Webware

Have you ever had work piling up, a boss breathing down your neck wondering when it will get done, and the strongest urge to forget about it for a while and head to your favorite online gaming site to waste the hours away in a blaze of gaming glory?

I'm a victim of that myself. Because of that, I've compiled a list of some of the best online gaming sites across the Web where I waste the time away. I'm sure many of you know others--this isn't an exhaustive list--so feel free to share them with us. You never know when your favorite site will bite the dust.

Addicting Games

Say what you will about Flash-based games, but Addicting Games is one of the best places on the Web to find the latest and greatest games. Though I'm a huge fan of Max Dirt Bike, the site's second-most popular title of all-time, it offers a slew of other titles in every genre.

Are you looking for something quick that doesn't take itself too seriously? Check out Bowman 2. Want something extremely involved that's worth investing your time in? Elite Forces: Clone Wars might be a good place to start. And just in case you're looking for a 30-second break, The Helicopter Game will hit the spot.

Addicting Games currently offers hundreds of titles that offer anything you might be looking for. And although some of the games are a bit dull and still others don't load, the vast majority are well worth taking a looking at.

Big Fish Games

Big Fish Games lets visitors play hundreds of titles from dozens of developers across a wide array of genres. The service lets users play online against other users or download them to their computers for offline gameplay. As of this writing, over 360,000 Big Fish players are currently online playing games.

Unlike Addicting Games, which offers a slew of "simple" (also known as "casual") titles, Big Fish games provides visitors with in-depth titles that show off just how far online games have come graphically. Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses, is the current top title on the site and it's trailed by a slew of well-known titles like Poker Superstars and Agatha Christie's Death of the Nile.

Big Fish isn't the kind of site you'll visit for just a few minutes before getting back to work. Instead, it offers more sophisticated titles, which require more time investment. That may be fine for some, but those who want a quick fix probably won't find it here. That doesn't mean it's not addictive though--I spent two hours on the site earlier today wondering where the day had gone.

PlaySega.com

Although it's relatively new--the site launched last week--PlaySega.com has already become one of my favorite online gaming destinations. Unlike Big Fish and others, which provide titles from a slew of developers, PlaySega.com comes from Sega Games, a highly-respected developer in console gaming. Each game is developed by Sega and requires registration to play.

PlaySega.com sports the basics--puzzle games, arcade games, and quiz games--but it also offers Sonic at the Olympics and The Official Mini Game of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. That may entice some to sign up for the service, but you should be aware that only a few of the 30 titles offered provide the kind of fun factor found on competing services. But if you're looking to invest more time in an online game and Sega still holds a special place in your heart, you might find something to like in Hot Air 2 or Space Hopper--two titles that offer an outstanding experience.

Pogo.com

Another developer, Electronic Arts, is behind Pogo.com. The site attracts millions of visitors every day and offers dozens of free titles. Games range from basic card games to casino, puzzle, and arcade titles that offer a little something for anyone. Scores on each game are then translated into tokens, which can be used to purchases tickets for cash or prizes.

While it doesn't offer the quick fix found on Addictinggames.com, there's no debating the success of Pogo. The site's main attractions--Scrabble and Word Whomp--have tens of thousands of players online at any time. That doesn't mean Pogo is without simple games, though. Solitaire and a few other card games shouldn't take too long to complete.

Yahoo Games

I would be remiss without mentioning Yahoo Games. Unlike the other services across the Web, Yahoo really doesn't play any role in online gaming, other than finding titles on the Internet and keeping them on its own site. It has done a fine job so far, offering close to 800 titles in a wide array of genres from arcade and card games to board and puzzle games.

Much like Addicting Games, Yahoo Games' top titles are simple ones that satisfy your addiction for a few minutes. Right now, Farm Mania and Pool hold the top two spots on the site, respectively, and they're followed by a host of titles that offer simple, yet fun gameplay at no expense.

In terms of sheer quantity and quality, Yahoo Games is easily one of the best online gaming services on the Web. It doesn't worry about exclusive memberships or trying to do too much. Instead, it offers solid titles to users who want them as quickly as possible. That may sound simple, but it works.

Related: Under the Radar: gaming in your browser

The saga continues: Electronic Arts, which handles digital versions of the board game Scrabble for North American parent company Hasbro, has claimed that malicious hackers were responsible for the disappearance of its Facebook application on Tuesday.

The game had crashed on the same day that the creators of Scrabulous, a popular imitation game, blocked access to North American visitors after a legal complaint from Hasbro. With the real Scrabble inaccessible, irritated fans assumed that there was a server problem--the game is in beta, after all--and filled the application's discussion wall with angry comments.

But the real problem, EA has said, is that a hack downed Scrabble. When, according to the Los Angeles Times, the game was still inaccessible at 4 p.m. PT, the company released a statement.

"EA's Scrabble Facebook game experienced a malicious attack this morning, resulting in the disabling of Scrabble on Facebook," the statement read. "We're working with our partners to resolve this issue and have Scrabble back online and ready to play as soon as possible."

It sounds like the old "blame the hackers" excuse, but if you just look at the Scrabble application wall, it's pretty clear that there are a few people who are angry enough at Hasbro and EA to want to sabotage the game.

Whatever the case, the hack was a good one: on Wednesday morning, the game was still inaccessible.

