How To Enjoy To The Fullest the Batman Games Online

Batman fans will definitely find it comforting to know that there are hundreds of Batman games online which they can play to their heart's content - and they can be easily downloaded too. They can also be played using an internet browser if you want. Players are free to choose what type and what genre they are going to play with as well. There are all kinds of titles available and all of them can definitely sharpen your playing skills and instincts, just like the Caped Crusader himself.

The many choices of Batman games online can even give a player the chance hone their personal abilities if they simply choose the right type. Check out the different Batman games online, from adventure and arcade games all the way to fighting and racing games. Indeed, a character as famous as Batman deserves to be featured in more than a hundred titles over the worldwide web.

The fact that there many choices you have available online is already a truth worth enjoying. It assures players that they can easily jump from one game to another if ever they get bored with the one they're playing. The titles available online are oftentimes similar to original video games released under this franchise. Examples of the original titles are Dark Tomorrow, Return of the Joker, Chaos in Gotham, and Gotham City Racer, among others.

For you to enjoy Batman games to the fullest, be sure that you log on to a dedicated site. By that, it means that such a website features only Batman games and nothing else. These sites are going to give you the best collection of titles. There won't be any other offerings here than the ones that feature Batman on the helm. If you do it that way, then you will be able to find the game that you want fast and easy. You don't have to do a search or look through the countless of categories because all that you can ever want are already out in front, ready for you to enjoy.

When playing Batman games online, be sure to start with the basics first, especially if you are a beginner at these things. Be reminded that online games follow a very different orientation from that played in a console. For one, the controls are different. You don't have a joystick or anything to maneuver your character. Only the keyboard and the mouse are present and using them can be an entirely different experience.

Familiarize yourself with the game you chose and with the way it is played. Don't be too over eager to try all the Batman games that you can hold of at once as they are going to remain online anyway. It will also stay free of charge so there's no reason for the rush. You are going to enjoy Batman games online the most if you take one step at a time and just play it at par with your pace and skills.

Luciano Figallo - Developer, webmaster and owner of several entertainment sites including music, video and gaming.
Do you want to play Spiderman games online? then visit Spiderman Games and play the most amazing Spiderman games online for free.

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DC Universe Online (DCUO) Review PlayStation 3 (PS3)

While Superman has his weakness (allergy?) to Kryptonite, and Lex Luther sports an Earth threatening ego it is exactly those tragic shortcomings that allow us not only to relate, but to see them in incredible stories. "DC Universe Online" (DCUO) gives us a chance to play with those stories, to fight along side Wonder Woman, to fight as Batman, to rescue Harley Quinn from the wicked clutches of Robin (really) and to create new stories based on super-beings of our making. While no super-powered being is perfect, neither is any game, "DCUO" included, but a casual MMO that caters to participatory culture? Sign me up!As a preview, let me say upfront that I thoroughly am enjoying the game (MMO's are never "finished" until they shut-down, so any review is a snapshot), but let's get some of the super-problems out of the way before we get into the superpowers that "DC Universe Online" (DCUO) wows with.

The biggest hurdle DCUO faces is pleasing action game fans and MMO fans. The game is not as deep as a "World of Warcraft." At a basic level, there's no features like crafting. At a deeper level there's no minmaxing, in fact there are very few details about which powers do what damage, so it can be hard to figure out the best combos to use.

And combos matter because "DCUO" is an action game, but one where you level up, pick equipment (which you have to earn money to both buy and repair), pick powers, group up with peers, join guilds (leagues)... While action games usually are tightly balanced, crafted experiences, "DCUO" is a massive game, both in terms of geography and sheer options. Plenty of action but tons of choices.

So are there problems? Yes, of course. Much of the info you need to succeed you have to go online to get. There are tons of options that need explaining and the game does a poor job of doing so (switching "stances" for example). Navigating text heavy (and oddly slow) menus that are too small to read is a drag (note to developers, yes, you play at a desk with a screen 16 inches from your face, but if I can't read it easily on my 50" TV, the font's too small). Having the game not start because it can't download a required patch proves that many of the problems that plague PC gamers that have, unfortunately, followed "DCUO" to the PS3.

Problems aside, allow me a bit of superhero hyperbole: "DCUO" is a game changer. The game is gorgeous, addictive, and shockingly fun. While playing it I kept saying, "oh they'll need to fix this, and oh they'll need to fix that" but I kept playing, and playing. It's one of the more engaging console experiences I've had since "God of War III," and will probably surpass it as they will continue to update the game and add new content.

