Online games in the late 90s

Here’s a list of past-time online games that I remembered from the late 90s to 00s. Some of them are still around, others are gone because of 0 advertising dollars, and have been remade. I hope you will find this list will open some doors to the past or evoke a sense of nostalgia… contribute to this theme if you please!

1. Pang! (1996) – A 2D game where you pop big red bouncy balls with a grappling hook. They get smaller and smaller until they disappear… but beware! If any of the balls touch you, you are done with! With more than 20 levels, 3 levels of difficulty, a variety of weapons, and two players, it makes for a pretty fun challenge.

2. Bombman.zip (1996) – A Bomberman version made by some guy with the last name of Hung, this game is very difficult to find anywhere to download! (Help me out if you have this game). This bomberman has up to 4 players, is rather challenging, and the graphics were sweet for its day. Gameplay was smooth too (important for running away from bombs). (PS, the image shown here isn’t the actual one for Hung’s version).

3. Wordox (somewhere in between 99 and 02) – An online scrabble game versus other online players. This game even has a dictionary/spell check conveniently encoded, and was addicting for anyone who loves scrabble and permanent scoreboards. You can even tack on extra letters to a word already on the board to steal the word :)

4. Acrophobia (somewhere in between 99 and 02) – A downloadable game played against other online players, this game gives you random letters and you have to build a sentence out of them. Say you get the letters AIAAG, you could potentially submit, “Acrophobia is an awesome game!” After everyone submits their sentences, everyone votes for their favorite excluding their own. The game is more interesting with topics generated by the highest voted.

5. Pollo Pollo (1997ish) – An online game with falling color blocks which you have to rearrange in order to match them in rows or columns of four. When you match four, the color blocks disappear. Pretty much you have to stay alive and not reach the brim. You can also do combos with cascading. If I remember correctly, you can also play with a second player, and any explosion on one side sends rocks to the other side. Other games that are comparable to this one is Pokemon Puzzle League (N64), and Puyo Puyo (Sega). (PS – image is not from the original game)

6. Fat Boy Raids the Cookie Factory (2000ish) – An online 2d Flash game similar to the style of Mario World, you run through a cookie factory eating as many cookies as you can. There are guards, dogs, and lava pits (beyond that, I don’t know, I’ve never made it past level 5). You drink pop cans to burp and knock out the guards, and a cookie makes you fat enough to survive an “assault” from the guard.