As if the Internet didn’t promote procrastination enough already, the Internet Archive (an organisation that seeks to “preserve society’s [digital] cultural artifacts and to provide access to them”) has created an online collection of 900 classic arcade games that visitors can play directly in their browsers.
The appropriately named Internet Arcade uses an emulator to replicate classic games like Arkanoid, Golden Axe, Street Fighter II and hundreds more. The archive includes a range of “coin-operated” games that existed between the 1970s and 1990s.
The collection covers everything from early black and white titles with simplistic audio to later titles that included more complex graphics, soundtracks and digitised voices. There are no user manuals on the site itself, but game review site Armchair Arcade has an excellent introduction and guide to the Internet Arcade here.
Though playing seated and using a keyboard can’t match the original experience of standing, button bashing, joystick abuse and the sounds of dozens of other titles being played nearby the Internet Arcade is sure to inspire nostalgia in many a gamer, and doesn’t require you to pester your parents for change.
We hope you weren’t planning achieving anything today.