Fighting alongside Lex Luther (or Superman for the heroically inclined), exploring the Joker's fun house, disrupting Bane's drug ring with the help of newly made friends/super-people, the game grabs you, provides incredible experiences, and is chock full of content the quality of which an MMO has never seen. This is action game quality being distributed as an online game, and it's incredible.

Art, story, level design, it's all here and it's all superb. Sony Online Entertainment will constantly have to review "DCUO" and the flaws the players find, but that's normal for an online game. From the starting area to the end-game "DCUO" impresses on all levels. If you are looking for a casual MMO that you can fully play without having to commit your life to it, "DCUO" may be your new secret identity.

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Phantasy Star Online Episod...

Both the Xbox and GameCube have been blessed with one of the best RPGs out there. Phantasy Star Online gives both systems the kind of quality online experience fans have been clamoring for.

PSO first debuted on the Dreamcast back in '99. Using a heavily modified version of the same game, Phantasy Star Online Episodes I & II give you two complete, deep games to play either off or online.

The offline game is fun, but online is where the magic really happens. Whether hanging out and making trades in the lobby or tackling quests with 3 other people, the community and depth of the game make this an amazing experience. Online gaming veterans and newbies alike will find more than enough in PSO to keep them enthralled for countless hours.

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PS2 Online Turns 2

Released: August 27, 2004 - On August 27, 2002, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. introduced PlayStation 2 online console gaming to the masses, pioneering the new frontier of the interactive gaming experience. Forging this new growth area within the industry and setting an example to follow, the company is now poised to bring even more consumers online through compelling first and third party content this holiday season.

With the largest and most loyal installed base at more than 27 million, or one out of every four U.S. households, Sony Computer Entertainment America is best positioned to bring online console gaming to the mass market, and envisions the online arena as one that should be open to and enjoyed by all. PlayStation 2 is the only online offering on the market that offers both analog and broadband connectivity - a strategy that continues to pay off with more than 38 percent of consumers still playing via their dial-up connection. With a registered online user base in North America of more than 1.4 million, consumers have cast their vote for PlayStation 2 online, and continue to thirst for this new compelling experience that takes gaming to a whole new level. Just two years after its launch, the company has built the largest online console gaming community, and continues to add 1,400 new registered users each day, and up to 50,000 each month, equivalent to a sell-out crowd at a Major League Baseball game.

Consumers Crave Online Console Gaming Experience
Growing demand for the online console gaming experience has created a whole new audience. Who are these gamers? More than 90 percent are male, ages 18-34, with peak registrations and online gameplay taking place between 5:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., key TV prime-time viewing hours and an interesting trend to watch heading into the new fall TV viewing season. According to an IDC/GameSpy Study, 53 percent of PlayStation 2 online gamers said online capabilities were a very important factor in their decision to purchase games (Q403 Gamer Survey: Online Console Gaming, IDC #30881, March 2004) . According to a Ziff-Davis media survey of U.S. videogamers, when asked how they play games online, 9 percent of respondents stated that they play via PlayStation 2 versus 6 percent for Xbox, and that number doubles for hard-core gamers at 18 percent. Gamers logon to PlayStation 2 online to experience a new level of competition and camaraderie.

Compelling Online Content is Key to Driving Consumer Adoption Sony Computer Entertainment America has proven over the past 10 years that compelling content drives the market. The company has seamlessly carried this philosophy into online console gaming as demonstrated by introducing platform-defining franchises, and bringing online capabilities to more than 60 percent of first party titles launching in 2004. The company's SOCOM franchise has become the most popular online title for PlayStation 2, and is logging more player hours daily than ALL Xbox titles worldwide. Even nine months after launch, SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs is still seeing more than 30,000 simultaneous users per day, far and away more than any other console title evidence that online capabilities extends the life of a game.

"Two years ago, we paved the way by taking creative risks for the industry to follow," said Andrew House, executive vice president, Sony Computer Entertainment America. "Going into year three, we will continue to innovate through our online content offerings, and will embark on a series of initiatives that include enhanced community building and moving toward the monetization of the online initiative."

