-level quests, and hard and elite raise the stakes with additional XP and monetary bonuses.

Innovative New Pricing Model

The marketing guys behind DDO preach their “innovative new pricing model”. To the critical public, this could easily be written off as ‘micropayments — again’. However, it’s not as simple as that.

Evidently for a free to play game, you don’t need to put any money in it. There are plenty of worlds to explore and quests to enjoy that you’d wonder ‘why bother’.

However, for those gamers who are willing to spend an extra dime, there are two available systems. New lands, quests or items that might be released later on can be purchased through micro-payments. Alternatively, people who continue to enjoy the game on a monthly fee basis receive this goodness automatically and get an additional amount of ‘credits’ to spend on various other in-game items. To sum up, premium members can now have the menu, or order a la carte.

But whether you’re free or premium, you shall play the game. Download it here.

Minimum System Requirements
Processor: P4 1.6GHz or AMD equivalent with SSE
Memory: 512MB RAM
Graphics Card: 64 MB Hardware T&L-compatible video card
Network Connection” 56.6K modem
Software: Windows XP, DirectX 9
Disc Space: 3GB, 5GB for high resolution

Recommended System Requirements
Processor: P4 3.0GHz or AMD equivalent with SSE
Memory: 1GB RAM
Graphics Card: GeForce FX or better with 128MB of memory
Network Connection: Cable Modem or DSL connection

And give us your personal opinion in the comments section below. The file might be around 3 GB, but it’s most definitely worth it.

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The game is called Monopoly City Streets and the objective of the game is to buy streets around the world, make some money through rent and sabotage other users’ properties and streets.. Basically, you play monopoly online with other people (without downloading anything) using real world streets.

Before I get started on how to play the game, let me give you some background information. It has been live since the 9th of September. It is an online game that loads entirely in your browser. There is nothing to download and you only need to register in order to play it. However, on the 11th of September, the Monopoly City Streets Blog announced that they will be restarting the game in about a week’s time. This is to ensure that every knows what they are doing and how to use it. So it is best to join, get the feel of the game, and then when it goes live, you can rule a suburb, city or a country. Also, the game will only be active until 31st January 2010, but they don’t know what they will do to the game afterwards. So get your hands on it while you still can!

Playing the Game

To play the game, simple go to this website and click on ‘Play’.

Then just find a street you would like to buy, anywhere in the world. Since the game has been running for a while, all the good streets are taken. So find an area that you like, and expand from there. Most of the world is playable, but there are a few exceptions.

Since I am located in Melbourne, I am going to start my street purchases there. The streets that are blue have been purchased, but you can offer a deal to buy them from the current owner, obviously it will cost a bit more. Also note that some streets are not available to be purchased as you can see in the image below, Collins St. cannot be purchased.

So since Melbourne is too busy for me, I am going to purchase a road that is a bit out of town. You may also have noticed that we have not registered yet. You can do this when you purchase your first street. I am going to purchase Springvale Rd. So just find it on the map, then click on the street name in the box on the right.

Once you click on the street you want to purchase, a registration box will appear. You also get M$3,000,000 in Monopoly money to spend.

Now, I want to build on the street. Since I am not rich, I will start of small. Click on the street, then select ‘Build Property’, then select what type of building you want to build. I am just going to buy a small City Centre Cottage. The game will give you options on where to build the house, then just select it on the map.

Fortunately, I still have heaps of cash left. I am going to buy another street in the area. Click on the ‘Buy Street’ button on the bottom toolbar (it looks like a pile of money), find a street and repeat the process again. I found a good long stretch of road and now I am going to develop it.

As I said before, click on the street, select ‘Build Property’ and select your what you want to build.

Your buildings will now appear. As you progress through the game, just like the Monopoly Board Game, you can also get Chance Cards. Bugger! Oh well.

I hope that I have inspired you to play. It is quite fun, but remember, everything I have done today will be lost when the game resets. I better get in early and buy up big when it starts again in a week’s time.

