Fans of X-Men will be eager to try out this new game. Seeing as they are likely to have played all the previous X-Men games many times, they may be bored of them by now and have started playing more Partypoker, or something else. This new game will give them the chance to enter into the world of X-Men again, in a newly developed version of the game.

I haven’t heard about any new releases of that game, so there won’t be any follow up articles on this one. Unless I come across the perfect Centipede remake that is. Although, I must say, it is going to be pretty difficult to beat the competition. Yep! I found two versions that are true to the classic Centipede game. And you will not be surprised to find out that the best version is by Atari themselves. Go figure…

Atari.com’s Centipede

So, the first Centipede game to be mentioned is the best one around (that I found anyway) and it is by Atari themselves. Atari has a somewhat modest online arcade with a couple classics… Centipede being one of them. It’s nice, to say the least. Graphics and sound effects are just like the classic arcade game. It has a nice screen size. The actual Flash movie is 760 X 570 but the playing screen’s dimensions are actually 480 X 512. It plays and feels just like the old arcade game. It is an all around perfect remake. Which, of course, make sense since they are the game’s original creators.

Centipede Tiny

Next is a game that is made in Director, so it is a Shockwave game. And it is good! Actually, it is how I found Atari’s version of Centipede above this one. After playing the Shockwave version there is a URL on the high score screen “atari-centipede.com” and it is redirected to “atari.com“. It would seem the game was originally created by Atari as well and, as with the first, it is almost just like the original arcade game. The major downside to this one is the dimensions are 240 X 256. If mobile devices supported Shockwave it would be almost perfect size wise.

Centipede Extreme

The next discovery seemed to be the most widely distributed version of Centipedes and to be honest, it isn’t a very good one at that. The game’s graphics are fine (not great). The sounds are not fine. And although the movements of the player and the other sprites in the game are good the first level is much too fast and erratic. I didn’t play more than two or three levels but I didn’t notice any difference between them. It is possible there isn’t any difference. Just an infinite cycle of playing the same level again and again.

Java Centipede

The last version is a Java version and it is terrible. Whatever you do, don’t scroll the page… parts of the game screen may disappear until a sprite moves over that area to make it reappear. Graphics, sounds, and movements are not nice but this Java version was the best out of the couple other versions that I ran across. Oh well… nice try anyway.

That’s my findings (the games I deemed worthy of mention anyway) for the classic arcade game Centipede. And as I said at the beginning, there is no intention of a follow up post for this one unless someone creates the perfect Centipede remake!

So, since I don’t have the skinny on the new releases for consoles just yet, you might actually be wondering “what exactly this article is about“? It is about the classic Joust game and how much I loved it! It’s also about the online gaming industry and how they have failed to create a good remake of this timeless classic. Well, that’s not entirely correct. There is one version that isn’t all that bad.

I used to play Joust for days (literally) on my Atari 5200 when I was a kid! I would simply pause the game, turn off the TV and go to school, sleep, shower, whatever and then just continue game play later. I remember my score was in the millions. I LOVED the game.

What I had always wondered is, why hadn’t anyone remade this game for online play? So, I began the search! I found a few, but I was rather disappointed in what I had found.

The best one I found was in Java. I have to hand it to the maker of this version because it plays much like the original game. So, that is what makes this version the best online version of joust. The graphics are possibly a little worse than the original. Some might even love that the graphics are blocky like the original. I, for one, would have liked a more realistic design. So, that is my biggest disappointment with this game. The only other thing I am not crazy about is that it is in Java. Don’t get me wrong… I’ve got nothing against Java really, I just prefer Flash games over Java. To me it seems Flash is less demanding on my computer than Java.

The next two versions I found are going to be grouped together. Mainly because they are both awful. The game play is terrible! and the graphics are atrocious. Plus, I believe one was created from decompiling the other.

Let’s start with the one I believe is the original and it’s good points.

The graphics are not bad (when the game is viewed at its original size). They are actually imported graphics from screen shots or something… not ideal but “OK”. Why it isn’t ideal is because, when you animate imported graphics in Flash you generally get a bit of wobble and pixelization, add the old cathode ray tube screen lines to that and you get a mess that may hurt the eyes after a while. But, again, “OK”… When you play the game there are moments when you are running across a platform and the bird is facing backwards and its legs aren’t even moving. Or you are running on the bird’s belly! At the top of the screen you should bounce down… in these versions you disappear above the screen! I couldn’t play more than two levels because of my irritation with the game play.

