Top Flash games (no registration or download required)

It’s January, it’s freezing and you may be strapped for cash. What better time to indulge your love of Flash games? No downloads, no registration, no payment – just fire up your browser and get stuck in. Here are our top 10 free, open and readily accessible Flash games.

10. QUAKE

Quake has ended up on almost every platform imaginable, so it stands to reason someone would port it to Flash. ID Software’s 1995 follow-up to Doom was the first truly 3D shooter, as opposed to a pseudo-3D world with sprites – back then climbing on top of a building and shooting an enemy from on-high was revolutionary.

You may have a small window, but most people ran the game in 320×240 anyway so it doesn’t really matter. Grab your nailgun, dive into the medieval parallel universe of Quake and take on chainsaw-wielding ogres and psychopathic knights.

Shoot the barrel – shoot the barrel!

9. PORTAL

You may not have GLaDOS throwing insults at you every step of the way, but this 2D Flash version of Valve’s popular puzzle-platformer is every bit as fun as the original Portal. The aim is to make it from one side of the test chamber to the other, using your portal gun to teleport yourself through each level. It’s a little basic compared to the original, but all the mind-bending physics elements are here in full and you’ll be using your own velocity to reach higher platforms and throw yourself over large gaps in no time. Now if only we had some combustible lemon grenades as well…

Now you’re thinking with portals

8. DRAGON SPIRIT: THE NEW LEGEND

This emulated NES version of the classic Namco scrolling shooter from ’87 is fiercely hard and a little flickery in places, but it’s also massively addictive. Unusually for a top-scrolling shooter, Dragon Spirit dispenses with the usual space ships in favour of mythical beasts – you’re a rather fetching winged dragon, fighting a variety of similarly fire-breathing monsters. Particularly cool is the presence of ground-based as well as airborne enemies, along with appropriate weapons to tackle each; loads of power-ups to transform you into a multi-headed beast of destruction and a playable introductory level that serves to reveal the background plot as well as determine the difficulty of the game – it’s harder if you win the introduction and play as a blue dragon. The classic 8-bit music and sound effects are great, too.

Take to the skies as a fire-breathing beast