Echoes

This fun freebie is Asteroids re-imagined. It starts off easy, then slowly but inexorably builds up--and your heart rate goes along with it. When it announces that you have reached the next level, it doesn't pause to let you catch your breath. The asteroids get bigger--enormous, actually, and there are special types of asteroids, some of which seek you out. As you destroy boulders, there are power-ups that fall on the screen. I only saw three: a weapons boost, a health boost, and a shield boost.

Ordinarily, in Asteroids you'd rotate your ship left or right using the keypad. In this game, you use the mouse to move quickly in any direction. But there's no momentum, no drift. If you click and hold down the right mouse button, your ship rotates with you. Release the button and you can strafe in the direction you were last headed. The game is a quickie, too: I played multiple times, yet even when I had experience, I was still dead within ten minutes. If you need an adrenaline boost, this is a good game for you.

--Leigh Anne Jones