And then for the “knock off” of the first! I am guessing they thought they were going to improve the graphics of the game by redrawing them in Flash? I don’t know, but I’ve seen better work from toddlers.

There are my findings. I’m sorry I do not have better news for the rest of you Joust lovers. Maybe one of these days I will be able to give an update to this post and inform you all that I have found the perfect remake of Joust. Until then… keep your fingers crossed??

I have been developing online games for almost 10 years and until recently it has been a wonderful job. Where else can you use your imagination to build an environment that is completely your own and have numerous people take part and enjoy themselves within it? It is truly wonderful!

Why I say “until recently” is because the market is becoming over saturated and therefore there is less and less money in it. Now what seems to be the buzz among game developers is in-game ads. What does this mean? Well it seems that online games are no longer the product. The product is advertisements, the game is just the delivery medium.

Developers can no longer make any money off their games unless they stick ads throughout their games and then give them away to the ad providers. So, only when their game serves thousands of ads do they get $1. Used to be a game developer could sell the source code for their game for a couple of thousand dollars for an average (good) online game. Now, their game will have to serve over 5,000,000 ads just to get a quarter of that. Most developers are becoming content with this solution because they have “held out” for quite some time and things have just not gotten any better. They can spend a month or more developing a game and since nobody is buying, licensing, or sponsoring the game just sits and collects dust. Meanwhile, some developer that is technically savvy, but has no imagination, comes across their game and either de-compiles it or creates their own version of it and mass distributes the game through one of these advertising portals. So, by the time the original gets noticed people think the original is the copy because “everyone knows that game“.

So now it is a compounding problem. As more and more developers enter the whole ad campaign world, in exchange for the game development industry, the tighter the door is closed for any of those that wish to remain creating games instead of creating advertising vehicles.

How did it come to this in the first place you might wonder? I believe a lot of things played a role in this development. A bad economy, realization that there is decent money in advertising, an easy to learn software for creating games, and de-compilers. Is this a preview of things to come for other industries? Could the whole of the internet eventually be reduced to one huge advertising platform. Simply a place that helps induce seizures due to the flashing chaotic ads covering otherwise mundane and uninteresting sites?

At first what crossed my mind was, “Oh No! Not another Flash game site with hundreds (or thousands) of trashy games!?“. To be completely honest I really didn’t know too much about GamezArena… I knew I had come across them before but I couldn’t remember why or when. And after a bit of research I was rather impressed with my findings.

GamezArena has been around since 2002 although they never really succeeded in the way their competitors had. After reading their philosophy I must admit I was impressed. It is rare to find such an approach nowadays. Their philosophy is quality, not quantity, and I agree wholeheartedly. GamezArena does their best to keep from flooding the market with their games so that they remain appealing to private and commercial site owners. GamezArena creates games to attract certain demographics for viral marketing campaigns. So, logically speaking, if their games could be found all over the web why would anyone come to one particular site to play them? The more widely distributed the Flash games are, the more their functionality diminishes exponentially.

GamezArena is a rather exclusive Flash game provider… not in the sense that they are virtually invisible and you would have to know someone who knows someone to even hear about them. They rank fairly well on search results in all of the major search engines. But more in the sense that they do not cater to the cheap game sites. They are not all about the mighty dollar… although one could get that impression from their licensing and source file prices.

By this point I was rather taken in and I had to find out more. So naturally I contacted GamezArena. What I found out was even more fascinating. Other than the previously mentioned precautions to ensure the originality of their Flash games, from time to time all the games are “renewed“. To elaborate GamezArena explained, “due to Flash ActionScripting and drawing advancements we update our games’ code and make different graphical enhancements or alterations along with game security“. “Just to keep them Fresh” they added. They informed me that the GamezArena site has just recently been relaunched and has a morphing site theme. Meaning the site’s design alters with the seasons and time of day… or even current events like New Years, Halloween, or the Super Bowl. GamezArena has also added an optional, but free, membership registration. The registration serves two purposes. The first being high scores. Previously, visitors were simply prompted to enter a name either prior to playing or prior to saving a score. That allowed for cluttered high score tables, obscene name entries, and multiple entries from the same player. Now there isn’t any name entry. If you are a member and logged in your scores are saved, if not… your scores are not saved. The second purpose is to accumulate demographic statistics for prospective customers. The information gathered for this upon registration is location (based upon visitor’s IP), gender, and birth date.

