Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 4 is all about re-imagining the Guitar Hero experience for your home PC. It improves over its predecessors with amusing presentation and a host of new options and features. You can play every song in two difficulty levels, garner achievements for epic thrashing or embarrassing failure, and battle egregious enemy bosses like the diabolical Puppet or the innocent Pizza Guy through the shear power of Rock. Or you can just put on your headphones and sneak a quick jam in a break in your day.

In Bullet Audyssey by Rete, it seems we've been invaded by celestial bodies, ones who send out their bullets to a thumping galactic rhythm. It's up to your tiny ship to weave your way through their forces, absorbing energy for your interstellar counterattack. Will the world rave about your shooter skills, or will the aliens just leave you in a trance?

FrozenFire and Jon Sandness are back with a spookified expansion pack to their popular Symphonic Tower Defense. Once again it is time for the master conductor to dust the cobwebs from his baton and take a stand against the awesome power of awesome music in Symphonic Tower Defense Halloween. While the soundtrack is a tad more scary and the aesthetics a bit more orangey, gameplay pretty much the same as the previous installment. That's not a bad thing: those who liked the original will love to have more of it, and those new to the series will find this a perfect place to jump in.

Tower Defense games have cast you in many different roles as protector. Symphonic Tower Defense, the new music game by FrozenFire and Jon Sadness, however, is the first time that a band conductor has been tasked with guarding against nigh-unstoppable attack. I suppose it's justified though, as this time it's music itself that's out of control. And should it escape, terrible unspecified things will happen to us all. Get ready to take some notes and make your enemies treble with bass fear, as you orchestrate the sharpest defense possible! While a few hopefully-soon-to-be-fixed programming glitches make it a little discordant, overall Symphonic Tower Defense has a nice beat that's easy to dance to.

To paraphrase George Gershwin: I've got rhythm. I've got music. I've got DJManiax, Team Maniax's new rhythm extravaganza. Who could ask for anything more? I've been looking for a music game with excellent tunes, some well-designed note charts and levels of challenge that can appeal to both the casual and hardcore audience, I've got to say I'm pretty well satisfied.

Step outside your cubicle prison and into a world of beautiful pen and ink art and wondrous music in this soothing platform game.

After selling his soul in exchange for a successful career, an accomplished composer regrets his decision and sets out across a nightmare dreamscape to gather fragments of himself. A short but difficult rhythm game with a unique style, The Sound Walk is as challenging as it is beautiful.

Mixing rhythm and simulation elements into one browser-based experience, Punk-o-Matic 2 also functions as a hefty musical editing tool. For those who only sing in the shower, you might want to check out that long tutorial!

Think your amp goes up to eleven? Put your guitar where your mouth is in this rock career simulator slash rhythm game, as you attempt to rawk your way to the top!

A rhythm-based Wario Ware type of game from Nitrome, in which you play colorful mini-game levels with a musical timing element. Destroy attacking fighters and tanks as Godzilla! Stake vampires as they rise in their coffins! Um...eat...stuff. It's all here, with three difficulty levels across four distinct stages, a different song in each level, and a final "mix-tape" stage that surreally switches context between the stages over the course of the song.

Those shifty (har, har) 8-key critters are cruising down the screen towards you, an intrepid, er, lightbulb, as you ascend the y-axis in this evasion flash game. While 'don't touch the sprites' is a very (very very very?) common game mechanic, this is a superb execution with twists that make it less about endurance than about nerves.

A completely different approach to a DDR game, Beat Bubbles offers an enjoyable music-game experience that doesn't rely on precise rhythm to do well with it. Instead, the player must repeat the sequence of keys shown within the time limit to advance, while making music in the process.

Finally, a full-featured rhythm and sound loop utility written in Flash. From Rockstar Games comes this free Web-based application that lets you create loops and mixes from a variety of sources, even your own. Mix and play with the pre-loaded library of drum and synth samples and loops, or upload...

A veritable Flash music construction set, Drum Lab features a wide assortment of phat beats and other percussion sound samples and a unique interface with which to manipulate them. In Basic mode, simply mousing over each of the various instruments will play the associated sound. DJ Stain, an animated character...

And now for something completely different. Bip Hop is an audio game created by Paul Farrington under his Studio Tonne name. The Shockwave game features small colored icons that can be freely moved with the mouse about the interface. By placing them on the play bars that wipe back and forth, sounds are created from the samples contained in each of the icons. When the icons are placed in the correct locations, it is promised "you will get a nice surprise."

This gorgeous game, titled "The Malibu 9 Rescues Mr. Malibu (and 6/9 of the Deepfried Posse)", was originally from a club, Club Malibu, in Stockholm, Sweden, that may not even be in existence any longer (you know how clubs just come and go). Top notch production in a fun little Flash game.