If you want to play, just go to the main page, start buying and building an earning. Also read the FAQs and the Game Rules.

Are you a fan of Monopoly? Will you play Monopoly online with other people? What streets have you purchased? Let us know.

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Sometimes, developers choose to re-release their games as freeware, or sometimes they simply neglect to support their creations and let the support dwindle away. Whatever the reason, a lot of commercial games – which, admittedly, often work with a bigger team on a bigger budget – become free over time.

Today we’ll take a look at the best sites to download old PC games for free. These will include (abandonware) DOS games, but also newer releases that are thrown to the masses by publishers in a good mood.

Abandonia

Abandonia is an index of abandonware, “dedicated to classic DOS games”. Abandonware titles are games (or software) with expired copyright, or games which are no longer supported by the publisher.

The site was founded in 1999, when the concept of abandonware was merely two years old. After a few inactive years, it was and has continued to blossom, with new ‘abandoned’ games added nearly every day. At the time of writing, the Abandonia database hosts 1,063 downloadable games and counts a total of more than 100.000 members.

Most games get a thorough review, screenshots, an editor rating as well as a user rating. You can browse and download old pc games by name, year, rating and category. As the game’s focused on DOS games, you won’t find any of the ‘newer’ abandonware games here, but the vast DOS archive should satisfy most of your gaming needs — at least for a while.

DOS Museum

Another DOS focused site – the name gives it away – is DOS Museum. Their goal is to preserve old DOS games and make sure they won’t be lost over time. Through one of their other initiatives, they try to encourage other copyright into making their work available, “either for sale or as freeware”.

With over 1,600 resources (although this includes various patches and save-games), DOS Museum offers an even wider array of games. Through an easy, graphical interface, you can browse the games by name, rating, date or popularity. Although you won’t find excessive reviews like on Abandonware, basic information (usually in two or three sentences) is provided.

Wikipedia

One of the best sites to look for an ex-commercial video game is Wikipedia. That’s right – on one of their pages, they keep a pretty up-to-date list of abandonware (loose interpretation) titles.

The list shows less games than these other sites, but from a wider array. You’ll find games from 1988 to 2008, all of them with a short descripton, most of them worth a try. If you think there’s a game ‘missing’ from the list that should be there, you can add it yourself – after all, that’s what wikis are for.

Remain In Play

Another site that takes on a wider array of (also non-DOS) games is Remain In Play. This site refuses to take in abandonware and games that were free from the start. They only focus on commercial games that were deliberately released as freeware.

Even though site navigation is not optimal, they host plenty of great games – both new and old. If your search is superfluous, you might want to consider their ‘top 10 games’ in the sidebar, for it is the only way of sorting titles by rating. Otherwise, you can search their database by name, data (type), genre, or OS.

I hope you’ve found some great new sites today and will continue to discover cool free games to waste your precious time. If you’ve got any other “abandonware” recommendations, or have anything else to add in that direction, feel free to take advantage of the comments section below.

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So try the demo first by getting free PSP game demo downloads! But where to get them? The PlayStation network has slim pickings and even at that there is the whole sign up process, software requirements and unnecessary annoyances that come with ‘official’ sites. So, here is my top 5 list of PSP game demo download sites.

Free-PSP-Demos.com

The name says it all really – PSP demos for the cost of a hug. When you first load the site you’ll see all the latest demos that have been uploaded. There are also categories such as ‘Action’ and ‘Adventure’. You can browse the categories until you find a game you like or simply search for a game you’re interested in by using the search bar.

When you find a game that you like, click on the title. The description as well as some images will be displayed. There will also be a download link for a .zip file. Download this file and transfer it to your PSP (see below on transferring the games to your PSP).

PSPBlenderBlog

This site offers much the same type of download service but focuses more on smaller, unrecognized games, older games ported to PSP and foreign games. For MUO gamers who are interested in discovering games that are exotic, cool and free then PSP Blender Blog would be a highly recommended site.