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Age of Empires Online Review

The Age of Empires franchise helped to define the RTS genre, but when Ensemble Studios disbanded a few years ago it looked like Age of Empires 3 would be the end. Microsoft has, however, brought the brand back to life with AoE Online, developed by Gas Powered Games, and available as a F2P download through the Games for Windows Marketplace. The fully patched game currently weighs in at about 2.5 GB.

Earlier AoE games tended to push the envelope graphically, so the first thing that may strike you about AoEO is that it has an unmistakably cartoony art style that makes it look almost like it's aimed at kids. This might not appeal to everyone, but it actually comes together quite nicely and performs well even on older systems. There is a decent selection of video settings, including the option to run the game at high resolutions.

Although more civilizations are planned for AoEO, right now you have only two choices: the Egyptians and the Greeks. Each civilization has a unique appearance as well as certain distinct units and tech tree abilities. Once you've picked a civilization you are given a city which acts as a home base with an inventory, vendors, quest givers, and so on. You get to decorate and add buildings to your city as you progress, but it's not part of gameplay, which all takes place on separate maps.

Questing

AoEO plays out through a series of quests that unfold much like the single-player campaigns in other RTS games. The reward system resembles that of a MMORPG, handing out items, experience points, and upgrades when you successfully complete them. The quests, at least on the surface, are quite varied, offering everything from rescue missions to tower-defence-like scenarios, and some have time limits, which tends to increase their difficulty.

Note that difficulty is in part decided by whether or not you're willing to pay for the game. If you're playing for free, you'll soon find that you're accumulating quest rewards you can't equip. Without the good gear certain missions are significantly harder, so it's a big incentive to open your wallet.

As is often the case with RTS games, the AI is predictable and rarely diverges from a couple of core strategies. In some quests essentially just sits and waits for you to build up an army large enough roll through its base. It's also suseptible to cheap tricks like being trained around guard towers by a faster unit.

Many of AoEO's quests are playable with a friend in cooperative mode, and the city of Sparta serves as a center for PvP matches, so far this only including 1 versus 1 and 2 versus 2. Ranked matches are available to players who purchase a Premium Civ. Unlike most RTS games, AoEO currently lacks a skirmish mode, but they plan to add this capability later this year. That, along with improvements to matchmaking and larger matches would make the game a lot more appealing to PvP fans.

One way in which AoEO differs from traditional RTS games is that is has a large number of items that can be traded with other players, as well as an extensive crafting system. An auction would facilitate this tremendously, as trading through the game's buggy chat window is not ideal.

Pricing

Oddly enough, F2P games often come down to how much the stuff they charge for costs, and how much it affects gameplay. After the first couple weeks, your limited inventory will be filling up with loot that you can't use, and you probably won't want to keep playing without a Premium Civ, currently priced at $19.99. If you want full access to the other Civ, that's another purchase, as with any future Civs that are released. They also sell new content in the form of Booster Packs for $9.99. You can get package deals at a discount, but even so it won't be long before you've spent as much or more than you would on a typical retail RTS game.

The Bottom Line

I went into Age of Empires Online with fairly low expectations, but was surprised to find a graphically rich game with a respectable collection of features and high production values. It still falls short of the standard RTS offering, particularly in terms of skirmishes, which are being patched in, and PvP, which could use more options and better matchmaking. When it comes to pricing, I have a lot of reservations about F2P games, and AoEO is no exception. A Premiun Civ is not a terrible way to spend $20, but it doesn't feel like a complete game, and you could likely get more RTS for your money on Steam, even when they're not having a sale. On the other hand, with more content and a few improvements, I could see the multiplayer in AoEO taking off, at which point the community itself may become an attraction well worth the price of admission.

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Online Gaming Etiquette

It's an unfortunate fact that online gaming involves tolerating a remarkable amount of rudeness, vulgarity, poor sportsmanship, and plain old bad manners. Some game communities are a little more mature than others, but you can generally expect this sort of misbehavior in just about every multiplayer game you come across. I understand that people are largely anonymous online, and they can get very emotionally involved in the competition, but that's no reason to throw out any semblance of politeness or decency. I've put together a few pointers on good online gaming etiquette, although I suspect the worst offenders aren't likely to take notice.

Play Fair
Cheating and using exploits is an admission that you can't win without them. Furthermore, you'll find winning a fair fight a lot more rewarding. If winning is really important to you, keep practicing and learn from what successful players are doing. Should the competition prove to be too much for you, finding a different game is a better solution than cheating.

