One thing is that people will play anything: penguin launching, paper throwing, dog shuffling.

Another is that the games are generally tripe, only good for a few minutes before you move on.

One other thing is that sometimes you stumble on something that could be – should be – a full, retail release, but is instead free to play. This time it’s Naked War and even ignoring the fact that it’s free to play (you can pay if you want extra privileges) it still manages to be an absolutely stunning game.

Playing like an even more cartoony Advance Wars – one of the finest series on the Game Boy Advance/DS – this is a play-by-email strategy game that will eat up more of your time than you care to imagine. Thing is though, as it’s email-based you don’t have to commit to one session in one sitting – it can be stretched over a period of days or weeks, even months.

There isn’t much room to go on here, but we couldn’t recommend Naked War enough – go and sign up, download the client then accept your challenge from one of the game’s creators. Oh, and prepare to get battered by them. It is a bit unfair, but you can go on to play other people who aren’t as good.

Get It Here:

Naked War

But why bother, when you could just kill yourself? Well, maybe that’s a bit far, so instead why not just play the game Five Minutes to Kill Yourself? It manages to tick the right boxes – you work in an office, you’re pissed off, you want to kill yourself. Textbook.

Travelling around the workplace you can talk to people, pick stuff up and interact with objects, all with the goal being to stop yourself from being alive. It’s quite funny, if we do say so ourselves. It’s also very simple and a great timewaster – though only in five minute blocks.

Play it and help suppress the fantasies of actually killing yourself.

Play It Here:

Five Minutes to Kill Yourself

Well, apart from the times when it’s funny. But it’s certainly never fun. Well – again, it is. Sometimes. But still, shut up.

Anyway, it’s more fun now, with Dad ‘n’ Me coming to waste a bit of your day in fine Slackerjack fashion. A scrolling beat ‘em up – like the classic Streets of Rage – the game sees you being the school bully, kicking the snot out of kids simply for being there.

As it’s made by that lot who did Alien Hominid, it obviously looks lovely and it has a sense of humour about it. Oh, and it’s violent – shouldn’t forget that. Nor should we forget that it’s a lot of fun, because it is.

Play It Here:

Dad ‘n’ Me

So what happens when you combine the two? TUMIKI Fighters, that’s what.

You shoot things, they die, you try and catch destroyed enemies as they plummet off the screen, you get bigger, it’s fun. That’s about all the explanation we can offer, so instead – as a special treat – here’s a video of it with some excellent music:

Get It Here:

TUMIKI Fighters

PMOG – or Passively Multiplayer Online Game – is a browser based online multiplayer game, surprisingly. Using Firefox, which you should all have by now, you simply download a toolbar and play.

Browse the internet, surf as you normally would, look at as much porn as you clearly do – all these things will earn you points. You can hide treasure at URLs, take on missions and lots of other silly little things. If you’re like us, you sit at your PC/Mac for a long time each day, browsing through the endless array of awfulness the internet has on it.

PMOG makes it that bit more interesting, for a while at least. A great little game and very imaginative. Check out the video on the main site for more detail with a strange robo-woman voice.

Get PMOG Here:

PMOG

So here it is:

Just play it.

Download-o Here:

Charles Barkley: Shut Up And Jam Gaiden

While Masq may not be one of the best lookers out there – though it is home to a distinctive style – it manages to captivate in the small doses it offers with some fine, branching storylines and a level of freedom most games can only ever dream of.

In fact, the best way to put it is exactly how PC Gamer said it:

The Deus Ex of comic-strip soap operas. Get shot, divorced, incarcerated, all three, and more.

And that’s bloody high praise. A great timewaster and fantastic game in its own right.

Play Masq Here:

Masq

Marge is trying to the kids to do the gardening, but they refuse on the grounds it’s boring – later in the same episode Bart gets really excited when he sees a videogame called ‘Virtual Gardener’ or something along those lines, and rushes to play.

Great joke, of course. And then you get confronted with Throw Paper, and you feel a bit guilty. Because you’re doing the same thing. Instead of actually throwing paper balls into a wastebasket, you’re doing it virtually, on your computer.

But enough of the irony/comedy/forgetting classic moments of The Simpsons – this is a classic, addictive and fun game to waste a good few minutes on. Or hours, if you have that compulsive a personality.

Throw the paper, compensate for wind speed, get as many in the bin in a row as you can.

And that’s it.

Play Throw Paper Here:

Throw Paper

It’s just a shame that you’d probably end up getting shot and killed. But wait! For you – yes you – can still be a bodyguard without having to put your actual, real life on the line! Plus you won’t have to get embarrassed should you decide to do a runner instead of looking after your VIP.

How? By playing Black Shades, the bodyguard game.

You are a bodyguard and you have to protect your VIP, playing about in an infinitely generated city full of blocky little people, half of which seemingly want to shoot the man in white you’re looking after. Kill them, disarm them, knock your VIP out of the way – you decide how to deal with the attacker.