The interface is a little basic but then, so is the download procedure. When you’re on the download page, which is here, click on the file name under the picture. This will bring you to a download site where all you have to do is click the download button to get the PSP game demo download.

PSPDemoCenter.com

Again, this site offers demos from all over the globe but most are more mainstream titles that you’d hear about. At the time of writing this article, they had a total of 99 PSP demos; a collection which is updated regularly. When you first enter the site, click ‘Downloads’ along the top of the screen. Then click the ‘Demos’ icon. This will bring you to the list of demos, a section of which can be seen in the screenshot.

When a demo catches your eye, click it. Under the description which loads, click the download link and save the file, ready to be transferred.

Psp-demos.blogspot.com

You have probably recognised the URL to be a BlogSpot URL – a free blog hosting company owned by Google. This site is run by a PSP fan who wanted to make PSP demos readily available. It has a good user rate with almost 60 subscribers. When I visited, there was almost ten other users on there with me.

Down the right hand side there is a list of games, with the centre ‘post’ section used to display new additions and advertisements.

When you click on the title of the demo you’re brought to a download page to complete the download. This is a good site with load of popular names such as ‘Socom’, ‘Worms’ and ‘Lego Batman’.

Pocketgamer.co.uk

When you first go to the site, or more specifically the PSP demo page which is located here, you’ll see the featured downloads such as those in the screenshot. Then below these there is a long list of popular titles. This site definitely has the most mainstream titles for the PSP such as Metal Gear Solid and Wipeout.

Once again, simply click on the title to begin the download.

Tip: For information on transferring files onto your PSP from your PC, read Simon’s article, How to Transfer Music from PC to Your PSP. Make sure to put the demos in the games folder instead of music.

OR, you can use your PSP’s browser to download the files directly. Click here for more details on that.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Here at MakeUseOf, we’ve covered a lot of topics that involve ways you can use outside applications to control your PC; such as Ben’s article on how to control your PC using Remote Access, or my article on 3 ways to remotely restart your computer over the Internet. But, what about controlling other things with your computer?

Specifically in the world of model train building and operation, the ability to design model train layout plans, and then control a model train with your computer would be very cool. This is where CATrain comes in. CATrain is a very cool Windows app written by a guy by the name of Joel Bouchat over in France. With his application, you can design and lay out a complete model railroad track, design a timed “itinerary,” and yes – you can even hook up your train to your computer and automate your model train.

Creating Model Train Layout Plans With CATrain

When I first discovered CATrain, from the screenshots I thought that it would be a simplistic, amateur application. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent too many years playing graphically intensive games like SIM City or Roller Coaster Tycoon. A video game CATrain is not.  Once you install the application, it quickly becomes apparent that what you’re dealing with here isn’t so much a simulator style game, but more of a design application that comes preloaded with everything you might need to accurately lay out a model train railroad.

The app first comes up in design mode, and you’re offered a pallet full of the various train track segments that you’d find in most model railroad kits. The learning curve for folks already familiar with most Windows applications is essentially zero. It’s all drag and drop – that’s it.

As you click a track segment, it attaches to your mouse pointer. Move your mouse over to the grid section that you want to fill and the application provides a tip with your options at the upper right hand corner of the application (nice touch!).

Once you have a decent model train layout plan, you can switch the application mode over to add elements like the power supply and signals (electrical design), set the grades of track segments, or switch the application over into “run” mode.

Under Display options is where you’ll find the bulk of how you configure the on-screen appearance of your design and where you can configure the itinerary for your train. It’s also where you open up the throttle and device controls, a critical part of the application if you plan to simulate the operation of your train on the screen, or control your real train off the screen.

The next menu item is where you can view the wiring configuration of your design track to make sure that you’ve placed the correct connections together, and that the polarity of the power supply is correct. When you select the “show polarity” option, it shows up overlaid on top of the track as shown above.

