From the moment that I heard about GarageGames and their InstantAction.com project I was interested. I always thought that even though web games are already extremely popular, there was a lot of room for growth and innovation. It seems that GarageGames agrees, and their response is InstantAction.com. Typically whenever I heard someone mention “web games” I would mentally picture a fun and addicting but simplistic 2D game created with Adobe flash or some similar technology. Chances are you think of something similar when you hear the phrase as well. GarageGames is hoping to change that by creating console quality 3D games that run in a normal web browser. These games are integrated with their website, which provides features such as universal friends lists, game invites, a party system, leaderboards, ect. If you have ever used Xbox Live, these features should sound very familiar. What makes it exciting is how they are being applied to some pretty impressive looking games that run right in your web browser.
I was recently accepted into the beta for the website and I am pretty impressed so far. While there is absolutely no denying that the website is still in a beta state, it is already working well enough to jump into a game with a group of friends and have a lot of fun. There is just something really cool about playing Marble Blast (a game that I played a lot of on Xbox 360) in my browser. I really loved Marble Blast on the 360, and it’s really neat to think about how this service will allow me to easily get more of my friends to check it out. The website is really simple to use, and I could easily see someone like my sister checking it out and playing Marble Blast with me online.
Now I just can’t wait to check out Legions when it reaches beta. That game looks like a very promising first person shooter.