It looks shonky but it still plays really well, and is oddly compulsive – as with a lot of freebies. It is a download, mind, and not a browser-based timewaster, but it’s well worth the 1MB file size.

Download Black Shades Here:

Black Shades

It means they can remember… things… about stuff. And not… forget them.

Anyway – Basho Kioku is a simple memory game that is sure to test your ability to the fullest. Simply click on a square – that’s a level done. Repeat until the end. That’s it. Oh, but if you happen to click on a square you’ve already tagged before then you lose a life.

It starts out simple but soon gets that grey matter working, we can tell you that for a fact. It also manages to be as captivating as it is frustrating, so try not to play it for too long when you should be working. ‘Just one more go’ syndrome has been known to kick in often with Basho Kioku.

Play It Here:

Basho Kioku

But then, this is a free game that you can play online with little to no commitment, so these criticisms really don’t apply. It’s just that was a reasonable way to open this article, and MSOIDS almost does exactly that – takes something old, makes it seem new.

Well, not so much ‘new’ as ‘different’.

It’s Asteroids – that old arcade shooter that many of you probably think was the pinnacle of all gaming ever – but it’s drawn using MSPaint. Which means it looks a bit crap. But it’s alright, because it’s crap in an ironic, clever, even artistic fashion. So you’re not allowed to complain.

The real kicker comes with the fact that it’s really, really hard too. So it looks daft and it’s too hard. That’s a good enough recommendation in anyone’s book, surely?

Play MSOIDS Here:

MSOIDS

As was Dune – well, the game at least. Well, Dune II at any rate. Basically, things with giant subterranean worms in them are great, though usually because you get to see Kevin Bacon stoving their heads in over a couple of hours.

But what would it be like to actually be one of these underground annelids? Death Worm aims to answer that question, along with ones like ‘how many camels could I eat in one jump if I were one of these worms?’ and ‘how much forward momentum is necessary to eat that stupid bird flying around up there?’ or the ever-popular ‘could I really take down that helicopter?’

Yes, you get to be a giant worm. You get to scramble around underground and fly out of the surface, eating those overland-dwelling scummers that we all hate so much. Do enough damage, armed enemies come along. Survive, eat, throw yourself in the air using your momentum – it’s all fantastic fun and well worth wasting some time on.

The game can be played online or can be downloaded to play it later if you like.

Play Death Worm Here:
Death Worm

Not that hecklerspray has an actual age, of course – we are but a huge hive-mind entity made of pure carbon and powered entirely on bicep juice. But still – you mortals know what we mean.

One of these talented young chaps, known around the world of gaming as ‘Yahtzee’ is one Ben Croshaw; creator of the frankly hilarious Zero Punctuation video game reviews and part-time game-maker. The first of the fruits of his labour was 5 Days a Stranger, a horror adventure game starring what became Croshaw’s trademark character, ‘Trilby’.

For a free game that clocks in a fairly short amount of playing time, you still feel satisfied with what’s on offer. Cleverly written, witty, logical and with just enough challenge to keep you playing, 5DaS is a fantastic example of free, independently-developed games at their best.

And he’s made a series out of them, so there are more games to download once you’ve finished this one. Which is nice.

Go and Check Yahtzee’s Stuff Out:
5 Days a Stranger

Zero Punctuation

But they can be a bit boring and samey – even the cutesy titles like Everybody’s Golf have far too many identikit competitors these days. So it’s nice to find a golfing game to wile away the minutes that offers something different – golf in space.

Gravitee plays a very simple but strikingly addictive game, seeing the player attempting to swing a ball around the gravitational pulls of numerous planets to land it through a ring. It’s great, and it involves some physicsy/mathsy type stuff too, which is nice.

It also lends itself nicely to compulsive players, constantly challenging you to beat your own high scores as well as those of your opponents. Not that hecklerspray fall in to the trap of being over-competitive, oh no…

Waste Some Time Here:
Gravitee

The day you discover Off-Road Velociraptor Safari is of the latter. Today is a good, good day to be alive.

Taking control of an off-road vehicle, you simply drive around, hunting velociraptors. Yes, it’s that self-explanatory. Thing is, it looks nice for a browser game, it plays exceptionally well with combos, stunts, crashes and thoroughly competitive high scores to take in and it’s shockingly addictive. In fact, this entry almost didn’t get written in time as we were too busy driving at high speeds into the backsides of long-dead dinosaurs made popular through a Spielberg film.

Something hecklerspray never thought it was have to say. It’s a damn fine excuse though.

Oh, and we forgot to mention: you play a raptor in a safari hat. If that hasn’t made you immediately go and play the game, there’s no hope for you.

Hunt Some Raptors With a Ball and Chain:
Off-Road Velociraptor Safari