Ready to place your simulated train on your new model train layout plan? When you go to select “Place a Train on the Railway” under the “Trains” option, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find a total of 30 train types. You also have the option to edit your own train.

Once you’ve selected your train, bring your mouse over to the track and left click to place it wherever you’d like the train to start, the application pops up the throttle control icon as shown above. I’m afraid my pathetic little track won’t exactly provide the opportunity for a fun itinerary for this poor little train. However, the application comes preloaded with a long list of pre-designed model train layout plans (under the TCI folder), and when you see the creativity (and complexity) that went into some of these designs I’m sure you’ll be as surprised as I was.

Of course, on top of the well-written design software (and free on top of that), the best part of this software is its ability to actually control your model railroad hardware. When you install the application, you’ll notice a USB driver installed along with it for that purpose. However, this is where the “free” stops, because obviously to control your model train you need the microprocessors to plug your computer into in order to do so. Required hardware includes a USB interface, PWM controller, device controller and train detector. Joel sells these pre-made, or you can buy the electrical schematics to build them yourself.  Whether you choose to use his hardware, or you build it yourself, CATrain represents at least one very cool way that you can interface between your PC and something in the real world that you can actually control.

Are you a model train enthusiast? Have you ever hooked up your PC to control something in the real world? Tell us about it in the comments section below.

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And so begins one of the pinnacles of my childhood – Luke Skywalker fighting the evil Darth Vader.   I can still remember playing Star Wars games in the school playground where we would take turns playing the Jedi Knight. We would get the pleasure of beating the hell out of the poor soul who had ended up getting the part of the hapless stormtrooper, chasing him around the playground while he shouted “right, it’s my turn to be Luke Skywalker now!“”

Nowadays, you can still play Star Wars but, as with everything else these days, it has moved itself online.   Here are some online Star Wars games you could play (and I don’t mean the drinking game).   OK granted, they are not as good as the paid PC games but if you have a spare 5 minutes to kill, these freebies are good enough to satisfy your Star Wars fix.

Star Wars Lightsaber Simulator

Well, this isn’t really a game as such.   All you can do here is swing a lightsaber about which does get boring after a while.   But if you want to practise your Jedi moves before moving onto an actual real game, this is a good one to start off with.  Just choose your lightsaber from the bottom, click your mouse to activate it and then use the mouse to swing back and forth.  Can you feel the Force yet?

Lightsaber Training

This basic game (but still quite fun and addictive) involves killing droids with your lightsaber by deflecting the lasers (which they are shooting at you) back at them with the lightsaber.   It is actually not that easy to do and you lose points if the laser hits you instead. And yes, I got my butt whooped.  By a droid.   I’ll never live it down in the bars of Mos Eisley.

Jedi Versus Jedi – Blades Of Light

This one has a bit more to it and the graphics are MUCH better.   Hosted by Hasbro who make the Star Wars toys, you have to choose which Jedi you are going to be and then begin fighting the other one.   Pressing A & D on your keyboard gives you the fighting moves while pressing the space bar releases the Force (if you have enough that is)

I predictably got my ass well and truly kicked. Can you do better?

Clone Wars

This one involves you aiming your mens guns (who are in fixed positions) so that, when the time runs out, they will then fire and hit your opponent’s men, wiping them out.   Each side has three men and the first one to wipe out the other side wins.   I actually won at this one!   Maybe I am not such a write-off after all at this gaming lark.

Gunship Over Florrum

Another offering from the Star Wars website.   This one has you in control of a gunship and you have to use your left mouse button to fire at the enemy which are flying your way shooting at you.   Use the spacebar to drop bombs too if you have any.

The Star Wars site also offers other free online games called Sharpshooter and LiveFire.

There’s a lot of stupid pointless games online as well (including one I found where you have to fire at Imperial Tie-Fighters but they don’t tell you where the fire button is – you have to find it yourself!).   If you want a decent free game, the Star Wars website is the best place to go but as we’ve seen, there are a few other sites if you keep looking.

