Flash Games

For a *very* long time, I never saw any redeeming value in flash. Period, end of story. It did nothing but make web pages difficult to see and navigate. Of course, that is really the designers fault, but that is not my point. I still don't see any point in using flash for web pages, but as content for those pages, the beast has been redeemed in my eyes. I know that flash and shockwave games are nothing new, but the quality (in my opinion at least) tended to be sorely lacking. A few days ago a friend showed me Orisinal Games, a collection of horribly addictive and entertaining games by Ferry Halim. The games manage to be both simple and challenging, and there are more than a few that I could spend hours playing. After that, I started poking the internet with my google stick and asking it to give me games. That brought me to a fairly new site, Kongregate, which is attempting to be the flash game analog to xbox live. My favorite game there has to be The Fancy Pants Adventure, a side scrolling game in the spirit of Super Mario Bros. and the like. The first world is fun, but the demo for the second world has left me salivating. Fancy Pants led me to Armor Games, which has a nice selection of flash games and several playable demos for installable games. The flash games vary in quality, but some are simply amazing. On in particular, Chaos Faction, left me stupefied. I never would have believed that a game so... feature complete could be made with flash. If you have ever played Super Smash Bothers for Nintendo, then you should feel right at home. Chaos Faction even includes a level editor! I was really impressed with this one, I just cant express that enough. All that aside, flash pages suck.(period)