I was also informed that the coming acquisitions have multiple purposes. GamezArena’s future plans include expanding their gaming categories to include more defined listings such as “word games, educational games, etc.“. Another purpose is to “chip away at the competition“. GamezArena says, “We have not been very aggressive in the past. Mainly because we believed that if we maintain a higher integrity than our competition we would naturally standout as something special and at least remain among the top sites. We’ve done OK but we plan to do much better in the future and this acquisition is one step of many to come.”

I for one will be watching what GamezArena will be doing next and backing them 100%. I think the online gaming industry has become stagnant and cheap and to see companies or indie developers with GamezArena’s standards rise above those who have drug gaming through the mud would be just perfect!

Over the years, several attempts have been made to push the king of MMO’s off of its throne, without any memorable success. Some companies have openly tried to recreate WoW in free to play experiences, yet somehow players keep sticking to World of Warcraft. I was a player myself for a very long time and I know that the reason I haven’t gotten into any WoW rip-offs was simply the fact that something was missing. Blizzard got it incredibly right with their game so let’s take a look at what the fuss is about.

The original game was set in Azeroth which consisted of two continents (Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor), this was later enhanced by Outland and Northrend. There are two major factions standing against each other, namely the Alliance and the Horde, both with their own respective races. These are the Humans, Dwarfs, Gnomes, Night Elves, Draenei and Worgen in the Alliance and the Forsaken, Trolls, Tauren, Orcs, Blood Elves and Goblins in the Horde. Another major choice a player makes when starting the game is picking their class – Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Warrior, Druid, Mage, Warlock, Hunter, Rogue and the only hero class so far, the Death Knight. Each one of these starts at level 1, with the exception of Death Knights who start at level 55. After picking your race and class and changing your appearance to your liking, you are placed into your respective starter zone where you make your first steps toward reaching the final level cap, which at the moment is 85. The game revolves around questing throughout most of its early stages. The only downside to this is that quests become boring after a while, as most of them are based on the classic “kill an x number of this and bring me an x number of that” theme. However, you will also encounter various tasks that break the above stereotype, except maybe not in the beginning.

As you level up you learn new spells and abilities and gain talent points which you may spend on your talent tree, further shaping your character. The game ultimately provides two major elements you will be able to focus on: Player versus Player (PvP) and Player versus Environment (PvE). PvP means taking on other players in battlegrounds or arenas and PvE is all about dungeons and instances, which are special places within the game containing high level elite bosses. In order to slay these, you will need the aid of other players.

Making money in World of Warcraft is easy if you have a profession. Your character may learn two main professions; these are Jewelcrafting, Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, Enchanting, Tailoring, Alchemy and Inscription. Usually players pick their main professions in combination with their respective supporting professions, such as Herbalism, Mining and Skinning. There are also secondary professions: Archeology, First aid, Fishing and Cooking, you may learn all of these. The items you make can be offered for sale in the Auction house. You can store items in your bags which come in various sizes and if these are full, the Bank is at your disposal.

The world itself is so huge that eventually, travelling by foot will become boring. Fortunately, from a very early level you can learn the Riding skill, which enables you to buy mounts that let you travel faster. Flying mounts have been introduced in the first expansion, which unfortunately you could only use in Outland, later Northrend in the second expansion, and the latest expansion finally enabled players to use flying mounts in Azeroth as well.

World of Warcraft has been running for over six years now constantly gaining a bigger and bigger player base. This game has been at least as hated as it’s been loved and there are probably good reasons for both. People who love it do so because it has a massive world full of opportunities and events, or because it is a great way to “meet” people, for some it is a compensation of lack of success in real life (sad but true). There certainly are more aspects which you can fall in love with and it would be hard to name all of them. I always enjoyed games where you could create custom characters and you can do a lot (though not quite enough) of customization in WoW. But what really got me into it was my guild, where I got to know people who I eventually met in real life and that I think is the real thing that keeps people playing.

And well, if it’s not your guild, then it’s the fact that you have paid for a certain amount of game time and you don’t want to feel like you have wasted money. For some people however, even this may be secondary, as the game is incredibly time consuming. If you want to gain better and better equipment (and you probably do as you will most likely fall behind without keeping your gear up-to-date) then you have to kill the high level elite bosses. They can be found in instances and some of those can take several hours to finish.

