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What comes to mind when you think of browser-based gaming? Is it the legion of flash-based timewasters you might find at a site like Kongregate? Is it the slow-like-molasses strategy/empire management games like Utopia? What about the turn-based, lightweight RPGs like Kingdom of Loathing? Well, we’re here to tell you that there’s more to browser games than just that.
Now, we’re not going to claim that you can play Crysis or Left 4 Dead on the cloud, but there are plenty of fun, 3D games available for free, ready to play on any computer with a browser and a CPU from the last half-decade. These games, which include shooters, RPGS, and other genres, are more polished than you likely think, and are definitely worth checking out.
Rather than trying to recommend a single, best game, we’ll list off some of our favorites from each genre.
Note: Nearly all of these games require some sort of browser plug in to play.
Fallen Empires: Legions
You may have heard that some ex-Dynamix members are creating a “spiritual successor” to Starsiege: Tribes, played in a browser. You also might have assumed that the game would suck, given the unproven nature of browser-imbedded 3d action games, but you definitely owe it to yourself to try Fallen Empires: Legions out. The graphics are surprisingly good, and the action is as fast and high-flying as befits a game with the Tribes lineage. It’s still in (open) beta right now, so some things like weapon selection are limited, but the developers are working extensively with the community, and the game’s shaping up to be a lot of fun.
It’s also worth mentioning that although Fallen Empires is the flagship game of the Instant Action service, it’s far from its only offering. There are 8 other games, including an arcadey flight combat sim, a MechWarrior clone, a simple space RTS and others; all of which are better-executed games than you would probably expect to find running in a browser.
Quake Live
Continuing the trend of old games given new life in the browser, Quake Live is basically a straight port of Quake III. It’s still in beta, meaning that you can’t play it right this instant, but we can say from experience that the game is coming along very nicely, and is worth keeping an eye on.
RuneScape
If you’ve been on the net much, you’ve probably heard of Runescape. And yeah, it still has something of a bad reputation for having a lousy community and ugly graphics. But there’s also a little tiny glimmer of real gameplay tucked away in there, somewhere. Basically, if you want a full-featured 3D MMO to waste your time on without having to download a client, Runescape’s the only way to go.
Sherwood
Remember how we just said that RuneScape is the only full-featured browser MMORPG? Sherwood is an excellent example of what we would call an under-featured browser MMORPG. The only reason we bother to include it on this list is that the engine is actually quite nice; it manages to pump out much better framerates than RuneScape does, and the graphics are about 3 generations ahead of its competitor. So it’s probably not worth more than an hour or two of time-killing, if that, but the game is at least a proof-of-concept for browser-based MMORPGs with acceptable graphics.
Blurst
Blurst is a website which hosts several awesome and surreal games from Flashbang, the studio which created (among other things) the totally rad Peggle Nights. But that’s not a browser game, and is therefore neither here nor there. What is both here and there is Flashbang’s stable of Browser-based 3D games, including Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, Minotaur China Shop, and Jetpack Brontosaurus. Seriously, even if you think the games sound dumb, give them a try; you’ll thank us later.
Want to know what website will let you do all your instant messaging without downloading a thing? Keep reading.
Comments are closed on this article
shortbus88
February 04, 2009 at 12:08pm
We are talking about music, pictures, social networking.
Stuff for personal use.
It is a no brainer that corporations should not be storing sensitive data in the cloud.Class group projects could benefit from cloud computing just for convenience. I would also save a copy of the data on my own harddrive to backups, but save the changes in the cloud for the rest of my class project team to see as well.
i think that cloud computing has its place for data that you would not care if others could see it.
WildmanCAL
February 04, 2009 at 7:10am
If a person relies solely on cloud computing, then they are asking for big trouble if they lose their internet connection. Most broadband connections are fairly reliable these days but there is always that "I need to work on my school paper" and BAM! your internet connection is down and you cannot access your documents because they are stored on SOMEONE ELSE'S COMPUTERS! Thank you, no, but I will take storing on MY hard drive and it be MY responsibilty to backup MY data.
Keith E. Whisman
February 03, 2009 at 1:37pm
I think this is a big mistake for companies. With a third party holding a companies information it's going to be easy for companies to secretly sell it's customers data to rivals and hackers to break in and steal information. I don't like it one bit and It's a terrible idea for companies to rely on cloud computing entirely. Perhaps for receptionists at doctors offices and maybe market research companies for it's mass call centers. But to store information on a third parties servers it's a mistake. I can't believe people are so excited about this technology. It's definately not a technology enthusiasts like us here enjoying MaximumPC could possibly get excited about.
I Jedi
February 03, 2009 at 2:20pm
Agreed. I will never put private and sensitive information of mine on cloud computing. Too dangerous. I'd have to see some hard core reviews/statistics. etc to prove to me that this technology is safe, reliable, and without worry.
