Blocks and physics puzzles; they go together like pineapples and cream cheese! (Just... trust me.) Picture Cubes is a lovely 3D puzzle game where you push and pull blocks around the screen to create some genuinely pretty art. While not what one might call exciting, Picture Cubes is the perfect way to relax after a long day.

Caster is a third-person action-shooter with distinct influences from the glory days of console gaming; it cooks up some of the most-enticing features of high-energy, super-powered shooter action and serves it up on a silver platter.

Cubor lets players gently roll colorful blocks to respectively colored designated areas, which will be a familiar trope to veteran puzzlers. But Cubor adds a couple of twists to the formula. Cubes move by rotating in the direction of travel, and as a cube is only truly home when the colored side is face-down, you must assess not only the means of delivery, but also the approach. Not every orientation will do, and part of the solving is in adjusting the cube's orientation so that it can arrive home properly.

If you're a fan of first person skydiving games with lots of vowels in the title, Aaaaa! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity by Dejobaan Games is right up your alley. Your goal is to make it from Point A (generally assumed to be somewhere above you) to Point B (somewhere below point A) without crushing every bone in your body. Unfortunately the skies are littered with airborne buildings and architectural oddities. And birds. And cars. And large glass plates with numbers on them.

Vector Conflict: The Siege takes you back to the early days of arcade games, back when games like Tempest and Omega Race were the new guys on the block. With its glorious vector graphics, Vector Conflict looks like the brother of the classic tank combat game Battlezone, and plays like a cross between that and a turret defense game.

Choose between playing as Anakin Skywalker for the Republic, or as the Jedi assassin, Asajj Ventress, in this Star Wars action adventure game built in Unity 3D. Forget what you think you know about browser-based games and give LEGO Star Wars: The Quest for R2D2 a try. It won't be long before you get sucked into a time long ago in a galaxy far, far away, where plastic bricks vied for control of the universe.

The source of BOXGAME's name is obvious: it's basically a puzzle platformer wrapped around a box. Perhaps by M. C. Escher. The direction of gravity changes depending on how you cross from face to face, turning walls into ceilings and pits into doorways. Jump and rotate your way to the exit in this unique game by Sophie Houlden. Don't forget your teddy bear!

Sentokun in Kamakura is a short 3D action adventure about a monk with antlers on his head, on a quest to defeat a giant, antlered cowboy. At the beginning, the monk is too weak to prevail, so to build up his strength, he must ransack a peaceful coastal town and raze it to the ground. If you liked Katamari Damacy, or you wish there were more browser games that let you throw houses at people, you may enjoy this.

Lamb Rover 4x4 puts you, as Shaun the Sheep, in the driver's seat of a creaking rustbucket of a pick-up truck, as you complete tasks here and there on the farm, under the supervision of the long-suffering sheep dog Bitzer. It's all about off-kilter pluckiness, from the double-pun-dipped title to the roundabout approach to missions. This is also your only chance this week to stack six sheep in the back of a truck and bounce them around like a bleating slinky.

NASCAR fans and origami collectors unite! Grab your paper cranes and giant foam fingers, and prepare for one of the most beautiful races you've ever seen. Scenic elegantly combines digitally-rendered landscapes with F-Zero-style racing, and delivers it all in using an impressive 3D engine in Flash.

On The Run is a fun little game hosted and contracted by Miniclip Games, developed by Officine Pixel. This Shockwave game is a third-person car racer, or rather chaser, as you spend the entire game being pursued by a mysterious, clandestine group of baddies called the "Corporation" that's trying to hunt you down and run you off the road. You sport a little yellow coupe, while the bad guys have a fleet of cars, SUV's and vans, all of which stop at nothing to wreck your car and stop you from escaping.

There's a new Wonderland in town, rounding out the 3D action-puzzle series by Midnight Synergy. Our last review in this series was the well-received Wonderland Secret Worlds, in which a storm rolled through and blew all the little Stinkers away. In the new Wonderland Adventures, you fill the shoes of a hero once more, this time trying to save entire Wonderland realm, which is being threatened by a dark, matter-destroying void.

The creators of the entertaining and CPU-intensive Off-Road Velociraptor Safari have just released an alpha version of their next game that also uses the Unity browser plug-in: Jetpack Brontosaurus. So far, the game sports various time and skill related missions to complete.

Brain Cell is the brain child of Ryan Gibson for the U.K.-based development team DESQ, an organization devoted to the development of Web-based and digital learning projects. In a recent attempt to contribute to casual gaming, DESQ released Brain Cell in the hopes of enhancing your typical room escape game and taking it to the next level. In many ways, it succeeds; featuring a gorgeous (yet bandwidth-intensive) take on the usual point-and-click, room escape genre.

