It might just put us out of business to say this, but you don’t really need to spend $50 at your local retail store to have a grand old time gaming on your PC. There are tons of great gaming websites that will let you play games for free right on their sites, without the need to download a thing (except maybe Macromedia’s free Flash Player to run the game). There are 80 gazillion free Flash game sites out there (yes, we counted), so there’s no way to cover them all, but here are a few of our favorite sites and a couple of cool games from each.

Yahoo Games

www.games.yahoo.com

It’s the perfect gaming website for your mom. And we don’t mean that in a bad way, we swear. Yahoo hosts a great selection of free card, arcade, puzzle, and word games, none of which has a single exploding head, swearword, or naked body part.

Alchemy

PopCap Games—mentioned elsewhere in this feature—may be the single greatest game developer on the planet. Yahoo hosts a bunch of PopCap games, including Alchemy, a puzzle game guaranteed to waste entire days. Play it at work!

Cribbage

The coolest thing about Yahoo Games is the plethora of multiplayer games, and the popularity of the site guarantees you’ll always find an opponent. CGW Editor-in-Chief Jeff Green swears by Yahoo Cribbage, a nicely done version of the classic card game.

Newgrounds

www.newgrounds.com

This once small site originated in 1991 as, of all things, a NeoGeo fanzine. Now it has mushroomed into a huge, popular repository of Flash games and films, among other things. Some mature content here, so parents beware.

Alien Hominid

Newgrounds’ big success story is Alien Hominid, an excellent, wonderfully animated 2D side-scroller about to jump to the big leagues on the PS2 and GameCube—but you can play the original, for free, right here on your PC.

Ultimate Flash Sonic

Everyone’s favorite digital hedgehog has been lovingly recaptured in this cool side-scroller that will give older gamers serious ’90s flashbacks.

Shockwave

www.shockwave.com

Like Yahoo Games, this is a great mainstream site with an ever-growing library of cool Flash games and films. You’ll find both original content here and some of the more ubiquitous games, like the ever-popular PopCap titles.

Daily Jigsaw

The idea of doing a jigsaw puzzle on a PC screen may seem lame, but hey, so did listening to music on a PC a few years ago. Shockwave’s daily jigsaw is actually loads of fun, with a very cool interface that lets you do things that “real” jigsaw puzzles don’t, like only show the edge pieces. Who needs Half-Life 2 with these kinds of thrills?

Shapeshifter

This is one of those annoying little puzzle games that seems absolutely lame at first, but before you know it, you’ve been hypnotized, days have gone by, and your family has moved out on you. What do you do? You match shapes with their outlines. That’s it. A game even cavemen would love.

EBaum’s World

www.ebaumsworld.com

Known primarily as a repository of hilarious crank phone calls and videos (Bubb Rubb, anyone?), EBaum’s World also has a pretty great selection of Flash games. Like Newgrounds.com, this one is all over the map in terms of “appropriateness,” so tread lightly.

Pac-Man

Perhaps you have heard of this one. This is an excellent little Flash version, complete with all those sounds that still reside somewhere in our subconscious. The novelty of not having to feed quarters into the PC never, ever gets old.

Kick Ups

How long can you keep this soccer ball up in the air? How long can you play this game before you start hating yourself? This might either be the dumbest thing we’ve ever seen or, quite possibly, the greatest game of all time.

RuneScape

www.runescape.com

A well-done free MMORPG, with tens of thousands playing at any one time. Graphicswise, you get what you pay for, of course, but an amazing achievement, nonetheless.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Computer Gaming World.