Play Classic Vintage Computer Arcade Games Online For FREE!

As I find myself rapidly approaching the rip old age of 40 (just few weeks to go!) I'm feeling nostalgic for the Good Old Days - back when Pac-Man was a cultural phenomenon, or when the world was addicted to Tetris to the point that some believed it was a Russian Cold War plot to destroy the youth of America...

With today's uber-realistic video games played on multi-hundred dollar dedicated game consoles, it's hard to believe a whole generation was enthralled with the chunky scrolling graphics of Space Invaders or the simple line-animation of Asteroids. And who can forget trying to get that poor amphibian across a busy road in Frogger?

As a tribute to my wasted youth, I present am introduction to a web site that offers FREE flash recreations of those classic computer and arcade games that replaced television as the greatest time thief in the lives of the world's children...

If you're looking for games to play with your kids to show them just how tough you had it when you were a kid, then look no further!

All of the games reviewed here are from FreeVideoGamesOnline.org. The site hosts original Flash recreations of classic computer and arcade game, free to play online with no downloads required!

The games are the creations of two developers, Paul Neave and Dennis G. There are links to their homepages on the front page of FreeOnlineGames.org - check them out for some great online diversions!

The Free Video Games Project is supported by donations and online advertising, and they promise to add new games over time.

Here are some of the computer and arcade classics from the 1980s from The Free Video Game Project - Free games online, no downloads!

Possibly the most popular computer game of all time, Tetris is deceptively simple and devilishly addictive. The idea is simple - arrange the colorful geometric shaped blocks to create full horizontal rows.

• Rotate the blocks and fit them together like puzzle pieces: Simple.
  
• Try to stop playing: Impossible!

Recent scientific research has shown that playing Tetris can actually make your brain work more efficiently, as well as strengthen overall cognitive function. Plus, research shows that playing Tetris immediately after witnessing a traumatic event can help the brain to erase those unpleasant memories!

And you mother said playing video games would rot your brain...

One of the very first computer games I ever played was the Space Invaders ripoff on my old Texas Instruments 99/4A.

I dare you not to dash out from under cover to hit those top-level spaceships for bonus points - Go ahead, I dare you! Impossible.

And let's not forget that other space-shooter classic, Asteroids! A line drawing of a triangle shoots little dashed lines at jagged asteroid shapes in this monochrome beauty - stylistically bare, yet compulsively playable. In the 80s, many video arcade owners had to install bigger coin collection boxes inside the Asteroids arcade machines just to hold all the quarters!

Countless kids dropped millions of quarters into video arcade machines in the 70s and 80s to play these two games. Kids today will realize just how lame their parents were back in the day, so don't ever tell yours how much allowance money you blew on these games!

Poor froggy. All he wanted to do was cross the road and now he's a video game icon. Even "Seinfeld" payed homage to this blockbuster arcade classic when George tried to buy the Frogger machine that he'd made his highest score on.

One of the more complex early video games, Frogger features a hapless amphibian who must cross a busy highway to return to the river. If he can avoid being squashed by a car or eaten by an alligator all will be well...

And who among us has never had Pac-Man Fever? The grand-daddy of arcade video games, Pac-Man dominated American popular culture in the early 1980s, spawning everything from t-shirts to a Saturday-morning cartoon to a board game version. And let's not forget all the sequels and knock-off games.

To this day, Pac-Man is probably the most well-known video game of all time, and the name itself has become synonymous with "video game".

It wasn't until 1999 that anyone achieved a perfect score in Pac-Man - quite an achievement, indeed!

Among the other free games on line at FreeVideoGamesOnline are a version of Sonic the HedgeHog, the classic off-line game Simon, a stylish Mahjong game and a slick-looking Solitaire game (in case your computer mysteriously shipped without one!)

So prepare for a few hours of wasted time and play some free games on line!

• FreeVideoGamesOnline

_{Pac-Man graphic in the Public Domain from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pac-Man.svg
Quarter image in the Public Domain from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_quarter,_obverse,_2004.jpg}