Which sites do you go to when you want to play Star Wars for free?   Let us know in the comments.

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Most people out there have already discovered that these files can be opened by Notepad or another text processing application. This ‘works’ in the most basic sense of the word, but it’s clumsy and pretty ugly – you’re missing out on a lot of the fun.

To really use NFO files to their full extent you’ll need an NFO File Reader or Viewer – an application specifically designed to deal with these files. Today we’ll take a look at three of the best free NFO File Readers (and one creator) on the software market.

ACiDView 6

ACiDView is currently one of – and in my personal opinion, the best NFO file reader out there. This free application is actually an all-around image viewer, with support for JPEG, GIF, and other popular image formats. It might not be the best image viewer you’ll encounter, but as an NFO viewer it easily beats its competitors because of all the extra functionalities.

Perhaps one of the most useful features is the browsing sidebar, which allows you to quickly select your NFO and other files. I’ve tried out several other NFO viewers in my technological past, and this is a feature you’ll start to miss fast.

You can also autoscroll the NFO files, view them fullscreen, and change the resolution and basic formatting options such as font type and colour palette.

For the real freaks, ACIDView can stream an NFO file to simulate the desired speed of a certain modem connection and slow down the animation accordingly.

DAMN NFO Viewer

DAMN NFO Viewer makes a good second to ACiDViewer. It’s not as graphically oriented as other applications, but instead more like a text viewer with ASCII support. As such, it’s got a tighter letter spacing and a reversed (or actually, ‘normal’ colour palette). This makes it a lot better for reading, but less ‘fun’ and good-looking for the ASCII (fear not, this can be fixed).

DAMN NFO Viewer supports NFO-, DIZ- and TXT files. It’s the basic package, without too much extra stuff – just read your NFO’s and optionally tweak your formatting a little bit.

NFOlux

Last but not least is NFOlux. This tiny application will both let you view or create NFO files. Although the viewer doesn’t stand up to big guys like ACIDViewer, it’s extremely rare and useful to have an NFO reader and creator in one – to my knowlege, this is the only application that does this.

The special features are to be found in the creation section. There’s an ‘auto generator’ that’ll create an NFO for you, based on some basic release information, with a Movie- and an Application template included. Custom characters can be added with the integrated characters palette and the click of a button.

NFOlux won’t do anything special in the reading department, but offers a few unique functions for creating NFOs – it’s the combination of these two applications that makes NFOlux a winning formula.

What NFO file reader application do you use? Something fancy, or haven’t you been able to leave Notepad yet? Let us and your fellow MakeUseOf readers know in the comments section below – we’d love to hear how do you open nfo files!

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It was then that He created three races from his own being – the Humans from his spirit, the Untamed from his body and the Winged Elves from his blood. After creating these three races, Pan Gu vowed never to interfere again. The three different races lived, not in perfect harmony, but in occasional conflict. Tensions built up and wars were fought for the lands of the world.

In one time of conflict, the original inhibitors of the world emerged and soon returned in full force. Being stuck between life and death, these beings were called Wraiths. To stand up against this powerful enemy and protect the Perfect World, the three races will have to unite over their differences. It’s a violent and miserable time in history, but these wars need to be fought to protect our world from the wraiths.

A Perfect World International

A Perfect World International is a free MMORPG from a Beijing games developer. Many different versions have hit the public over time, but an international client – more specifically aimed at American gamers – has been released relatively recently.

The game, set in the Perfect World, mainly handles character leveling through quests. A lot of side quests are available, but there’s also a main quest, which plays a role in further character development by unlocking new skills.

These skills are specific to class (a.k.a. profession) and can range from temporal upgrades of your abilities to new, permanent ‘skills’. It’s only with the skills that you can really begin to explore a character’s possibilities.

Players can choose four different crafting skills, to make in-game items. Blacksmithing allows you to create weapons, tailoring to create armor, crafting to create jewelry and apothecary to create potions.

