If you took every legal free game on the internet worth playing...

[A Sprite]

And counted them as a system library, how would the internet compare to other game consoles?

Edited October 24, 2007 by A Sprite

[Rybags]

It'd probably kick the 7800's arse, but compare poorly to most others (given that "officially" there are more than 6,000 games for the PS1 and PS2 individually).

 

There's plenty of Flash games around, but maybe 10% would do something like a NES proud.

 

There's also plenty of open source/free games around, in fact I downloaded a remade Alien Breed which was based on the Amiga version.

[mos6507]

Flash is really a pretty viable gaming "engine". It wasn't always this way. You had to use Shockwave (remember that?) but the current version has everything you need for 2D games. Unfortunately a lot of web games were written for older versions of Flash. Way back when most flash games were nothing but "move the mouse pointer over something and click" sorts of games. So that kind of stacks the deck. Seems like you can do SNES/Gensis grade games in Flash if you have enough creative resources and time on your hands.

[+Random Terrain]

I've been slowly collecting Free Online Games that I'm allowed to put on my web site and there are some pretty good ones. If someone creates an affordable Flash game creator, I'd love to make my own online games. Until then, I plan to make a few Atari 2600 games with batari Basic and let people play those online.

[A Sprite]

Flash is really a pretty viable gaming "engine". It wasn't always this way. You had to use Shockwave (remember that?) but the current version has everything you need for 2D games. Unfortunately a lot of web games were written for older versions of Flash. Way back when most flash games were nothing but "move the mouse pointer over something and click" sorts of games. So that kind of stacks the deck. Seems like you can do SNES/Gensis grade games in Flash if you have enough creative resources and time on your hands.

 

I had no idea Flash had come so far. Thank you.

 

 

http://www.2flashgames.com/f/f-Asteroids-Revenge-3-4830.htm

[MCHufnagel]

Just go to places like fileplanet, cnet's download.com, Games For Windows website, gamehippo, to name a few. There is a huge amount of free flash and non-flash games out there. Now most of them are ok at best, but then so are most console games. There are some real gems out there. I would say it would compare very well to any console you can think of.

[+uosipa llamxew]

There are a ton of really great freeware games if one is willing to go looking.

 

The Independent Gaming Source is a good place to check: www.tigsource.com

For a directory of great flash games - www.jayisgames.com

There are several small game development communities that consistently pump out free games, although only fraction of the games have much longevity. ie. www.create-games.com

 

I recently read that the new developer edition of Clickteam's Multimedia Fusion will allow a developer to compile to Java, which has the potential to bring many freeware games to different computer platforms... pretty exciting.

 

As far as how these compare to console games... a lot of independent and hobbyist games are inspired by the classics. Many are similar in look, feel, and playability as the classic arcade or console games of the 80s and 90s. One does have to do a bit of digging through the sludge to find the goodies, but just like the older games, it's worth it when you do.

[PressureCooker2600]

Isn't the original Diner Dash free now?

 

That game is definately addicting.