Internet Games Sites: part 1

We test some of the flash & Java games sites

Jippii
Jippii is rather average overall. While it has a lot of games, both single player and multiplayer, there are serious problems with the service. Not only are the multiplayer lobbies full of annoying losers who masquerade as 16 year old girls, but the flash sections have problems with stability, crashing often and failing to load buttons properly. I recommend you bring a friend to play the games with, as trying to get a decent game with the numbskulls in the lobbies is hopeless. Nevertheless, it is an easy to use website with a good range of games, including multiplayer pool (8 and 9 ball), minigolf (rather poor), memory, a two player tetris, an upgraded noughts and crosses, and both battleship and a scorch clone (titled “cannon”). Single player is rather weak though, with repetive games that involve little imagination or skill.

Electrotank
Similar to Jippii in many ways, Electrotank comes across as being more professional. It has a more graphical approach, with games being more impressive in that regard and a nicer layout for the lobbies and website. However, it pays for it with a very sluggish feel, often taking much longer than should be necessary to register clicking on links. The pool game (which only has 9 ball) suffers particularly, with big slowdown in the opening shots of the game. In terms of games, this site has a big problem. It’s selection is rather limited—there are 5 multiplayer games and 8 singleplayer, of which 3 are duplicates of multiplayer ones. This is only half the number of games as Jippii. While the front page says they are fixing this problem, there is no date on when this is due to be done. Nevertheless, what games they do have are rather good; the minigolf in particular is actually rather golf-like. Many of the other games are very nicely presented, with nice additions like a beam of light (reminiscent of B&W) in the Gems game (really 4 in a row). The site also requires registration, and features an obscenities filter. This does not prevent it from suffering the problem of losers in the multiplayer lobbies.

Netives.com
Last, but not least, is Netives. This site is singleplayer only, and it features a number of puzzle games. Of particular note is the Mahjong game, which is as difficult as ever. The 12 games include clones of tetris, space invaders, asteroids, and push. The games are uniformly difficult, rewarding careful thinking. They are also very addictive. Graphically, the site is functional. Do not expect high quality looks here—but with games these fiendishly difficult and addictive, who cares? A nice addition is the scoreboard added to most games—any score above a certain limit gets added to your personal scoreboard (which works by having you input your name, which unfortunately means you and someone else can have the same name and over-write each others scores) and any score high enough gets added to the general scoreboard. [editor's note: I found this site to be pretty crappy, with poor controls and boring games. I'd give it 2 clocks.]

Written by Charlie82 on May 16th, 2003