I originally intended this article to be about my joyful return to the world of modern PC gaming, after a month or so of being away from my only decent computer. However, upon sitting down and finally turning it on, my PSU exploded leaving me powerless in more ways than one. Yes, that’s the level of humour you can be expecting here. What with that and ‘Next Day Delivery’ apparently being contingent on the fact that there isn’t a light dusting of snow on the ground, I find myself without a computer for another week. While that may be unfortunate for me, it’s even more unfortunate for you as instead of reading about a nice new modern game, I am reduced to talking about games my old laptop can run; namely, browser-based web games. Yes.

These games often get a bit of a bum rap from mainstream gamers. Either they’re seen as mere diversions from the real meat of the games industry, and often the games are designed as such, or they’re compared unflinchingly with retail games and obviously come off worse. However, as more and more non-gamers come into contact with these games through finding them on Facebook and other social networking sites, it seems they provide a valuable service. They act as a kind of ‘gateway’ game, leading the first-time player on to more complex and ultimately rewarding games.

Let me give you an example: Canabalt is by far one of the best web-based (or non-web-based for that matter) games to have emerged last year, due to its wonderfully simple nature in graphics, design, gameplay and controls. It was essentially a simulator of what might happen if someone gave Stephen Hawking an upgrade, then insulted his mother. In the resultant chaos, you play a man who performs a futile attempt at escape by running across rooftops dodging various obstacles until you make a mistake and crash at high speed into a wall. This game is immediately engaging, has almost unlimited scope for replaying, and is controlled by pressing just one button to jump. It’s essentially an ideal game to give to people who don’t play games. After that, show them Mirror’s Edge and sit back and watch with a mixture of pride and satisfaction as they gradually grow to hate games more so than they ever would have otherwise through aggravation at the combat system. Or don’t. It depends if you hate people as much as me.

Web games are a vital step for many non-gamers to become acclimatised to the many varying systems within game that we take for granted. They’re a breeding ground for new ideas on a small scale, and often throw up products a lot more accomplished than games currently occupying the shelves of every video games shop up and down the country, and they’re not even charging.