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Game of the week: Dino Run
The aim of Dino Run is to run. Fast.
You play the dinosaur, and you're being chased by all sorts of things that want to make you extinct. From fireballs to dust storms and plain old big rocks, there's plenty that will kill you.
But build up enough momentum and eat enough small furry mammals to gain points, and you'll make it through to the next level.
Performance - it's not just about CPUs and GPUs
It's easy to be seduced by the every larger, and more complicated, speeds and model numbers of processors and graphics cards, but they don't tell the whole story about performance, especially when it comes to notebooks.
The hard disk also has a very important role to play, even more so these days, given the constant indexing and virus checking that goes on.
This was brought home rather firmly when moving from a high end gaming desktop computer to a notebook. The notebook is still very powerful with dual SLI Geforce 7000 series graphics card and a very big screen. The official name is the Emperor, but it's been dubbed the Beast instead in the office, and I would have thought it was ideal for gaming.
Which it is, so long as games don't require lots of disk access. Playing F.E.A.R has become an exercise in patience as there are slight pauses when the disk is accessed. And this is on Windows XP rather than Vista.
This does highlight one of the biggest handicaps notebooks face against desktops, the relative performance of their smaller hard disks. Just to make the comparison worse, the desktop computer I had been using had two hard disks working together with RAID, improving the performance even further.
Worth considering when buying a new computer if gaming is important .
Game of the week: Wee War
We remain fond fans of the 1991 classic Battle Isle.
Wee War is the closest thing we've seen to replicating Battle Isle for modern computers - it's essentially a web-based version of Battle Isle, played against real opponents.
You're given a starting position in a computer-generated landscape, along with three other human players. It's turn-based so you move your units, then click to end the turn, at which point your opponents take turns to move theirs.
Games can take place over hours or days - you need to log in every so often to keep tabs on where you've got to. We're still starting out, but so far it's the closest we've come to replicating the sheer enjoyment of Battle Isle.
Game of the week: Bloxorz
Like all the best Flash games, Bloxorz is simple to pick up, addictive and quite taxing in later levels. Gameplay is a question of moving your block from one end of the screen to the hole at the other end. You can turn it on its side (so it covers two squares) or onto an end (so it covers one). 
There are traps, bridges, switches and more, all of which you have to overcome or tinker with to complete the level, without exceeding the maximum number of moves shown at the top-right of the screen.
Return of a favourite program
I've enjoyed playing old games with the excellent emulator DOSBox, and was upset when the equally excellent front end D-Fend was stopped. The front end does away with the need to remember which settings are needed to play particular games and gives a nice graphical interface.
So I was very pleased to find that the project has been restarted in the guise of D-Fend Reloaded, and that, this time, the software is going to be open source as an added bonus.
It looks much the same as the old D-Fend but the installation options are much more powerful and work better with Windows Vista. This is because it is happy to store settings in a users Documents folder. If they were kept in a the programs folder, users would need to be an administrator in order to change any settings.
Commercial games now released as freeware
Gaming is no longer the very expensive business it once was if you are willing to stick with slightly older graphics. Given the cost of high end graphics cards and computers this is often an advantage.
In fact there is even no need to go rooting through the bargain bins in games shops (though I strong recommend the No One Lives Forever series) as plenty of games are available at no cost.
Wikipedia has a useful list of commercial games released as freeware. Good selections of older games can also be found at Abandonia and Home of the Underdogs. Older DOS games may also benefit from the use of DOSBox, see their site for a list of supported games.
Commercial games now released as freeware
Gaming is no longer the very expensive business it once was if you are willing to stick with slightly older graphics. Given the cost of high end graphics cards and computers this is often an advantage.
In fact there is even no need to go rooting through the bargain bins in games shops (though I strong recommend the No One Lives Forever series) as plenty of games are available at no cost.
Wikipedia has a useful list of commercial games released as freeware. Good selections of older games can also be found at Abandonia and Home of the Underdogs. Older DOS games may also benefit from the use of DOSBox, see their site for a list of supported games.
Game of the week: Roller Coaster
Some of the best recent Flash games have been those that have stuck rigidly to the laws of physics. 
Roller Coaster is a good example of that. In fact, it's been produced by Cambridge University as a cross between a simulation and a game.
You start with an incline, and the aim on each level is to move the supports up and down to create the curve of a roller coaster track. You need to strike a balance between providing maximum enjoyment and not making your riders ill.
It's all done with g-forces: they need to be high enough that the riders aren't bored, but make the curves too steep and you'll injure or even kill the rider.
Game of the week: Competition Jezzball
It looks like this one's been around for a while, but Jezzball is new to us.
The basic idea is to block off sections of the game area: whenever you click the mouse, a line is drawn across the 'pitch'. If it makes it to the other side, the enclosed area is painted out, but if a ball hits it before it's painted, you lose a life. 
Paint three quarters or so of the screen to move to the next level. You can play anonymously, or create an account and play against others.
That's about it: simple, but addictive.
Game of the week: Stranded
Stranded is a fishing game, but don't let that put you off. In fact, it's the first fishing game we've played since the lamented Sega Bass Fishing for Dreamcast, and if anything, it's better. 
You're stranded on a remote Pacific island, and you need to curry favour with the locals by catching fish for them. Unfortunately you've forgotten your rod, so the only way to catch fish is to hurl rocks into the water and hope you hit one.
It's not easy to get going - it took us a couple of minutes to hit a fish (before we realised we'd started on the hardest level) and a couple more to hit the one we needed - the natives will tell you which fish they want you to catch. Bringing back the right fish gives you points, which in turn are used to boost your abilities.
Hints and more at Jay is Games.
