One of the surprises that a lot of first time gamers encounter when they start looking for the best online flash games is they really don’t understand what a flash game is. Some people confuse the meaning of a flash game and take it to be a category or game, like a first-person shooter, or a MMO game or a real-time strategy game. In its simplest form, flash games online are games made with a .swf file, with a flash program, typically Adobe Flash. If you are curious if one of the free online unblocked games you are playing is flash, you can right click the game and if you are able to see a menu at the end with flash player settings, then is is a flash game.

One problem that people sometimes encounter when playing flash games online is that there can be distracting advertisements around the sides of the page with blinking graphics or there can be pop ads that can interfere with game play with makes it a less than positive playing experience. If you want to avoid those hassles, you can download flash games to your computer so they can be played offline. There are several ways that you can get the flash games to download.

If you check inside the source code of the page’ you can find the direct link to the file for the game on the website. Another alternative is to wait for the game to load in your browser and then retrieve it from the temporary internet file folder for whatever browser you are using. After you have the game files saved onto your computer, you can then use your favorite type of freeware program to take the flash files and make them games you can play offline.

Here is a look at some of the more popular free flash games online:

Kitten Cannon – created in 2005 by Dan Fleming, the premise of the game is to shoot your kitten out of the cannon. Be careful for the explosives and spikes on the ground or your kitten will end up a bloody mess. The game is rated teen caution so it is more suitable for children over the age of 13.

Tower Defense Games – there are many different versions of the tower defense games, but the premise in most of them is to stop the enemy from crossing the map. To stop them you can build towers that will rain down bullets on them as they go past. This is a very good real-time strategy game because you have to determine where are the best places to put the towers and what towers should be upgraded.

Mario Flash Games – there are several different versions of Mario flash games online such as paper Mario flash games and Mario kart flash games. The Mario Kart series has been a success for Nintendo as they spun off the popular Mario Bros. series of games.

Halo flash games – another popular flash game that comes in many different versions on the internet.

The amount of cool flash games that on the world wide web is really mind numbing if you are big into online gaming. For groups of friends that are looking to play online together at the same time, check out online multiplayer flash games. If you are at school and want to play online, there are many unblocked games at school websites that offer free flash games as well.