We're used to suspending a little bit of belief when it comes to the games we play. Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, however, really tests the limits. You play a raptor driving a jeep with a spiky ball and chain attached to the rear. Your goal is to chase down other raptors and throw them into a teleporter that sends them to the future. At this point it's a good idea to throw intellectual understanding out the window, because this game is all about hitting dinosaurs with cars for points.

Hearken back to those adrenaline-happy days with Vector Runner, an arcade action game concerned purely with the sensation of speed. Control a humble blue cube on its journey down a futuristic highway, dodging deadly pyramids of various shapes and sizes. Wherever you need to be, you're going there fast.

Anyone that has been visiting this site for a couple of years will likely remember the amazingly popular Hyperframe from 2005, a 3D logic puzzle of connecting same-colored blocks on a 3D cube with unbroken non-intersecting lines. There is a new version of a clone now available, appropriately titled 3D Logic 2, and it's just as well done and addictive as the original Hyperframe was.

In February, Jay comprehensively reviewed a finalist in the 2006 Independent Games Festival (IGF). The demo form of Dodge That Anvil walked away with the AdultSwim.com award and has now been further developed into an enjoyable downloadable game for both PC and Mac OS X platforms

Have you ever had that weird feeling that you are a giant, controllable, seeker missile flying down a long tunnel avoiding obstacles? What?! You say you haven't? Then you must not have played The Missile Game 3D by Damien of DX Interactive. For a fun and simple game that's taken a simple concept of "avoid the object" and infused some life into it, look no further.

Nimian Flyer Legends is a 3D action adventure game by Protopop Games. You play the role of a young dragon named Salamond on a quest to defeat seven legendary beasts. Armed with fire-breath and the ability to pick up many objects, you'll have to use your speed and wits to battle each unique foe. Nimian Flyer Legends has a remarkably full 3D world to explore coupled with a grand soundtrack. It's a surprisingly lengthy game that feels more like an epic journey than a pick-up-and-play flash title.

Gateway is an impressive and delightful 3D puzzle game from Anders Gustafsson, awarded Honorable Mention and the coveted Audience Award in our first game design competition. The game has a very simple premise: guide a robot through a series of rooms; but you will have to solve a mini-puzzle within each room to advance.

Created by Robert Kabwe of Montreal, Nimian Hunter makes use of an engine that creates the illusion of 3D in Flash, and it's very, very good. Play as a hunter on a mission to feed the beast that commands you. There is a narrative that unfolds as you play, with at least two different endings. Altogether a unique and unusal game.

Cubic Exploding Goro is nearly as strange as the name suggests. This 3D action game from Japan puts you in the shoes of Goro, a grim angular anti-hero in a violent, polygonal Shockwave-powered world. Weird, fun and, with over 24 levels and a wide variety of enemies, quite challenging.

Remember the amazing, jaw-dropping, Shockwave 3D first person shooter (FPS) demo that surfaced last year just prior to GDC? The game was called Phosphor Alpha and it was created by Nick Kang of Rasterwerks. Well, he's done it again: Phosphor Beta 1 kicks the action into high gear by including multiplayer deathmatch functionality, with additional mods being added regularly.

Back in 1980, Midway released an innovative maze game called Rally X. It involved the player driving a rally car through a maze collecting flags while avoiding enemy cars. Baja is an excellent Shockwave 3D implementation of the traditional gameplay first seen in Rally X, and delivered to you within the convenience of your browser.

Immersing and beautifully textured, The Frog World will be immediately familiar to anyone who has played a 3D platform game in the last decade. Gathering stars in order to access new levels? Time trials that force you to go from point A to point B as quickly as possible? Frustrating clipping problems and difficult to estimate jumps? It's all there in your browser, thanks to Macromedia's Shockwave 3D.

A finalist in this year's Independent Games Festival in the Best Web Browser Game category, Dodge That Anvil is a gorgeous and adorable Shockwave 3D platformer with unique and original gameplay, created by Jake Grandchamp of Rabidlab.

Pow Pow's Mini-Golf is an impressive Shockwave 3D implementation of classic miniature golf gameplay that runs in any browser. The game even features RPG-like elements with saved character stats that can be 'leveled-up' with experience points.

To be filed under the "simple but highly addictive" category is this latest game by Max Abernethy of flecko.net. Simplistic but challenging is Cubefield, a strangely beautiful dodge-the-obstacles type of game. The author of this 3D Flash game even offers an explanation of the technology behind it for those interested.

This next game offers some thrilling Shockwave 3D fun, four-wheeling under the sun in the hot Sahara Desert. The BP Ultimate Rally Challenge is an excellent 3D racing game that delivers an awesome sensation of speed and realistic physics all through the convenience of your browser.

