Hop on Over to Pogo.com!
Written: Sep 24 '04 (Updated Sep 24 '04)
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Over the years I’ve searched the internet for the best free online games. Some sites have come and gone while others have waxed and waned in quality. There is one in particular that stands out and actually awards real prizes—Pogo.com.
Pogo.com made a debut some time in the late 1990’s. I joined for the first time soon thereafter and then with an account and password I remembered in mid-2001. I’ve been using the site consistently for gratifying my simple gaming needs ever since. The concept of Pogo.com is simple—sign up and play their games. For free. Win cash and prizes. For free. Of course, considering the large membership your chances of winning are miniscule but it does happen. That little caveat aside, Pogo.com is a great place to play everything from word games to casino games to card games to puzzle games. There is truly something out there for everybody.
Pogo.com also has a pay portion called “Club Pogo.” I have been a member of this since the start of this year for no other reason than it adds a little more competition and other games to the mix. Club Pogo allows members to earn badges in addition to tokens for their efforts. It is not uncommon for folks to strive to attain every last badge. By the way, a badge is an avatar earned when you complete a task related to a game. It is only available to Club Pogo members and can be designated to sit aside your name in gamerooms as your “favorite badge.” Other benefits of Club Pogo membership include no intermissions and pop ups, extra statistics in your profile, and doubled jackpot prizes. The price is actually pretty minimal--$29.99 annually or $4.99 a month.
Fortunately, it is not at all necessary to sign up for Club Pogo to enjoy the benefits of membership. If you are indeed looking for a fun, simple, relatively “clean” gaming site Pogo.com (owned by Electronic Arts) is a fantastic option. Oh yes, and if you really love the site they also have a merchandise portion that allows for the purchase of everything from toasters to t-shirts.
Back to the games as they are indeed the centerpiece of this nifty little site. Games are divided into six distinct varieties—Card & Board, Freebie Casino (with slots and video poker subcategories), Word, Puzzle, Sports, Extreme Sports, and Arcade. These are all free to play. There is something here for just about everybody. The games initially listed in “My Favorites” (a portion which can be edited to include your REAL favorites) are those which Pogo.com seems to really push the most. These are First Class Solitaire, Tumble Bees, Poppit!, Sci-Fi Slots, Turbo 21, and Word Whomp. Of those, my favorite is by far Word Whomp—a Boggle-like game that tests your spelling and thinking skills at the same time. Additionally, for members of Club Pogo there is another version called Word Whomp Whackdown which is even more fun with a bonus round after every turn (if you’re good).
Looking for Card & Board games? Check out the options for head-to-head competition at Pogo.com. Backgammon, Bridge, Checkers, Chess, Cribbage (a personal favorite), Dominoes, Euchre, First Class Solitaire, Hearts, Payday FreeCell, and Spades are all here. Most of them offer jackpots but those that don’t are still very, very fun. I find these games to be particularly challenging because you are playing against either a person or a computer rather than against yourself.
The games that you do play against yourself are those in the Word and Puzzle categories. I’ve already mentioned Word Whomp, but there are others to check out. Bookworm is a fun spelling/puzzle game, Crossword is a crossword puzzle, Tumble Bees is a very challenging spelling game with falling letters, and Word Search is just what you would expect. However, I think it’s the Puzzle games that have earned Pogo.com the highest praise. Poppit! is a highly addictive game in which the player pops adjacent balloons of the same color. Some might refer to this as “internet crack.” Additionally, there is fun to be had with Sweet Tooth, Zuma, Swashbucks, Shape Shifter, Rumble Cube, Rocket Mania (I like this one quite a bit), Cubis, Collapse, Bounce Out!, Animal Ark Mah Jong, and Alchemy. If you’re into puzzle games, it is hard to go wrong with a free selection like that.
Finally, Electronic Arts (EA) has three sections devoted to their games. In all honesty, I’ve stayed clear of the Sports games. They just aren’t that fun to me. I have played a little golf and 3-Point Showdown but outside of that I’ve left it alone. There are games here dedicated to Football, NASCAR, Pebble Beach and PGA Tour Golf, and basketball. More interesting (at least to me) are the Extreme Sports games. Vert Skater, SSX SnowDreams, It’s Outta Here 2!, and Freekstyle Crash Pad are all a blast and feature surprisingly decent graphics for an online game. The final grouping is Arcade. There is a Pool game, The Sims Pinball, Need for Speed, and C&C Attack Copter to name a few. Again, not particularly fun as far as I’m concerned and when compared to the Puzzle, Word, and Card & Board games.
Like I said, there is something for everybody. If you join Pogo and REALLY like their games, then I do suggest joining Club Pogo. Why? Well, the games are actually much more fun (if you can believe that)! I’ve already mentioned one of my personal favorites, Word Whomp Whackdown, but there are fourteen other games exclusive to Club Pogo. My favorites are Canasta, Dice Derby (a game of Yahtzee), Perfect Pair Solitaire, World Class Solitaire, and Tri-Peaks Solitaire. In addition to those, there is Fortune Bingo, Greenback Bayou (a puzzle and luck game), Jungle Gin, Mahjong Garden, Phlinx, Pop Fu, Squelchies, Texas Hold’em Poker, and WordJong.
Pogo really seems to make an effort to please all of their members. You’d be hard pressed to not find something you enjoy on the free site, much less the pay one. There are so many truly different games and new ones debuting all the time that it seems impossible (at least to me) to get bored.
Finally, a part of the site I have yet to partake in is called Pogo To Go. This is where users can download, try out, and subsequently pay for games which reside on their individual computer. In many cases, these games are versions of other games already available at Pogo.com. The current list includes Lemonade Tycoon 2: New York Edition, Magic Inlay, Ricochet Lost Worlds, Tumble Bees To Go, Shape Shifter, Zuma Deluxe, Bounce Out Blitz, Mahjong Garden To Go, Swashbucks To Go, Great Escapes Solitaire Collection, Poppit! To Go, Word Whomp To Go, Jericho Mirage, Hammerhead Pool to Go, Combo Chaos, Rumble Cube Deluxe, QBz, Cubis Gold, Super Collapse II, Bookworm Deluxe, and so much more. Prices range from $10 to $20 and users still can collect tokens. However, I fail to see the use in such a thing when I have membership to Club Pogo.
In any case, I do like Pogo.com. It’s free (and easy!) to sign up and play their outstanding games. The intermissions (if you don’t have Club Pogo) are more than a little annoying, but the gameplay makes up for that downfall. To my mind, there is no other free gaming site as fun as this on the ‘net. Yahoo Games, BoxerJam, MSN Games--not a one compares. It’s about time you signed up.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
lambchops
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Member: Shelly T.
Location: Metro Detroit, Michigan
Reviews written: 1172
Trusted by: 842 members
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Bye-bye CL hat. Hopefully I'll write some new reviews some time soon!
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