Be A Good Sport
Laughing at defeated opponents, bragging about your achievements, overdoing it with taunts and emotes, all make you look childish. The fact is, even children should know better. An appropriate emote used at the right moment can be a beautiful thing, but when it accompanies every encounter in the game, it turns into that much more mindless spam, which brings us to our next rule.

Don't Spam
You really don't need to hammer the chat system with WTS messages to sell an item, nor do you need to use every channel in the game when there is a channel dedicated to trade. If people aren't interested, repeating a message in chat every 3 seconds isn't likely to change that. Wait a minute or two, and maybe you'll start to get through to a new audience.

Spare Us the Caps
C'mon people, this is a no-brainer that has been around since the dawn of the Internet - don't use all capital letters in chat. It's the text equivalent of yelling at everyone, and nobody wants to be yelled at.

You Were a Noob Too
Nobody can pick up a new game and instantly familiarize themselves with all its nuances and details. There are heaps of acronyms and slang particular to each game, and it's absurd to expect people to know these things without a little help from other players. Someone once explained to you what was going on, now you can do the same, rather than simply telling them they're "noobs" and leaving it at that.

A Little Teamwork, Please
If you're part of a team, try to cooperate with your teammates a little. Rambo-style gameplay rarely pays off in a team-oriented game, so don't expect your teammates to be right behind you when you go kamakazi into a gauntlet of enemies. Also keep in mind that actually winning the match is more important than being at the top of the scoreboard.

Don't Be a Quitter
It's amazing how often people will disconnect without a word when they're losing, or drop out when their group encounter isn't going well. If you don't think you can win, surrender. If your instance run isn't going well, try to work it out politely or offer some friendly advice. At times when your group isn't up to the task, explain the problem to others without insulting them. You never know what kind of solutions people will come up with until you give them a chance.

Not Everyone Who Wins Is a Cheater
Just because another player kills you a couple times does not mean that they're cheating. As good as you may think you are at any game, there are likely a lot of players who are just as good or better than you are. If you're as hot as all that, then start playing professionally in LAN tournaments where there is no way to cheat. If you're almost certain that someone is cheating, report them to an admin and let them investigate rather than throwing around accusations you can't back up.

Camping Is a Lame Tactic
Although some games encourage it, camping spawn points and corpses is generally a lame tactic. In many cases it's only possible because of flawed game design, but it's still a weak strategy that players with any dignity don't resort to.

Ignore Insults
When someone insults you, your best option is to ignore them. If the insults persist, most chat and voice systems have 'ignore' functions to ensure that further communications from them are blocked. Returning the insults typically only escalates the exchange into something you'll regret later.

Enjoy the Game
Games are meant to be fun, and if you can't laugh it off when things go wrong, or forgive a team member for screwing up, then maybe it's time for a break. Most of us have enough stress in our lives, we don't really care to add a bunch of gaming stress to that. When you start taking it too seriously, it defeats the purpose of playing a game in the first place.

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Playing Literati or Scrabble Online

If you enjoy word games, but you can't always find a Scrabble partner, the Literati rooms at Yahoo Games may be the answer to your prayers. It's free to play - the only requirements are a Yahoo ID and a Java-enabled browser. The latest version of Java can be found at Java.com.

What is Literati?
Literati is a word game that is very similar to Scrabble. Players use a set of 7 letter tiles to construct intersecting words on a board, collecting points based on letter values and bonus squares.

Literati vs. Scrabble
The most noticeable differences are the game board and the tile values. Both boards are 15x15, but the bonus squares (or, in the case of Literati, intersections) are in different places. Letter tile point values in Literati range only from 0-5, where Scrabble has letters worth as many as 10 points.
Screenshot of Dave getting crushed at a game of Literati on Yahoo Games.

Getting Started
Once you've logging onto Yahoo and arrived at the Literati section, you will notice that rooms are grouped into categories based on skill level. Select a skill level, then choose a room. This will bring up a lobby window very much like a chat room from which you can join, watch, or start a game. The game itself, shown in the above screenshot, runs in a third window, giving you constant access to the lobby. Games can be public or private, and can accommodate up to 5 players. If you start a game you can control the game options, set time limits, rate your play, and even boot players.

