Action games ask more of your hands than your head. The screen fills up, something is coming at you from the left, and the right choice is usually the one you make without stopping to think. If arcade games are a single sprint, these are closer to a short race with checkpoints: stages, upgrades and a boss waiting at the end.
Scrolling Shooters
This is the biggest group. Powerwing is a side-scroller where weapon upgrades stack up until the boss appears. Bullet Hell Space Shooter is the toughest one, with dense bullet patterns you survive using slow motion and bombs. River Strike adds a fuel gauge, so you have to fly through refuelling depots while dodging the riverbanks. Planet Protector loops around a small world as you rescue people from alien landers, and Egg Time Rewind uses a neat time-loop idea where your lost lives keep fighting beside you.
For twin-stick style play, Radius Raid has you steer with the keys and aim with the mouse.
Run, Jump and Fight
Little Platformer lets you blast through almost any wall with bullets and grenades. Bee Kind mixes platform levels with a honey gun, and Lost City of S sends an explorer through jungle and desert while a curse strikes on a timer. Stolen Sword is the most distinctive: you pull back and fling your swordsman through the air to slice enemies mid-flight, which works beautifully on a touch screen.
Swarms, Tanks and Duels
Emoji Horde is a survival game where your weapons fire on their own and your job is to keep moving through ever-larger crowds. Tank Ricochet is about bank shots off stone walls in a small 3D arena. Norman the Necromancer has you raise fallen villagers as skeleton allies. And The Reapers: Tournament of Destiny is a stripped-back fighting game with one attack and one parry, where spacing decides every round.
Picking Something That Suits You
Consider what you are holding and how long you have:
- Mouse and keyboard at a desk: Radius Raid, Hurry Cave Shooter or Norman the Necromancer.
- Phone or tablet: Stolen Sword, Emoji Horde or Tank Ricochet.
- Ten free minutes: a few waves of River Strike or one Emoji Horde stage.
- A longer push: Bullet Hell Space Shooter or Bee Kind, which both reward learning their levels.
Every game here is hosted on FreezeNova itself, so there is nothing to download. If you want shorter rounds with a single score to beat, our arcade games are the natural neighbor. Prefer exploring over shooting? See adventure games.