Electronic Arts, the video game giant that owns the rights to digital versions of the board game Scrabble, has announced that later this month, it will launch a Facebook application version of the game in conjunction with Hasbro.

Unlike the last time we saw an announcement like this, it actually extends to the United States. (Remember, rights to Scrabble are owned by different companies in the U.S. and abroad--here, it's Hasbro, there, it's Mattel.)

"Scrabble is one of the best social-game brands in existence, and we've worked diligently with the Hasbro team to ensure that regardless of the platform you're playing, you'll be able to enjoy a world-class version of Scrabble with friends or family," Chip Lange, general manager of EA Hasbro Games, said in a release Monday. "We're delighted to be bringing communities everywhere access to one of their favorite games."

Unfortunately for EA and Hasbro, the story is much more complicated than that.

A game of Scrabulous on Facebook.

(Credit: Scrabulous)

There was, famously, all that fallout early this year over Scrabulous, a Facebook application that bears a suspicious resemblance to Scrabble. It's ad-supported, which means that the India-based brothers who created it are making money off the game. And perhaps because there was no "real" Scrabble on the social network, Scrabulous became wildly popular.

Scrabble's manufacturers weren't thrilled, and they served a handful of takedown notices. But months later, Scrabulous is still alive and kicking, and the millions of Facebook users who have been playing it are unlikely to make the switch--who says they'll even notice the presence of the new game?

The "official" Scrabble application, licensed by Mattel for Facebook users outside the States, has fewer than 4,000 daily users on a social network of more than 80 million, and Scrabulous is about 100 times more popular.

But EA's official version might gain traction elsewhere. The company will also be launching a version of the game on Pogo, an EA-owned casual-game site. If that's the start of a distribution effort across other game hubs, the "real" Scrabble could get some attention.

On Facebook, though, unless Hasbro reignites its dormant legal efforts to remove Scrabulous from the system, the game probably doesn't stand much of a chance.

Next week game publisher Electronic Arts will unleash a cleverly packaged marketing device upon masses of hungry gamers awaiting the release of one of this holiday's biggest titles--Spore. The software is a "creature creator" letting players put together 3D characters with an interface nearly as simple to use as Nintendo's Mii maker seen on the Wii. The 300MB download will be available next Tuesday, though some diehard fans and "influencers" got their hands on it last night.

The upcoming game focuses on creating a species and taking it from the microbial stage of life all the way to multi-universe exploration and colonization--a mix somewhere between a science experiment and a game of Risk. The creature creator is the first step in showing potential users what they'll be getting their hands on in just three months time.

What may be more interesting though is how publisher EA has begun to integrate the Web into its latest titles--Spore included. For instance, in this new piece of software you can take pictures of your creation and send them to buddies via e-mail. You can also record video that can be uploaded straight to YouTube--like the clip I created and have posted below. Last year's Skate (also by EA) had similar features, although all of the content was hosted on EA's servers.

Others seem to have taken notice of this trend. Last month Sony integrated YouTube into its developer tools to allow PS3 developers to code in the option to record and upload clips to the popular video host without requiring gamers to leave the couch. Microsoft has also had its own system for letting gamers grab in-game screenshots and have them post it to special mini game sites that are linked up to the user's Live.com ID.

That's not to say EA is letting other companies house all that content though. The creature creator and eventual game will go hand in hand with Spore's official site which launched with limited functionality this past Monday. The company is touting the site as a way to build out your profile and discover other people's creations, but it's essentially a photo gallery full of in-game screen shots and creations people saved.

Sporemail is pictures of your creature captured in-game which can be sent to friends and viewed on Spore.com. Some shots double as character models you can pull into your software and re-tool to make your own.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

These photos have an additional use too--you'll be able to drag and drop what you see from other members into your own software be able to play with that same creature. Users will also be able to send creations to third parties to put into things like online comic books, or to print out into a 3D mold. The company is expecting this to lead to people making small changes to their in-game characters, or browsing through other people's creations while away from their home machine. These changes will sync up with their in-game characters the next time they play.

Each user-created creature is also a piece of something larger called SporePedia. Not unlike Wikipedia it's completely sourced and managed by players. They'll be able to upload their creations to the SporePedia with descriptions and bits of game data which will completely searchable both in-game and from the Web. EA is hoping it will provide a way for novice gamers to very quickly discover new creatures created by others, or simply archive what they've made without having to worry about saving it to local storage.

Also thrown into the site are widgets people can put on their blog or social-networking profile that showcase their latest creature creations and an RSS-powered news feed of what your friends have created. The site is currently the only way to view in-game screenshots, which are hosted with ratings, comments, and a tracking system that assigns special badges to popular or featured content.

In the end the creature creator is a far cry from the experience gamers will be getting in September. It's a very svelte game demo that's been packed with Web elements and the start of one of the stronger first-party community sites I've seen.

I really would not be surprised to see more games take advantage of the Web in the coming years, not just for the marketing potential, but for the extra sticking power. March Madness and fantasy sports suck up absurd amounts of time from office workers because the Web has become a gateway to some of the things we do on our off-work hours. There's not much keeping future games from doing the same if they begin to build up what players are able to do while away from their fancy hardware.

Related:
EA unveils 'Spore' tribal phase images, video
'Spore Creature Creator' to see light of day in June