Sometimes you just want to play cowboy, but your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend/roommate/parents/dog just look at you funny when start wearing chaps and a ten-gallon hat around the house. Might I suggest giving the new Adult Swim video game Westerado a shot instead. This gorgeous 16-bits-style Western-style action RPG is shockingly expansive. You play a red-clad gunslinger looking to find the man who killed your family. Get jobs, question townspeople, fight bandits, wrangle buffalo. Along the way, you'll gather clues as to the killer's identity. A wide variety of tasks and a sly sense of humor make this a blast to play. Just watch where you point that six-shooter, partner.

 

Did you know that today is the 112 birthday of Frank Zamboni. " Who's Frank Zamboni?" you ask. Only the inventor of the most awesome vehicle on the planet, the ice-cleaning Zamboni Machine! Well the fine folks at Google sure know who Mr. Zamboni is. Their latest " Google Doodle" is a playable game in which you're tasked with sprucing up the ice after some careless skaters. Plan your route around the rink carefully, you have a limited supply of fuel. Now get on that Zamboni and ride!

 

Chromatica is your basic shape-matching game. Slide the metallic stars, moons, clovers, etc. around the hexagonal grid (so long as there's an open path) and line them up in rows of four or more. Pile up extra-long chains to unlock special pieces. The jewel-like colors and the classical music accompaniment make this one a soothing exercise in puzzle solving.

 

There's been a movement lately toward posting older, what we call "orphan" games online. (Take, for example, a prime Webgame Wednesday pick from last year, the 20th anniversary release of Wolfenstein 3D. We here at Webgame Wednesday couldn't be happier with this nostalgic gaming trend. So we're super stoked that somebody has ported Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty to the Internet. This pioneering real time strategy game was released in 1992. It more that set the stage for current RTS hits like Starcraft II. Choose your House (Atredies, Ordos or Harkonnen), mine the spice, make money, spend it on troops, power plants, weapons of war, etc. Then get out there and take over the planet, RISK-style. After all, the spice must flow!

 

Adult Swim’s awesomely destructive, Atari 2600-style game Mountain Maniac gets a holiday makeover in Mountain Maniac Xmas. You're Santa (or a poor approximation thereof) and are tasked with smashing huge boulders off a mountaintop. Control their descent to cause maximum carnage. And watch out for rampaging reindeer!

 

It's getting a touch chilly outside, don't you think? Winter is definitely in the air. So why not stay inside and play some wintery games? I suggest trying your hand at Ice Beak. This pleasingly 8-bit scroll-and-shoot puts you in the role of an ice-blasting bird navigating a lava-filled maze. There's a bit of puzzle solving to be had as well, since you must use your ice abilities to their best advantage to navigate the trap-filled maze in which you find yourself. Just remember to keep your cool.

 

So the Mayan Apocalypse will wipe out all life on Earth in less than a week. Nothing to do except spend your remaining days fornicating and playing video games. We can't help you with the former. But in the latter category, we offer up Dikembe Mutombo's 4 1/2 Weeks to Save the World. Normally we don't post many webgames that are product-related, but this eclectic 8-bit throwback, produced by the Old Spice folks, has the surreal edge of their weirdest deodorant commercials. Each week, the game has been uploading a new level. Towering NBA star Mutombo and his sidekick, a British bear in a Cosby sweater, are tasked with preventing the apocalypse in some manner. In one level, for example, they have to battle emo teens to stop Hollywood producers from making another vampire romance. In another, they've got to deliver a hoagie to pregnant Kate Middleton. The whole thing is hilariously bizarro and surprisingly fun to play.

 

Cute is good. Mushbits is a cute li'l puzzler that asks you to guide bunnies along a path so they can munch their favorite mushrooms. Bunnies can only hop along paths that are the same color as them. Bunnies change the colors of paths once they step on them. It's all very logical. Bottom line is you've got to figure out how to get each bunny to the proper mushroom in the least number of moves. Hop to it!

 

Thanksgiving is at our doorstep and we'll soon be stuffing our faces. It only seems appropriate, then, to focus this week's Webgame Wednesday on the art of eating. The simple puzzle game Crumbs asks you to hold your mouse button down and take as big a bite as you can from a cookie. Sounds simple enough. But you've barely got a second or two to complete the task. Should you take a bigger bite, or sneak in a couple of smaller bites? How does the shape of the cookie affect your eating pattern? The objective, of course, is to chomp down as much of the cookie as possible in the time you're allotted. The game is super short, but you can cycle back through, trying to improve your eating ability--just the sort of training you'll need to survive the holidays.

 

Some days, you're just in the mood to take over the entire world and wipe out all of humanity. If this describes you, why not try your hand at Apocalipseed . In this real-time strategy game, you control a cactus-like alien who has crash-landed in a major metropolitan area. Your goal? Sends some of your toothy tendrils up through the ground, eat as many of those meat-based beings wandering around as possible and sprout an army to fight off those gun-toting police officers. Get growing!

 

Halloween is over, but Day of the Dead is still on the horizon. Celebrate the occasion with Day of the Dead. This puzzle shooter is obviously inspired by the classic arcader Puzzle Bobble–only the bubbles have been replaced with colorful sugar skulls. Paint your face and get to shooting!

 

The invasion of the Halloween-themed horror games continues on Webgame Wednesday. They Took Our Candy is fairly straightforward. Space aliens have invaded the streets of suburbia and snatched up all the good candy. You must assemble your best team of costumed kiddies (different costumes bestow different special powers), and sidescroll your way though wave after wave of monsters from space. Use the candy you gather to upgrade your powers and unlock new costumes (a kitty cat?). Yay, candy!

 

Webgame Wednesday's journey through Halloween Horror Month continues with the darkly atmospheric point-and-click-as-art game The Old Tree. Creepy-crawl your way though a landscape of bizarre bugs and other weird monsters. Less scary than just plain surreal, this one is sure to fuel some strange dreams.

 

Halloween Horror Month continues here on Webgame Wednesdays with Free Ice Cream. What's so scary about free ice cream? Well, if you're a little girl, you really shouldn't be accepting it from a strange ice cream vendors. Particularly when that ice cream vendor is wearing a hockey mask. Now, you've got to escape from his blood-spattered basement in this nasty-humored point-and-click adventure.

 

Halloween month is upon us, so we figured we'd spend October's Webgame Wednesday highlighting freaky, awesome horror-based video games. We start off on a high note with Infectonator 2. There's no greater joy than traveling the world, infecting people with a zombie virus and then watching flesh-eating monsters devour an entire city. Be sure and pick the pockets of all those cute, little dead people along the way so you can upgrade your army of the undead, making them longer-lived, more resistant to damage and, of course, more infectious. There are simply no words to describe how maniacally fun this game is. ... Oh, wait, yes there are: "Summon Zombie Kim Jong-Il."