As more and more web-game developers start trekking into the land of multiplayer gaming, we are finally starting to see a larger variety of game genres appearing beyond the simplistic turn-based games of yesteryear.

Host, by Caulder Bradford (aka RiftMaster, aka Bubbles) and Edmund McMillen (aka That Gish Dude) presents us with a platform/brawler game in the vein of Super Smash Bros.

Let’s start with the art:

Your characters are essentially blobs of flesh possessed by a host organism and protected by a skull. Each player can customize their skull by giving it different features like horns, markings and hair, and a variety of teeth. Aside from a few interchangeable parts, however, each character is essentially the same.

The level art is very basic and minimal, which makes it very easy to separate the players from the landscape, and the landscapes are nice and moody.

The setup interfaces are fairly pretty as well, if a little confusing at first. You start with with a grid of holes you can drop your host organism into to join existing games, or you can create a new game by popping it into a big sphincter. Once you are in the setup screen you have more holes that seemingly have no purpose. In actuality, these are how you pick which level you will be playing in.

You can look at any part of this game and just know it’s been drawn by Edmund.

The music in the game is nothing short of amazing. The well composed title and menu songs just add to the twisted appearance of the game, and the in-battle music is very atmospheric and not distracting in any way.

The sound effects aren’t anything fancy, but are very fitting for all the beating and squishing and squirting that goes on in the game. Everything just comes together perfectly to keep the game as grotesque as possible.

Of course, at the end of the day, no multiplayer game is worth a damn without quality gameplay.

The gameplay in host is very simple. You roll… you jump… you skull-punch… and if you’re feeling lucky, you may even fire a maggot or 2.

The premise of the game WAS to be a simple beat-em up game that people can just hop into and play, and I think to that extent it has succeeded indefinitely.

That said, there are a few factors that hampered my enjoyment of the game. Getting in to a game without a ‘room exists’ or ‘room is full’ error is a bit of a pain, especially since I just wanna get in as fast as possible and beat some heads.

Of course, when I do get in, the beating of the heads is not so simple. To win a round, you need to rack up 3 kills. This would be a very fun prospect, except for 3 things.

1) When you punch an enemy, a lot of times you hit where they were a few milliseconds ago, and by the time the punch animation is done, they have skipped just enough out of the way you miss.

2) Since they are now behind you, you want to turn around… but unless the animation has played all the way through and you are not touching the attack button, you can’t turn around, and it makes you feel like you have lost control of your character, and thus your connection to the game.

3) Falling too far kills you… so if you happen to have got stuck in the “I can’t turn” situation and you are on a high branch, you immediately may want to jump to safety…. and if you miss the next branch… you die.

I don’t really mind dying in these kinds of games… but when a simple death also takes down your kills, it just frustrates the shit out of you and takes a lot of the fun away form the game.

If you somehow manage to choke down your frustration ling enough and land a kill, you get to eat your victim’s heart, and your organism increases in size. I have yet to see what the full growth does, and so far it doesn’t seem to make you much stronger… but it’s still pretty neat to just… eat people’s hearts after beating them down.

If you get lucky enough to actually win a game, the victory screen lets you, and you alone, roll around and taunt the other players. Every multiplayer game needs this feature…. especially the ones I am good at!

On thing Host excels at is keeping players in sync. I know from personal experience, keeping a fast, multi-user game (especially one made in flash) in sync is a real challenge. The Flash player never runs the same speed on any 2 browsers, let along on any 2 computers, and network latency is always an obstacle. And yet, even the laggiest players still sync up respectably.

I can’t say I really enjoyed this game very much when I just hopped in and played… but I was lucky enough to be involved with a lot of the beta testing, and it was extremely fun to play with actual friends. With so many people playing now, however, it’s hard to get your buddies into one room.

If you like games that let you beat on random strangers, I have no doubt you will love Host. For the rest of you…. try it anyway…. OR ELSE!

[ Play HOST ]

One of the great things about web-games is they allow you to waste time between classes, at the office, your day off…etc. But why should you be the only one who gets to enjoy this glorious act of procrastination?

Multiplayer web-games have always had a certain appeal, because they aren’t as hardcore as their console and pc counterparts, but you can only play the same chess, card, and billiards games so long before you crave something new.

Well… it’s time to grab a buddy, or co-worker, and get ready to waste hours (that could be used for something productive); Quadradius is here, and it’s taking names!

This is one of those games that you really can’t judge just by looking at it. Sure the art is really nice, considering this is loosely based on checkers/chess type gameplay, but there’s so much more to it then what you see.

And who cares if there’s no music, that’s why you have Winamp and iTunes. The sound effects are all present, and the lack of background noise makes it easier to hear the guy in the next cubicle cursing as you school him in the strategic arts.

The gameplay… well, it’s easy. You take turns moving your pieces, horizontally or vertically, one square at a time. If you jump on one of the other player’s pieces, you destroy it. And you keep going until only one player has pieces left.

Even if that was all you did in this game, it would be fun. But no… you can also collect powerups that not only give you destructive powers, they allow you to manipulate the game-board itself! This is where it gets challenging.
The infinite strategic options you are given based on what powerups you collect make this game unique every single time you play. You won’t find people using the same ‘cheap’ solution over and over, and sometimes when you think you are winning, all it takes is one crazy power to turn the tide.

The interface is a little ‘techie’ and might be hard to figure out at first, but once you get past that (which shouldn’t take long), the only concern you will have is what powerups your opponent is harboring.

The only problem I had was finding someone to play against. Seems like a lot of people just sit in the lobby and idle and ignore you when you click on their name to play. Make sure to drag someone with you when you want to play it.

It’s fun…. REALLY fun… perhaps one of the best multiplayer web-games around today.

[ PLAY IT RIGHT NOW!!!! ]

No, it’s not Sheryl Crow’s old pet name for Lance Armstrong. (Get it? He only has ONE BALL!!!)
Tank Ball is a really fun and simple multiplayer arena game where you join a team of off-road tanks that blast over-sized dodgeballs at each other.

The graphics are all 3d, and pretty well done to boot. The forest-like island you play on has tons of variety in the terrain and foliage and the tanks themselves interact with some nice physics. The explosion effects are pretty lame, but still forgivable.

The music and sound are pretty basic, nothing fancy, but no ear-rape either.

The gameplay is, at the core, very basic. You move forward or backward, and steer left and right, with one button to fire. The fun comes in the physics and speed. You can’t aim your guns up and down so you need to get your tank on level ground to get a clear shot. Holding still is usually bad strategy so you end up driving like a drunk-to-the-gills redneck and firing at tanks and trees alike.

The only thing I really hate about this game is the lack of a game setup screen so you can actually play with your friends. For the most part you just get dumped in a random game with random people. That said, blowing up perfect strangers is still pretty damn fun.

[ Play Tank Ball ]