The interface is intuitive and easy to use. Placing tiles on the board is a simple drag and drop operation. When you are finished you click "submit" and your word it is automatically checked by a dictionary before being permanently positioned on the board. If it is not a valid word, the tiles are returned to your tray and you must try again or pass. There is an optional "challenge" mode, which lets players challenge each other's words in Scrabble fashion. You can also juggle tiles in your tray to help you make words. Letters for wild tiles (white) are selected with the keyboard.

Cheating
As is the case with many online games, it's very difficult to ensure that the person you are playing against isn't cheating. Scrabble solvers and anagram generators are readily available online, so it's a simple matter to keep a solver running in another window while you play. A Scrabble solver takes a set of letters and produces all the words that can be made with those letters. It's rather like running a chess program while playing chess with someone online and entering all the moves into the program, then using the computer's moves as your own.

Strategy Basics
First and foremost, you must play for points and bonuses rather than go for otherwise impressive words. Long words look great on the board, but unless they use every tile in your tray (a 35 point bonus), they can score low for lack of board position.

There are essentially two ways to approach a game of Literati or Scrabble. Offensive players concentrate on words with high point scores, even if they happen to open up opportunities for other players. Defensive players put more thought into using words that are difficult to build on and attempting to limit their opponent's chances of reaching bonus squares.

A common rule of thumb is to try and keep a roughly equal number of vowels and consonants in your tray. This is referred to as "balancing the rack." Some players also caution against hoarding valuable letters in hopes of finding a big scoring opportunity, because it tends to leave you with an excessive number of consonants. Letters still in your rack at the end of the game are deducted from your score - more of a concern in Scrabble than in Literati.

If you really want to excel at Literati and compete with the top ranking players on Yahoo, memorizing words will go a long way. There are, for example, 29 acceptable words in the English language that have the letter 'Q' but don't have the letter 'U.' Similarly, there are just 12 acceptable 3 letter words that contain a 'Z.' Although it may seem a bit dull to some of us, these are the sorts of things that word game champions think about.

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Eve Online Review

Good game gone wrong..., Member Morndenkainen

This game has it all, but managed to get it all wrong... You can go anywhere, be anything, do anything, build anything and everything, and pick a fight with anyone you want anywhere you want.. Even when your not supposed to... Best of all, skills that are supposed to work a certian way, dont quite work the way they should... For instance, many of you have probably played MMO's before, So explain how when you have 4500 hps prior to resistances, you die from taking 1800 damage? Hmm. bad math perhaps? Great.... Thats not all, there's several ways to outfit your ships, You can put all types of modules on, however you'll find that rarely if ever, do they work correctly... For example, you put on a ballistics control system, the game shows that it doesnt affect torpedo's, which are a type of missle, however, the second you hit something ""SUPRISE!"" it did affect the torpedo's damage and refire rate.. A little something about the ""Cops"" in the game... Used to be in a game like Ultima Online, you attacked someone in town, a guard appeared and whacked you. Same story in EvE online... However, after a few changes, the ""cops"" end up no longer using their ""Jump drives"" when theyre in visible range... Gives people a chance to kill you while the slow cops aimlessly wander over rather than showing up instantly like theyre supposed to. The Interface... Yay, a space sim, lets fly around and have some fun, right? WRONG! just double click on the map and your ship heads in the direction forever... No joystick, or flight controls, no fancy twisting and dizzying loops or fun racing around asteroids in a fast ship... Just double click.. move.... Yawn... This game is quite boring. I've played it for over a year, and quit because im fed up with all the bugs that never get fixed, the new ones that are released with every ""patch"", and the GM's who dont seem to know what customer service is.

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ToonTown Online Review

Multiplayer online games are not typically environments that people feel comfortable allowing their pre-teen children to roam around in unsupervised. Even if the content of the game is suitable for kids, the behavior of other players may not be. Online games raise all the same concerns people have about unmoderated Internet chatrooms and other open forums, where it's not uncommon to encounter sexually explicit conversation, racism, and even verbal harrassment.

Obviously, a MMORPG designed for kids has unique difficulties to overcome, and Disney's ToonTown Online has really stepped up to this challenge. Not only have they made the game child safe, they've done it without sacrificing interaction with other players, which is one of the most compelling things about online games.

The technology behind this title is as painless as ToonTown itself. Although it is a standalone program, the game's downloader and patcher are integrated right into the Web site. It requires about 100 MB of free drive space and conveniently downloads even as you create your character. The only omission is an advanced installer option that would let you install to a directory of your choice.