If you managed to escape the Archipelago, you may have felt a sense of relief watching the volcanic islands dwindle as you floated away. Well, you may not want to breathe easy just yet, as creator Jonathan May has recently made the sequel, Return to the Archipelago, available to the general public.

Almost a year ago, Jonathan May of Wooly Thinking released on the Web a fantastic puzzle game called The Dark Room. It featured a 3-dimensional square room from which the player had to escape by solving puzzles. It was an instant hit and it remains one of my all-time favorite Flash games, ever. Well, he's done it again!

Flash-in-the-Can 2005 award winner, Grant Skinner, has put together an impressive and ambitious pseudo-3D first-person shooter in Flash. There is even a back-story in case you need a reason to shoot at cute little creatures. Puki: The Swarm begins after a routine mission to a space station, in a far away...

You find yourself in a room from which you must escape. Sound familiar? Noob's Room is yet another take on the emerging "escape from the room" genre of point-and-click Flash games. This one was created by Kristjan Luts for Gamershood. Like Escape: The Room before it, Noob's Room features very similar...

Take to the streets to compete against and win your opponent's vehicle in this street racing Shockwave 3D game. Redline Rumble features eight (8) souped-up racers of increasing grade of speed and style that you must earn the right to drive. The game starts you off on the low-end of...

André Michelle said that by utilizing his GamePackage ActionScript tiling engine, he was able to create the gameplay of this Flash game for WM Team in just a few days. Now that is very impressive, even if I can't seem to keep the car on the road. In Uniroyal Fun Cup, use the left and right arrow keys for steering as you race around the track,...

Customize your quad and race against the clock in this Shockwave 3D four-wheeling game. Four Wheel Fury is produced by Blit Interactive, and offers four wheeling fun while racing around the track gathering as many points as possible. Keep your quad running smoothly by picking up fuel and repairs along the way. The control is with the arrow keys and...

A game that looks and feels very similar to Nintendo's Starfox games, Starfish Chronicles is a Shockwave game of the same space-flight shmup genre. The game makes effective use of many of Shockwave 3D's more advanced features to create a compelling experience that rivals commerical offerings. Although control is with the arrow keys and the space ba...

From Lego.com comes one of the best Shockwave 3D implementations I've seen. Supersonic RC mixes fast and furious checkpoint racing with extreme stunts. What you wind up with is a 3D racer that is exciting and fun, with 5 different challenge modes of play. If you like single-player racers, you simply must try this one.

Welcome to the world of Flash motorcycle racing, courtesy of Ulrich Tausend and the NeoDelight crew. In Turbo Spirit, the object of the game is to race through 4 different tracks as fast as you can. Each track has 5 checkpoints that you need to reach within the time limit of 30 seconds per segment. Your score is calculated based on how fast you rea...

These beautiful Flash casino games were created by Eugene Potapenko and are available to play on his website flash.init(). Each game has been given extraordinary attention to detail right down to the wood grain finish on the tables. You won't get rich playing these games, but you won't lose any money either. Choose between: American Roulette, Bacc...

Robo Pinball is an excellent, original concept, Shockwave 3D pinball game from Germany. It combines old-school pinball action with 3D graphics and elements of a first-person shooter, all wrapped up into one. The game is a beautiful implementation of Director 3D with realistic physics and all sorts of secrets to discover.

The Australian government has issued this latest game for would-be pilots interested in joining the Australian Defence Force. The Flash game consists of mission based levels that have you flying an F/A 18 Hornet aircraft by using the mouse to guide the plane. You must keep the plane with the boundaries of the gates as you follow the lead aircraft. ...

Another puzzle game, this time from the Netherlands. This one is a new spin on the Rubik's cube genre, if there is such beast, and it's called Sloyd (I think they could have come up with a better name, although I have no idea what Sloyd means in Dutch).

For our final project for MUMS (Multi-User Media Spaces), Jonathan Atleson and I wanted to create a predator-prey simulation in Director 3D. Our objective was to show how naturalistic behavior can emerge from simple intelligent agents. You will need the latest Shockwave player installed to view the simulation.

Today marks the day that the Spring quarter is officially over for me. This evening our group, for Andy Phelps' 3D Graphics Programming class, presented the game we've been working on all quarter: BattleLaX, a battle lacrosse game for the Windows platform, coded in C++ using Microsoft's DirectX (V9.0b) advanced graphics API. Our game kicked virt...

This is simply amazing. Someone that goes only by the name of Voxel, has created a 3D version of the original Metroid game in Director! By taking the Metroid tileset, he built a utility that allows him to convert 2D sprites to 3D sprites, and then he uses those to build the levels of the game.

Another favorite of mine is this game by Squid S O U P. Snake delivers classic-style gameplay in a 3D Shockwave implementation. Very nice indeed.