This summer has been one of the hottest on record, which is all the more reason to stay indoors and check out some of the best free games on the Internet. July offered up plenty of innovation and variety from around this steaming hot globe. Here are three of the most interesting.
Developer Cactusquid has been making games for a while now. All of them tend to be short, simple and stylish. Their most recent release is the super-quick hostage rescue game Ultra Mission. On a roguelike map, players have to rescue helpless captives from gun-toting, hat-wearing bad guys while avoiding various deadly traps. What may seem like a fairly straightforward game takes a turn for the unusual when the best strategies end up requiring players to think outside the box (quite literally). The destructible environments and fast play speed make Ultra Mission more than just a 2-D run-and-gun game. As with many Internet-distributed titles, its only major downside is that it's far too short.
Nitrome Games proved last month that it knows how to turn an old genre on its head. Their puzzle-platformer Fault Line makes getting from Point A to Point B an exercise in mind-bending physics. Players operate an unusual robot who can pull sections of the screen closer together or push them farther apart, opening up new paths and changing the way environmental hazards interact with the level. There's definitely a learning curve to the game, especially as later levels do their best to mess with how the human mind processes spacial relations. Fault Line isn't the most difficult or varied puzzle game out there, but it is one of the most unique.
Battle of Britain: 303 Squadron
The UK's Channel Four comes out with a browser game every now and then to support its TV programming. In July the network released Battle of Britain: 303 Squadron, a 2-D plane shooter that dramatizes the actual team of Polish fighter pilots who flew with the Royal Air Force during World War II. The voice acting is a little hokey, but the gameplay is fun and challenging enough to justify the dialogue. The combat in BoB: 303 requires more finesse than just barreling engine-first into enemy planes. The game could use a pause feature and probably also a mid-mission checkpoint system as the battles tend to run on for quite a long time. Still, there's nothing quite as satisfying as getting the best of the flying aces on the other side of the war, whether they're computer-controlled or another participant in the game's multiplayer feature.
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