Of sorts. When I was a young-un all the cool kids had these things called Atari’s. We never had one because we didn’t have money for such things. I was lucky to have a bicycle, a few board games, and a baseball and glove. I made do. Most of us did. Every once in a while I’d get a cap gun and I’d blam blam a few unfortunate imaginary foes until I ran out of caps or the cheap gun broke. By the time I was 10 or so I did finally get a single pump BB gun which was awesome (no I didn’t shoot my eye out), till that time if wanted a gun I’d have to substitute a stick from the yard. Ahh the good old days.

I did later get a dirt bike to ride (which I was paying for with my paper route) but I never really got into the gamer thing until I was married to my first wife, with kids and had a mortgage. I had picked up a computer a 386 SX and it came equipped with 2 entire gigs of Ram. It had even been upgraded with 1 extra gig! (Anyone remember Win3 and DOS 6.0?) Well at the time Kings Quest games were the thing and we had one of them, then I bought another for the kids. Well it came with a freebie trial for a new online MMORPG (Massive Multi Player Role Playing Game) called simply The Realm. It was by the same company that did Kings Quest, Sierra. Well I did the free trial thing and I was hooked. I have played that game on and off for several years. In the beginning it had a lot of people and was a very fun game to play. I have quit and gone back a few times, as of right now I don’t mess with it much. It has run its course I think.

Well with little desire to get into the pay to win games that have flooded the world today, and bored with my old game of choice, I thought I’d look for some sort of brain food. I like things that challenge my poor dilapidated noggin and when I’m not too busy mechanic-ing, or dealing with the everyday neccessities, I like to do SOMETHING with my brain. Mahjong which came on my computer did the job for a good while, I still play it, but was looking for something…new.

I learned how to play Cribbage a long time ago from my great uncle Leo. Leo had been captured in WW2 early on in the war. He was in the battle at Faid Pass. The Germans advanced, engaged in battle, then did a tactical retreat. The Allies thinking they had them on the run gave chase. It was a trick. They advanced into a trap and were blown to hell. Uncle Leo survived, was captured, and spent a lot of time in a concentration camp. Many of his companions were Brits. Brits love Cribbage. Leo learned from the Brits. I learned from Leo. So long story short I like a good game of Cribbage. So I set upon a course to find a free to play Cribbage game. (Yahoo used to have a really good one but they nerfed it) I found a decent one here:

http://www.freewebarcade.com/game/cribbage/

I played that game for a while, until I realized the game cheats. It always plays the game so that the opponents hand hits the upcard. Way too much to be a coincidence. I can still beat it, but don’t care for being disadvantaged. So, I decided to snoop around on the site and have found quite a few interesting, free, did I say free? Yep free games to play. No you won’t find the latest greatest anything at that site, but there is a lot to look over and try out. And it’s FREE! Yes there are a few ads(Which I just resize my window so I don’t have the distraction, don’t tell anyone) And some of the games are limited play before they want you to buy it. But you can still play the game without chucking any cash at them so what the hell.

Right now I’m really liking the game Alpha Assault, it is under the word/trivia category (All the categories can be seen at the link). It’s basically Scrabble with a twist. You have to make words to eliminate tiles threatening your position. It’s quite a bit of fun, somewhat addicting, and satifies my desire for brain food. And that is what matters I think 🙂

There are a few poker games I have tried. Governor of Poker was fun, and still is, but it moves a little slow and I pushed it to the point where they urged me to buy the game. Which I don’t want to do. There are a couple more good poker games there as well, and a host of games I have yet to try. But I’ll get there.

So, why am I posting this at all? Just in case there is another pour soul out there that needs a brain food fix. Someone up for a challenge. Someone as cheap as I am. If that is you then check that link out. You may or may not like the site but you sure won’t complain about the price!