Ownage, Free Action Shooter Game

What's a great little shooter in which you bounce along killing armed people of one form or another? In which it's not made entirely clear why there are so many men bursting out of residential houses to kill you, but seeing as that's the reality, you may as well deal with it and shoot back?

It's OWNAGE baby! Ownage!

There aren't many little shooters like this available online. That's sort of a lie, but you know, it's still a very unique little shooter regardless and there is jumping, which I think is quite excellent. Jumping! The controls are fairly intuitive, you aim and shoot with the mouse and then you move yourself around with the arrow buttons (or W.A.S.D, if that suits you better.)

So far I could be talking about almost any online shooters. What makes this one so very special? Well first of all, I think what really sets this game apart from the rest of the online shooters is how smoothly it runs. Too many web games rely on clunky, inefficient interfaces to make their games challenging, but the developers of Ownage have actually bothered to make their controls work, which is nice. The enemies are also rather well rendered, and if you sit there and watch them for a bit you'll see that they have a great little reloading animation that is great fun.

You also get some grenades, which you can hurl with the space key, which help thin the herd considerably when your enemies start piling up – and they will start piling up. You certainly won't complain about a lack of resistance as you run down the side scrolling street (which inexplicably has enemies on one side of it only.)

Gameplay is well balanced. Victory is hardly handed to you on a platter, but you won't win without bringing some decent skills and reflexes to the table. Placement is also key. Standing behind a car will give you some shelter, but if you stand there long enough, it will explode, killing you quite dead.

What I really like about the game is that unlike many web games, and certainly unlike many web shooters, the game switches itself up from time to time. You're not stuck shooting the same patterns of enemies every time you die (and you'll probably die a lot, but unlike other games, which quickly become frustrating, Ownage manages to stay fun even whilst thwarting your attempts to beat it.)