Keeping it Clean
So how do you allow players to communicate without opening your game up to all the profanity that inevitably finds its way into the chat window? Instead of removing the chat function entirely, ToonTown has reduced it to SpeedChat: a well-organized collection of radio buttons which allow you to exchange preset messages. If you want to be able to type to a friend, you need to share a password ahead of time. This is far safer than using filters alone, since people will go to great lengths to thwart them, and in many cases the subject matter is more offensive than any of the specific words used anyway.

ToonTown's SpeedChat is wonderfully robust and has a broad range of phrases in the system. I'm not the chattiest person in online games, but I rarely found myself wanting to say something that wasn't included.

The other obvious trouble spot is allowing users to name their characters, as there will always be those that pride themselves on the vulgarity of their character's name. ToonTown has taken the extraordinary measure of employing people to screen all character names created in the game.

Inside the Cartoon
ToonTown looks and feels, appropriately, like being in a Disney cartoon. The colors are bright, the music is upbeat, and the mood is distinctly happy. It's a 3D game but there are no spectacular particle effects or fancy dynamic lighting, nor does it need any.

Movement is controlled with the arrow keys and just about everything else is accomplished with the mouse. Many basic actions, such as opening doors, talking to an NPC, or entering combat, are activated simply by proximity.

The game doesn't require any complicated controller moves, so the setup is sufficient, but a few more options in this respect would be welcome. The important thing is that there is almost no learning curve involved, and the interface is intuitive enough that you don't need to search though manuals to figure out how it works.

Gameplay
ToonTown has a lot in common with an RPG. You start by selecting various appearance features, colors, and clothing for your Toon. It follows a familiar animal theme, so your Toon may have something in common with Mickey Mouse, Goofy, or Donald Duck.

Then it's off to the playground for a brief tutorial on Gags and how you can use them to defeat the corporate robot Cogs that Scrooge McDuck has unwittingly unleashed on the residents of ToonTown. Cogs can't take a joke, so instead of doing combat with them using swords and sorcery, cream pies, seltzer bottles, and other Gags are the best way to get rid of them. They will fight back, using all the paper shredders and clip-on ties at their disposal.

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Monopoly Online with Middopoly

Middopoly

Link: http://www.jgames.com/middopoly/

Middopoly is a Java game very similar to Monopoly. (This game has several changes -- e.g. Free Parking is replaced with Student Parking, Jail is replaced by a Hospital -- but none that seem to change the basic rules.)

The first thing you'll see when you visit the site is a pop-up window that asks how many players are taking part in this game of Monopoly. Choose a number and click on "Okay." Each player will then enter his or her name.

The next step is for each player to choose a token (this is still in the popup window). The computer will then roll to see who goes first (you'll see the results), and once you click on "Play the Game!" it will start.

From there, everything is pretty self-explanatory. The buttons include "Roll," "Trade," "Mortgage," "Unmortgage," "Buy Structures" (houses and hotels) and "Sell Structures."

On your turn, the first thing to do is click "Roll." After you roll and move (moving is automatic), a button marked "[Playername] Finished" will appear. Do not press this button until you're sure that you've done everything you want to on this turn.

If you land on an unowned property, buttons marked "Buy" and "No thanks" will appear in the middle of the game board. You must choose one before continuing.

Player assets are always listed below the game board, and rent is paid automatically. To play with multiple players, they all have to be using the same computer. No computer opponents are available.

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Monopoly Online at Atari.com

Atari.com

Link: http://games.atari.com/playgames/home.jsp

UPDATE: As of April 2006, Games.com was acquired by AOL and no longer offers Monopoly online. However, the game is now available at Atari.com. Some of the following information may need to be updated; if so, that will happen soon.

Atari.com offers an official site to play Monopoly online. The interface is fairly smooth, although users on dialup connections will have some significant waits while pages load.

Because Atari.com uses Java, once the game is loaded onto your computer, things should flow pretty smoothly no matter what type of connection you have.

Step-by-Step Instructions to play Monopoly online via Atari.com

On the Atari.com home page, click on the phrase "Click here" in the sentence "Click here to play the fun games at Games.com."

Under the tab "Play Games" and in the box marked "Board and Word Games," click on the link for Monopoly.