Special Features

Pet mounts can be acquired in the game, to move (run or fly) a lot quicker along the map. Mounts range from leopards, raptors, and even flying creatures. Having a mount in the game gives one a major advantage over other players. Mounts can be acquired during quests, or purchased in the in-game store.

One of the most unique features of the game are the territory wars, where opposing guilds fight in huge numbers to claim the right of the land. With up to eighty players on each side, this creates an insane PvP experience.

Character customization is incredibly extensive in A Perfect World. Players are permitted to tweak the tiniest detail of their character, as well as choose from a big collection of clothing. The game really gives all means to personalize your character, and no two characters will look entirely the same.

Have you played A Perfect World International yet? If you have, tell us what you think of the game in the comments section below!

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When it comes to emulators, Linux is right up there. It might not be able to run Crysis or World of Warcraft, however you can surely run various free old school games like Mario, Popeye, Contra, etc.

Here is how you can play those old, free games on your Linux machine. There are various emulators available for Linux, let us look at them one by one.

DOSBox

Simply put, DOSBox is a DOS-emulator and lets you re-visit the good old days when DOS used to rule the roost. Using DOSBox you can play all those DOS games that you loved.

Just install DOSBox, download the game you want to play, run DOSBox from the terminal and execute the game you just downloaded for a trip back in time! The best way to download your favorite game is to Google it.

Check your distributions package manager, Ubuntu users can sudo apt-get install dosbox.

ZSNES

ZSNES emulates the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (NES/SNES). You can thus play almost all of the popular games that made their way onto the NES.

You can install ZNES using your package manager. Once installed you would need to download some of those old, free games. These are generally called SNES ROMs. These are freely available across the Internet and specially on various p2p networks.

PLEASE NOTE that downloading ROMs may be illegal, so you might want to re-consider your decision before you go in for the download.

Fire up ZSNES emulator and you can play the game you just downloaded by loading it via the Game > Load option within the ZSNES emulator.

gnuboy

gnuboy emulates the GameBoy console. So if you are interested in playing some of your favorite GameBoy games on the PC, give gnuboy a spin. It has great compatibility with almost every free old school game you might want to play.

As with other platforms, you can find games floating around on the Internet, you just need to put your head down and search!  You need to install gnuboy-sdl or gnuboy-svga or gnuboy-x depending upon which libraries you want to support. Again, as above, gnuboy is generally available through the package manager.

Where to get the free old games

The games are generally a Google search away, however you can also check out various p2p networks to find ROMs for your emulator. Abandonia and PDRoms are great for finding such games as well.

Are you still into old school games? Tell us about the emulators you use and your favorite games in the comments section!

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There are many online tycoon games which will grab your attention and give you immense pleasure and satisfaction while playing them. All these games have business structures as their main theme. The storylines of these games are similar to the way real businesses are run. You need to buy things, make investments and sell your stuff.

If you are in a mood to play free online tycoon games, then you should consider these 10 best ones:

Youda Marina

In this game you play the role of the business owner which controls a bay. It all starts with choosing a terrain on which you wish to start your business. Then you are given all the powers of a harbor master. Your primary task is to develop a harbor which can do great business as well as make it an awesome tourist spot. You can build hotels, restaurants, take your tourists to fishing, and construct yachts.

To play this game, you need to be good with time management and should have the zeal to be a great harbor master. All you need to do is make a perfect and popular harbor.

Fish Tycoon Game

This game is very popular among the kids. You play a role of a fish breeder. Its whole layout is so colorful and this is the main reason why kids are highly attracted to it.

As a beginner, you start with a few adult and a few baby fishes. Then you breed them, feed them and sell them. You have an option to come up with new breeds. You can buy a few vitamin chemicals and interesting fish breeding supplies from the market.

Oiligarchy Game

This game takes you back to the time when World War II was over. You play the role of a CEO of an oil company of that time. The game is simply amazing when it comes to the tasks that the gamer needs to perform.