So here we get to the reason why WoW has been mostly criticized in the past. Some gamers give up most of their social life, ending up annoying their family and friends, who can’t understand how someone can spend so much time in front of the computer. I’ve never been one of those gamers; I have played WoW for about four years with lots of breaks. I haven’t played in a long time but I still love the game, cherish the memories and keep up with updates. Having experienced the game first hand I have to disagree with the above criticism. It is not the game that should be brought down for people becoming computer addicts, it is the people themselves.

Everyone gets to make their own decisions. No matter how “addictive” a game is, it is up to the gamer to find a healthy balance between real life and game.

The bottom line is World of Warcraft deserves the unofficial title of MMO King. From my point of view it is one of the best games I have ever played and depending on how long it will be running I will most likely end up playing again sometime in the future. If you’re a fan of MMOs, this one’s highly recommended.

I am a grand lover of games… all kinds of games… but somehow I cannot bring myself to endorse this game. That is why I am tossing it in the Black Hole.

I like some first person shooters, I even like some of those “hack’em and slash’em” games like “Gauntlet” or “Baulder’s Gate” for PS2 or my wife and I used to get into “Dungeon Siege” on the PC. Those games aren’t really mind challenging and are pretty much about getting to the end of the level while killing every living thing you encounter along the way. And I would still endorse those games before “Grand Theft Auto” or “GTA” (as it is often referred to). So, for me, it is not about the violence… I’ve played “Gauntlet” with my 9 year old son (gore off).

What Makes It Cool?!?

To be honest, I haven’t played the most recent release of the game, part 4, but I played part 3. I have also researched the “parental advisories” in regards to the game’s content. I have read the story lines for all the games. I have read and heard comments from various people as to what they think about the game and it is from all of that I draw my conclusion… the game is cheap. It plays on the psychology that the forbidden becomes most attractive and through that desired. And people actually fall for it. Everyone that I have talk to about the game has named all the “Cool” stuff… in their opinions… and it is either things that are not only found in “GTA” or it’s things like when the character drinks too much alcohol it affects the camera and the movement or you can get “serviced” by a prostitute… Which is generally followed quickly by “…but you don’t see anything… I mean there is some nudity in the game… but you don’t actually see any of the sexual acts…“.

Cheap Marketing Tactics…

I think one of my biggest problems with this game is that it is parasitic in nature… everything about it reeks of cheapness. The game’s story line is completely cliche and unoriginal. It contains all the “forbidden goodies” imaginable… sex, drugs, alcohol, felony crime including a no holds barred killing spree. It is marketed in the same fashion and therefore it is utter nonsense through and through.

Even though it is infuriating that the corporate world would push such trash onto the public market knowing full well that it is morally and ethically callous. What is worse is that people actually fell for it all. People actually looked at a game in which they get the chance to play a 15 year felon who gets out of prison to dive right back in and shoot, stab, and scheme his way to the top of the organized crime chain and said, or thought, “Cool!“.

What is even sadder is that parents actually listened to their children’s pleas to buy them the game! Unbelievable! I was in awe when reading comments from 11 year old kids informing other 11 year old kids how to “…show you are mature enough for the content…“. Crazy! One kid said “I play Medal of Honor with my mom sitting right next to me while I run through the jungles of Korea on a killing spree and she wouldn’t get me GTA!” I would have laughed and said “Yes, you are right son… no more Medal of Honor for you…” All these comparisons of things that are, in their opinion, just as “bad” as GTA… I would have revoked those privileges as well. I know, I shouldn’t be so surprised that parents were coerced into buying the game for their kids. After all, the toy industry spends $12,000,000,000 per year just to help teach your kids how to nag you into buying them what they want? Fact… believe it or not! That’s over 10 times the country’s budget for education…

What happened to kids wanting to be police officers, fire fighters, or doctors? Like I said at the beginning… I like a good first person shooter… those in which the player’s character is in a positive light. One of the comments in response to another site’s parental advisory article was on the grounds that the author of the article hadn’t a clue about the game and went on to tell how the player’s character wanted out of a life of crime and is doing all he is doing to get out of it… yet all the content and story lines concerning the game I have read says that is not the case at all.

I despise war. I think war’s are stupid. I would never glorify a war. But I do enjoy war games like “Medal of Honor” or “Battlefield 1943″. For me it is more like paintball or when I was a child when we would use low powered bb guns ( redneck paintball ). To me these war games are kind of like up-scaled versions of capture the flag. GTA though… it is just senseless… I can hear myself now… “Son… for your 12th birthday I think it is time you see what it is like to be drunk, get a lap dance, and watch someone overdose on heroin.“ (handing him a copy of GTA)… and I can hear him brag about me to all his friends “My Dad’s the coolest!!! He gave me the new GTA for my birthday!” and then when he is older, has kids of his own and he is faced with the predicament of whether or not to buy his son the next generation of “Pimp’n and Slang’n” where the graphics are life like and there aren’t any ratings on anything… I can hear him say “Dad… I can’t believe you actually bought me that game when I was a kid… what were you thinking?“… Things to reflect upon on my death bed…

Why do games receive age restrictions?

