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We all enjoy word games and puzzles. Sometimes they are interesting and challenging. Other times they are frustrating and aggravating. What is that missing word? How am I going to fill that hole? Can somebody help me?

Using Word Finder Pro is like having the “cheat” codes for a crossword puzzle. If you know you need a six-letter word that starts with an “r”, you can generate a list of all possible words that will fit that space, subject to the words in Word Finder’s word list.

Word Finder Pro comes with a list of some 172,000 words, so you can make Scrabble or the New York Times crossword puzzle cower before you. You can also add your own word lists, or download additional and updated lists from the publisher’s web site.

Amaze your friends. Hold your head high. Be the envy of all those around you. Do your crosswords in ink.

Well, maybe not that self assured….

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Typhoon 2001 is a free OpenGL-based game inspired by the Atari Jaguar game Tempest 2000 and the arcade game Tempest.

You control the Claw and battle any number of Flippers of various types to control a Web, the field of play for the game. Typhoon 2001 comes with a hundred Web files, and includes an editor so you can create your own.

There are three scoring modes, so you can adjust to the way you want to play. You can get bonus points for destroying an enemy off in the distance, or for taking down several in rapid succession. Powerups appear periodically when you destroy an enemy, allowing you access to new weapons, and awarding you bonus points.

As a graphics-intensive app, Typhoon wants the biggest, baddest graphics card you can get, preferably an OpenGL capable 3D-Accelerator card.

Typhoon 2001 will run on any version of Windows from Win98 up through Vista.

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Whether you're a Human or an Alien, you'll enjoy Tremulous, an exciting multi-player first-person shooter that incorporates elements of real-time strategy. Based on Quake 3, the goal in Tremulous, of course, is to wipe out the opposition. This is accomplished not only through killing them, but also by destroying their "spawn structures," effectively keeping them from replenishing their ranks.

Humans advance by receiving credits that allow them to purchase new weapons and upgrade their arsenals, while Alians evolve into new classes of beings, each more powerful than the last. Start as a Dretch and do your job well and you may soon evolve into a Basilisk, Marauder, or Tyrant. The game ends when all players on a team have been killed and all of their buildings have been destroyed.

Tremulous is a free, open source project that is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows. With a large support community and an active forum, there is a lot of interest in this exciting, award-winning game.

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What does a pirate from Boston say? AHHHHHHHHHHH!

A certain Cap'n Jack Sparrow's got nothing on you here. Pirates: Battle for the Caribbean is a rousing action game where you can attack enemy ships, earn gold, and even control Great White Shark, all with 3-D graphics and amazing sound effects. For a change of pace, try playing as the British Captain, and get back at those swashbuckling buccaneers.

Bad pirate jokes not included.

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"Nosebreaker" is the odd name of this highly addictive game for Windows. The premise is simple - try to arrange the colored balls in groups of the same color, then click on the group to remove it. The object is to remove all the balls in as few moves as possible. It sounds sort of silly, and perhaps even easy, but it's type of you end up methodically playing in your dreams.

The latest version of Nosebreaker allows you to choose to play with the traditional round balls, or to play with squiggly shapes called "splashes", or rectangular bricks. You can also "buy a color" for an isolated ball by charging against the points you've accumulated. The game is a nice, slow-paced way to relax after a hard day at work, or, (what the heck), even at work.

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Here's your chance to be a hero. Save a loud and obnoxious kangaroo from the gallows in this amusing variation of the game, "Hangman". The premise is simple if you've ever played Hangman, or have ever watched Wheel of Fortune — try to figure out a phrase by choosing different letters of the alphabet to fill in the blanks.

Hangaroo tries to be educational, and offers over 8500 terms and phrases in 120 different categories. There are even phrases which are in the form of "Did you know…?" facts. If all those possibilities aren't enough for you, you can create your own customized phrases and store them in external datafiles. The software developer will even upload your phrase database to the site so it can be shared with other users.

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If you've ever woken up from a bad dream, trembling at the thought of chicken hordes invading the planet, perhaps you're too delicate to tackle Chicken Invaders. On the other hand, if you're sitting in front of your monitor with a bucket of KFC, you'll want to immediately download this fun one or two person game from InterAction Studios. The game is an updated version of a classic from the 1980s. You must defend the Earth from an invasion of intergalactic chickens, collecting weapons and missiles as you move through increasingly difficult levels.

The high score table in the game is Internet-based, so you'll be able to see how you stack up against other players. The game is not at all processor-intensive, and the only requirement is a Pentium 166mHz PC and a lowly 32MB of RAM. After you've completed Chicken Invaders, there are two more games which continue the storyline, but only the first level of each of those is free to download.

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Neverball is a fun game with an odd name. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Neverball can be enjoyed by Mac, Windows, and Linux users alike. This is a game truly trying to build bridges within the gaming community.

At its most basic, Neverball is a game where you roll a ball around obstacles by tilting the floor around it. The game is controlled by either your keyboard or mouse. More than that, though, it's a game of stunning and unusual graphics, as the game seems to take place in some three dimensional alternate universe. The colors are bright, full of reflection and movement. As you try to move your ball around obstacles, you'll encounter coins that you need to collect in order to progress to the next level. There are 75 levels total, so you might be playing this game for the next few years. If you do a web search, you'll find a few sites which keep track of high scores and maintain "The Neverball Hall of Fame".

The Neverball download includes another program called Neverputt, where you use the same principles from Neverball to play miniature golf.

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Arcade! Classic Arcade Pack is a bundle of six familiar arcade classics. Whether you're old enough to have played them when they were cutting-edge, or whether you're that guy's kid, you'll get a kick out of playing Asteroids, Pacman, Pong, Snake, Space Invaders, and Tetris. I'm not sure if "Snake" is quite as fun as "Centipede", but regardless, the developers promise that each game features its original graphics and sounds.

Each game has an online score mode, so you can keep track of all the best players world-wide, and compete against them for imaginary honors like, "King of Pong". Tech support for these games is probably non-existent, but they seem to be Flash-based and fairly straightforward to download and install.

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BOTS are virtual workers who have been called to save cyberspace from viruses. You can get your very own BOT by signing up for the BOTS game and downloading it to your PC. Your BOT can be customized using different wings, heads, weapons, and other features. Once created, you can battle through cyberspace by following a path through an online playing field with other players (that's "Sector Mode"), you can have head to head battles, of you can play in Base Mode where your team tries to destroy the other team's base.

BOTS is free to play — just download the software and create an account to get started.

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