You start with some barren lands, where you need to search for oil wells. Once you find a few, you can drill to take out the oil which can be stored or sold. You are required to meet the yearly goals and if you fail to do so, then the shareholders will fire you. You also need to bribe politicians in the White House and clear some of the oil ordinances that would benefit your business.

Indecision 2008: Money

This is the ultimate free online tycoon game. You play the role of overlord in this game. You have to start with a piece of land with an oil well. You can build homes, oil refineries, hospitals, airports, shopping malls, apartments, movie theatres, parks, theme parks, and many more establishments.

The theme is simple, you need to earn money by building all the establishments. In between you will charged with some taxes, or your city might fall prey to natural disaster causing massive destruction to your properties.

Grand Prix Tycoon

Have you ever felt like placing yourself into the shoes of a F1 franchise owner? Then this is the best way to live your dream.

The best thing about this game is its detail.  It starts with choosing a franchise and a driver for it. Then you can upgrade each and every part of your vehicle. Your choice exists even in the selection of grid girls. This doesn’t end here; you can also have a close watch on your engineers and pit crew. If you want to keep yourself busy with a tycoon game, then this is the stand out option especially if you are a racing freak.

Youda Camper

Youda has always been into the tycoon games. Youda Camper is one of their best products. Like most of the other Youda games, this one is also based on entertaining tourists and earning money.

In this game, you are in charge of a camp site. You start with a barren terrain and some cash. You have to set up different types of tents to accommodate people. Then you also have to build good restaurants and bars, where people could chill out. You also need to take good care of the road system.

Your job does not end with this, as you also need to advertise your camp site. You have to make an attractive camp site where tourists would come in their summer break, which would fetch you a lot of money. It is a comprehensive tycoon game and while playing, you can unlock a number of interesting items.

Coffee Tycoon

Coffee shops are undoubtedly the best place to hang around. But what does it take to run a coffee shop? This game gives you a chance to build your own coffee empire.

In this game, you start as the owner of a coffee shop. You have a number of milestones to achieve along your journey to expand your business. You have to expand your menu in order to attract more customers. You can increase your income by establishing more coffee shops, advertising your services and by standardizing your brand by installing the latest coffee shop equipments.

You can build your own corporate houses to coffee plants. It also allows you to enter the stock market, where you can keep an eye on your market growth. This is an amazing game to play while enjoying your coffee.

Cinema Tycoon

Movie theaters are one the best places to have a fun time. But running a movie theater is equally difficult. What would you do if were given a chance to run a theatre? Jot down your plans; if you are looking forward to play this game.

Your career starts with an objective to make $1 million in one year. You can run the season’s biggest hits on your screen to earn more. You have to invest some money to improve the standards of your theatre by buying the latest equipment, comfortable seats and setting a nominal ticket price. Try this game and see if you can become a cinema mogul.

Now Boarding

Maintaining an airline company and taking it to new heights is not an easy job. You have to keep your customers happy, as they form the fundamental part of your airline empire. You need to make sure that flights are on time. You have to add all the latest technologies to your airport. You also need to maintain the quality in terms of the facilities provided by your airlines. Buy more airplanes, send them to more places and earn more money.

Imperium

This game will make you feel like the king of a budding empire. You have to build an empire with workers and an army. You have to construct farms, carpenters and markets. You have to generate income by exporting the logs, food and iron. At the same time, you need to build a huge army in order to capture the nearby kingdoms. This is authentic tycoon cum strategy game, where your planning comes into play.

These are some of the best online tycoon games that I have come across and I am sure that you would love playing them. Playing these online tycoon games can be a great stress buster and the best part is that you do not even need any management degree to play them.

Do you know of any other tycoon game which we have forgotten?  Let us know in the comments.

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Cheat codes are actually generated and implemented by game developers for the purpose of testing the games. Cheat codes allow the gamer to play with some additional features that a normal game play normally won’t provide.