A child’s mind is generally plunged deep into their imagination ( most of the time )… an adult’s is usually forced to become more grounded and practical due to life’s responsibilities and burdens and it makes it much easier to put these games into the right place. Whereas a child’s mind is going to remain in that environment even when they are not playing. I remember playing “The Legend of Zelda” on Nintendo (way back in the day) so much that when I finally did lay down to go to sleep, I saw the game play… I could continue playing the game in my mind when I was sleeping. My wife recalls a similar affect from “Tetris”. She would stop playing the game, yet everything around her she would mentally rotate so that it would nicely fit with other surrounding objects…  Knowing this and knowing the affects of dreams on the unconscious mind… GTA is not the type of thing you should want running through your child’s mind… is it? No, the game is… probably… not going to make them become a drug dealer, murderer, or pimp but it just might give them the unconscious approach to always look for the way around doing things “properly“. Don’t get me wrong… I think ingenuity is a major plus… but not at the expense of being correct towards all those that might be affected. This game does not teach that… No, more to the point… it teaches “Look out for yourself and do whatever you need to do to get to the top!” and “even the lowest of people can get there… if you are willing and able to do what is needed…” And maybe you can even throw in a bit of “drastic times calls for drastic measures!”

It’s just not time…

I think what would be excellent proof of a child showing it is mature enough to handle a game like this is to know what he/she would like to do for a living. Show what their scholastic curriculum is going to be until their sophomore year in college, what college they will attend and how exactly they intend to finance it all. If they can seriously and honestly do that… I say get them the game… but then again… if they could do all that… they probably wouldn’t be interested in such a game.

Math Worm

One of the rather understated websites for children is GamezArena.
It has a nice selection of free online games, however there are no ads whatsoever, no registration, and the games are simple, clean and highly educational. One such game is Math Worm.

Addendum:
MathWorm used to be a MoppetGames game, however since MoppetGames is merging with GamezArena, Math Worm and other MG games can now be played in GamezArena’s Kids games section.

Math Arcade

Here kids can play a number of math games in a fun Math Arcade, once again ad-free and sans obligatory registration. The only information required in the gender and the skill level (grade) and then it begins. In order to advance the child has to beat the current math game, therewith unlocking the next “level”.

Math Magician

Math Magician is a simple straight-forward and quite wonderful resource for children. Perhaps not as playful as the previously mentioned math games, this is rather an online testing platform, for addition, multiplication, subtraction and division, or all of them combined. It is nicely done, fresh, simple and of course free of advertisements.

That’s all for now! I hope you find this information helpful, or know someone who does.

© This article was written exclusively for the GameCyb.org gaming magazine.

I love a good racing game and would have to say MotorStorm ( Pacific Rift ) is pretty great and a tough one to beat.

Most racing games nowadays can’t even be played by multiple players on one console. They seem to only offer network or internet multi-player options. So for me to race my son I should get another PlayStation and TV? That seems a little extreme and excessive doesn’t it? Well, MotorStorm offers, up to, a four way split screen option, plus online multi-player racing options (not to mention the single player “festival” mode). That’s nice, helped grab my attention and was definitely a big plus in considering to buy it.

MotorStorm Vehicles

Another thing that was, at least, interesting was the choice of vehicles. Most racing games are either street, track, or off-road racing and therefore your choice of vehicles is generally limited to certain types that fall into the game’s brand of racing. MotorStorm gives you a choice from motorcycles to monster trucks due to the constant change within each track’s racing surface. To be exact, there are eight vehicle types… Bikes, ATVs, Buggies, Rally Cars, Racing trucks, Mud Pluggers, Big Rigs and Monster Trucks. Each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. And each vehicle type comes in a wide variety of models and designs from which you can choose (of course that selection becomes larger and more diverse the longer you play the game due to the unlocking of additional vehicle packs). You can also choose the appearance and gender of your vehicle’s driver… not that you see them all that much unless you are driving a motorcycle or four wheeler. All of which adds to the personalization of game play. And I don’t just mean “personalization” in the sense of your vehicle and driver’s appearance. A lot of games offer such things… because, let’s face it, we all like it. What I mean is that your choice in vehicle has some affect on how you are going to approach the track you are about to race. A motorcycle is lighter and quicker to reach top speed but it isn’t going to handle mud or water very well… and, well… in a “push and shove” contest it doesn’t really stand a chance with any of the other vehicles. While a monster truck might win almost all physical confrontations, it is slower on take off, does not corner very well and it is somewhat “bouncy” to the point of being unstable after jumps or even a collision littered track.

