For free games, some games made on Flash are terrific time killers. Some of them are popular, but others hide in obscurity. Here are some awesome flash games you may have never played:

• Skears DX: http://newgrounds.com/portal/view/93858
  
• Hagy Game: http://newgrounds.com/portal/view/153639
  
• Turbo Spirit: http://www.neodelight.com/turbospirit/ (Make sure you check out the rest at Neo Delight)
• Uninvited: http://albinoblacksheep.com/flash/uninvited.php (It's pretty funny)
• Tontie V1: http://www.eyezmaze.com/tontie/v1/index.html (The one on eBaums is obsolete)
• Not Pron: http://deathball.net/notpron/ (Not a Flash game, actually, but worth mentioning due to its mindboggling difficulty)
  
• Flash Flash Revolution: http://www.flashflashrevolution.com (try the original and R2 Beta)

When you get bored of those, try WarioWare on the Gamecube, because that's pretty much the equivilent of playing the craziest flash game in the Universe. If you have a GameCube and never tried it, what are you waiting for? It's been on rental shevles for months and is budget priced.

Happy gaming!

If you have a Gamecube, you'd best at least rent this game. Here's a little mini-review (as opposed to a big mini-review):

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First off, it's an RPG, alongthe lines of Super Mario RPG and (surprise) Paper Mario. It's astonishing how similar this game can be to the original Paper Mario while still being a totally new package. Now, the storyline is better (still not the highlight but in throws in some nice twists), the battles are marginally harder, and generally there's more of everything: more items, more game time, more enemies, etc.

The battle system is pretty close to the original Paper Mario. For those who haven't played it, it's like an average turn based affair, with some differences you'd expect from Nintendo (and Intelligent Systems). You have Mario and one partner at a time during battles. It's simple but not over-simple. When you or your partner attacks, you have an opportunity to do an action command (time a button press, repeatedly press a button, etc) to do more damage. Defense also has action commands. If you can time a tap of the A button right as the enemy attacks you, you can lower the damage done to you (it's hard or even impossible for some enemies). If you tap B button at the exact right time, you can block all damage and counter attack.

There's strategy to the battles, the same stuff you've seen in the original if you played it. Mario has both a hammer and jump, but you can't jump spiked enemies, and you can't hammer flying enemies. Partners are similarily limited; each one has unique moves and some moves aren't good for certain situations. You can switch between partners but that normally takes up a turn. Moreover, Mario can equip badges that give him and/or his partners all sorts of special abilities, but you have to find the badges and you can only use so many at a time (you'll need to level up to be able to hold more). There's actually quite a bit of strategy in there.

The game is normally not too hard, but the bosses are pretty powerful, and it gets crazy at the end. There's a side quest that will also push your fighting skills.

There's something magical about this game and you should check out Gamespot's review if you're interested. I really expected this game to be a lot like Paper Mario so I wasn't really excited about it. The funny thing is, it is just like Paper Mario in so many respects, yet it feels like a totally new game. Try this game out if you have a Cube.

Well, Electronic Arts just bought exclusive rights to represent the NFL in sports games: http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/12/13/news_6114977.html
Well that's peachy. So let's see if I can trace back what this means; instead of spending money on making their games good, EA has spent a large amount of money to acquire a license to choke out its competitors. EA's usually a lazy company with sports games, but it's about to get a lot better (read, worse) now that they don't have to worry about competitors. Want to play an NFL game? You'll need EA.
Now, you might say that some people don't care about licenses and would rather buy the game with the highest quality. Well, those people probably don't play football games much in the first place (except maybe arcade games like NFL Blitz and NFL Street, the only type that don't let realism get in the way of a fun game. And I guess Midway will just have to call it Blitz now).
So, as long as EA doesn't lag far behind its competitors, people will tend to buy their games. When fewer people buy other company's football games (and I reiterate, licensing is more important in the sports genre than in any other genre), EA can really start to goof off, just add a couple a little features and an updated roster each time... yeah, you think it's like that now, but it's not all that bad because competition keeps them moving.
The worst thing is when you consider the cash flows here. It used to be people paid money into games, that money makes its way to video game companies, some money for NFL licensing. Say that the world spent 100 million on football games last year, this would be a highly simplified hypothetical case:

• EA: 40 million
• Sega: 30 million
• NFL: 30 million

and now it's more like this

• EA: 50 million
• NFL: 50 million

Those are totally fake numbers, but this is what I say it has come down to. EA makes more, but the video game industry as a whole is weaker and the already bloated NFL gets tons of profits for it. Basically, it's closer to people paying NFL to make games. Smart for EA to do, bad for football games as a whole (there's just no doubt about that), and really monopolistic.
Honestly, given the allegations from workers that EA treats them like slaves, a company that more often waits to see what competitors are doing and ripping off their ideas, and now this monopolistic stuff that ends up hurting the gamers in the name of the bottom line... EA is really taking from the Microsoft school of thought.
How does everyone else feel about this? Post here or in your own journal..