The next screen lists various Monopoly "game lobbies" (e.g. Boardwalk, Park Place, Reading Railroad). Select one, making sure it has an adequate number of active players -- a minimum of 20 is my recommendation. There is no functional difference between game lobbies.

Logging In

Now you'll be asked to log in. If you've registered with Atari.com, enter your username and password and click "Submit." If you've never registered with Atari.com, you have a choice to make. You can either register (by clicking "register for free" in the text to the left of the login box or the "Register" button below the login box) or enter as a guest (by clicking the "Guest" button below the login box). NOTE: By registering, you'll be able to access all of Atari.com's features, including the ability to chat with other players and to see your skill rating go up or down over time. Playing as a guest will prevent from accessing some features, but you'll still be able to play. After logging in, you may receive a message which says the page that's loading includes both secure and non-secure items, asking if you want to display both. I've always said yes and it doesn't seem to cause any problems. Depending on your Internet connection speed, the next page -- the Monopoly game lobby you chose -- could take several minutes to load.

The Game Lobbies

When the lobby finishes loading, you'll see three distinct areas: The Rank/Name box shows the players in this lobby, and their ratings. The list is sorted by rating. The Join/Watch box is where you can go to either join someone else's game, or watch a game in progress. The chat box to the right side of the screen has three buttons on top of it, "New Table," "Options" and "People."

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Cheating in Online Games

As long as there have been games, there have been cheaters, and video games, particularly online games, are certainly no exception to this rule. While cheat codes are commonly used in single-player games to overcome difficult stages of the game, or just to spice it up a little, it's an entirely different matter when you're competing online. Multiplayer games are usually intended to be contests of skill and strategy, and most players simply won't settle for anything less.

Online games have been a cheaters paradise in some ways because you can remain relatively anonymous, the technology is difficult to secure, and hacks tend to spread quickly over the Net. The motivation for cheating can range from wanting to earn the awe of your friends, to wanting to ruin the game for other players, to wanting to have a heap of game currency to sell on eBay. It appears that there will always be someone that refuses to play by the rules.

A Sordid History
Aside from the removal of cheat codes from multiplayer versions, early online games were rarely designed to prevent cheating. After all, playing an FPS with other people over the Internet was a borderline miracle only a decade ago, nevermind ensuring that no one was tinkering with the software. It wasn't long, however, before the availability of hacks started to have a very negative impact on gameplay. If you were a Team Fortress player in the mid 90s, you probably remember a time when there seemed to be more cheaters than not in the game, and using a small arsenal of hacks was considered necessary simply to "even the odds."

When multiplayer games become overrun with cheaters, honest people will either stop playing or they will restrict their play to password protected games between friends they trust. In fact, several online games have, at one time another, seen a huge exodus of players due to cheating. Age of Empires comes to mind, and America's Army had become almost unplayable prior to the introduction of Punkbuster. Multiplayer Web games and poker rooms are also frequently targeted by cheaters, particularly when there is money at stake.

The gaming community has always been on the forefront of efforts to keep the contest fair. Server admins have long been circulating lists of known cheaters and implementing ways to check client game files for alterations. People started looking for more comprehensive ways to combat the problem, and finally solutions such as Even Balance's Punkbuster software emerged. Punkbuster is now used by over a dozen retail titles, making it the most common anti-cheat software used in online action games.

Subscription games like Ultima Online and EverQuest have even more at risk because a loss of players is directly linked to a loss of income. They've had to make catching cheaters a priority right from the start, but they also have the advantage of controlling the servers the game is played on. When a problem is discovered, it's relatively easy to make changes and/or ban the culprits. Today's MMORPGs operate under the watchful eye of large contingents of game masters, and it's still impossible to ensure that there are no shenanigans going on. The most one can hope for is that the shenanigams will be discovered and correctly quickly.

How Cheaters Cheat
Unfortunately, there are a tremendous variety of ways to cheat in most online games. One common form of cheating is to collude with other players or members of the opposite team. It's not difficult to use communications outside of the game, such as an instant messenger or telephone, to gain an advantage over other players. The effectiveness of this varies from one game to another, but there is really no way to stop it at this point in time.

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Are Monopoly's Rules Online?

Answer: Yes. Hasbro has several editions of official rules available as PDF documents at its web site. (Click on the link and then scroll down to find Monopoly.)

Editions with online rules available include standard Monopoly, Spanish, French, 60th Anniversary, Deluxe Edition, Here & Now, and more.

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