Track Diversity and Complexity

I think the biggest plus to MotorStorm’s game playing experience is that you are not confined to any one particular route “around the track“. There a multiple paths from which you can choose to effectively reach the finish line first. On any one track you can find yourself all alone… not another vehicle in sight AND still be going the right direction! Plus! You might even find that your position in the race has jumped up a few places. It is great when you find one of those hidden “short cuts“. Or maybe it isn’t really a short cut but a certain terrain feature which gives your choice in vehicle the advantage. Like a small narrow hole in an old billboard that only a motorcycle or maybe a four wheeler can fit through. Or maybe it is a straight shot piece of track through deep mud or water that only a large heavier vehicle can move through without being affected too severely. Either way that sense of not having a “defined” track is refreshing and appeals to me. But, then again, I couldn’t ever get into NASCAR either. I understand the complexities and difficulties of such racing but it always seemed too mundane… like watching golf… I just can’t do it.

Environmental Factors

The game, in some cases, forces you to adapt and change your racing tactics from moment to moment depending on who, or what, you encounter in your desired path or how the track changes from lap to lap… such as… a blind corner which was free and clear on the first lap now has a huge tower lying across it due to the monster truck that ran into it after you had passed. Or the big rig that is to your left wants to take the path on your right… just to name a couple… The track changes from lap to lap just as the vehicles driving in the race. I do love the aspect in games “of today” of damage accumulation to the vehicles and the environment. This doesn’t seem to be a phenomenon just in racing games but other genres as well. However, to get into this much deeper would make this an article for the Evolution of Games category. So, I’ll limit my comments on this subject just for MotorStorm.

MotorStorm Games

As for exactly how many MotorStorm games there are… I am a bit confused. There are the original, “Monument Valley“, and its sequel “Pacific Rift“. There is now an “Arctic Edge” but it seems it is only for PSP…? Maybe? And there is mention of “Apocalypse” which seems it may be for PlayStation. I have never played “Monument Valley” but have heard different reports considering how much people have enjoyed it… although, in my surroundings most agree that “Pacific Rift” is better. I haven’t played “Arctic Edge”… so don’t look to me for guidance on that one. And it would seem “Apocalypse” has not yet been released.

In closing, I would recommend MotorStorm ( Pacific Rift ) to any racing gamer as it is fun, challenging and the game (so far) doesn’t get “old” because it is never the same and there are tons of options to explore.

© This article was written exclusively for the GameCyb.org gaming magazine.

The Game Play

The game play itself is pretty straight-forward: Save the suicidal lemmings.
On each level you can assign specific skills to a given number of lemmings. Your timing has to be accurate and your logic sound, as to safely guide the set number of lemmings to the exit. There are always obstacles to be found, either blocking the lemmings from continuing or killing them, should they get in touch with it. Not everyone who began playing the game finished it. Not for lack of enthusiasm, but some simply didn’t succeed in finishing all the difficulty levels, yet it was doable.

As with any popular game (or any popular “anything”), there were sequels to the Lemmings game as well. And, as it so often the case with sequels, some of them rather stained the memory of the masterpiece instead of enhancing it. Granted, the graphics and interface of the original game were very simple, but the game itself was complex and indubitably a masterpiece. Some of the later versions, especially the first 3D Lemmings game, were exactly the opposite.

Playing Lemmings Online

In the mean time there are several online versions you can play for free. Here are the best online Lemmings games I have come across.

Here you can play Lemmings online much like the original version of the game, possibly exactly like it. I haven’t tried all the levels, but it looks hopeful!

Play Lemmings for free at Elizium

“Beanies” is an online Flash game based on the original Lemmings game. It has 50 full levels of increasing difficulty and the puzzles are all new, so whether you have already played the Lemmings or not, these will be an equal challenge.

Play Lemmings for free at GamezArena

© This article was written exclusively for the GameCyb.org gaming magazine.