Activating cheats on consoles is completely different to the way they are activated on computer games. Cheat codes in console games are activated by pressing a combination of buttons. Now many cheat cartridges are available in the market for all console games.

There are many websites which serve the PS2 gamers well for Playstation 2 codes, cheats and some useful tricks.

IGN

This is one of the most popular websites where you can find Playstation 2 free cheats and handy tips for your PS2 game. Its database is huge and it keeps updating with all the latest games.

The best thing about IGN is that it provides detailed information about each PS2 game. You can get to watch the videos and read the reviews of your favorite game. You can read the in-depth explanation of each level of the game in its comprehensive game guide books.

Gamespot

This is a great website for passionate gamers. It is one the most popular websites in its genre. It updates you with all the latest releases and upcoming games and you can also find reviews and ratings of games.

Its cheat code database is huge and up to date and you can find some useful tips to break down deadlock situations in your PS2 games.

Cheatcodes

This cheat code portal is popular because of its simple graphical interface. All the PS2 games are categorized alphabetically, which enables you to find your favorite game without too much hard work. It supplies you with cheats to unlock many hidden features and some authentic tips and tricks.

The most significant feature of this cheat code portal is that a gamer can find his game with so much ease. The hints published in this portal are very resourceful.

PS2 Gamezone

This game is especially dedicated to PS2 gamers. You can find all the valuable information for all the latest PS2 console games. It is the virtual store house of Playstation 2 free cheat codes.

You can check out the all the latest game reviews and ratings. You can read the interviews of game developers. The site renders trailers of all the latest upcoming games and every bit of information regarding all the PS2 games.

Cheatcc

This is a contemporary web site for console gamers to find cheats and tricks. The cheat section of each game is published in full detail. This makes it easier for a gamer to understand and implement the tricks.

You can also view the videos of most of the recent games as well as reading all the latest news of the console gaming industry. Apart from that, its website acts as an agent to trade PS2 games.

Planetcheats

This website lives up to its name. It is truly the planet for the cheat codes of the most ancient and latest PS2 games.

This website is completely dedicated to providing cheats and tricks to unlock the special items. You can see the user rating of the cheats submitted on the website and this ensures their authenticity. The most innovative thing about this portal is that it allows you to give your own rating for the published cheats.

Supercheats

This website is the complete guide book for a PS2 gamer. You can check out the articles and reviews written by expert gamers and there is a special section in this portal, where you find the detailed statistics of each game.

You can even take part in discussions in the forum, where you can update yourself with lots of information about PS2 related stuff. It has an fully updated cheat code database. Gamers can post their questions on the website, which will be answered by experts.

Cheatcodesgalore

As the name implies, this website has cheat codes galore.  All you need to do is select a particular game and you can view the cheats, tricks and walkthroughs of that particular game. Its cheat code database is huge, and is always up to date.

Each game section will be provided with a genuine description and the link, through which you can ship yourself gaming gear.

Cheatmasters

This is the ultimate website for a console gamer. You can find all the secret walkthroughs and unlock items. The provided database for cheats and tricks of the PS2 games is vast and completely updated.

In this portal, a section of any particular game is managed and monitored by a particular cheat master. So this facilitates the website to maintain the information which surely works.

Cheatextreme

This is not only a store house for cheats of PS2 games but it also consists of some proper storylines and descriptions of the games with authentic reviews. Apart from cheats, you can find unbiased games ratings.

There are many gamers who do not find much time to enjoy their favorite games. Cheat codes allow such passionate gamers to complete the game more quickly than playing it by conventional ways. Cheat codes allow you to play in God Mode (infinite health), it provides you unlimited ammunition and deadly weapons, and make the whole game play easily. Cheat codes also come in handy when you are running out of cash in the game.

Now, when you are stuck at some point with your PS2 game, just log into any of these websites and take advantage of the required resources to make your gaming continuous.

Are there any other PS2 free cheat sites that we missed out? Got any good cheats you want to share? Let us know in the comments.

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