Become An Internet Explorer in Mozilla's BrowserQuest
I remember back in the 1.0 days of internet browsers. When I needed it to do anything, I'd have to install toolbars, plug-ins, all kinds of additions that had nothing to do with slowly downloading images of Agent Scully or e-mailing people I didn't know about my feelings. Nowadays, I can see Scully in the blink of an eye, I have no emotions, and browsers can play games with barely a hitch. To prove just how far they've come, Mozilla has just released BrowserQuest: a cute HTML 5 powered MMORPG.
Now apparently this is quite the thing: having a fairly large MMO running natively in the browser. Being a PC gamer, I thought I saw something like this everyday, but I guess I'm so used to Flash that I forget that it's not the browser doing it all on its own.
It's a Zelda inspired action RPG: you wander, collect weapons and whack things over the head until they die and drop loot. You might have to remind yourself that it's an impressive tech demo, but it's nonetheless charming, with some witty NPC chat and funny references. As a proof of concept, I'd have made it sparklier, but I might just be jaded. I did enjoy wandering and whacking.
If you have Internet Explorer, here's a video of the game.
Why? Here's a screenshot of it In the most recent version of IE.
Everyone else: Safari, Opera, Chrome and Firefox, have fun.