How to Use This Guide You are embarking on a Web Expedition, a guided tour of related Web sites. As you click on links in this guide, the blue bar above will always stay with you. This lets you explore any site as much as you want. When you're ready to resume the tour, click on "Guided Tour" in the blue bar above. The tour notes will reappear here. If you don't see the blue bar, click your browser's Back button until you return to this page. How to Keep What You Like If you see something you want to return to later, you can add it to your bookmarks. However, because you will be within a frame, you cannot use the bookmarks menu. Instead, do the following: On a PC, click the content you want to bookmark with your right mouse button. Then choose "Add bookmark." On a Macintosh, click your mouse on the content you wish to bookmark and hold it for several seconds. In the menu that appears, choose "Add bookmark."

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By Dan Pacheco
WashingtonPost.com Staff
April 16, 1997

Give Web programmers the latest interactive design tools, and what do they make? Faithful recreations of video games that date back to the days of the Apple II and Commodore 64. Remember "Frogger"? And "Pong"? Call me old-fashioned, call me a geek--but I'm lovin' it.

To play these games, you'll need Shockwave for Director on your computer (get step-by-step instructions from our Web Outfitter). Once you're set up, you can point, click and play. Wait a few moments for each game to load; once the game is in your system, the play is quick ... sometimes too quick!

We begin our tour with the Mona Lisa of video games. "Web Invaders" is missing some of the sound effects of "Space Invaders," but the strangely buglike alien ships recall the bowling alley down the street where young punks spent entire weekends frantically punching buttons. The controls aren't exactly intuitive; use the Shift and Control keys to move left and right, and the left mouse button to fire.

The creators of this "Asteroids" clone have a sense of humor. Meticulously modeled after the hit arcade game "Asteroids," "'Stroids" uses what can only be described as little-kid car noises for sound effects. The play is familiar: Zoom around the screen in an A-frame ship blasting rocks until they're all gone, then do it all over again at twice the speed. Don't pound on the keys in your panic; that only makes the action jerky. The fact that simple diversions such as "Asteroids," "Tetris" and "Tickle Me Elmo" regularly sweep the country says something profound about our society.

I'll always have a soft spot for this ill-fated amphibious adventure. To refresh your memory, in "Frogger" you play a frog who battles speeding cars, deep waters, snakes and crocodiles to reach one of five grassy alcoves. Needless to say, the world usually has its way with you, and you end up squished on the highway or collecting silt at the bottom of the river. The Aftershock Arcade Alley's "Webfrog" is so close to the original, you have to wonder whether the creators didn't have some help from the original programmers.

Remember this '80s answer to "duck and cover"? Looking back, there's really nothing funny about the apocalyptic "Missile Command," which was once a staple in video arcades. As the unified controller of a remote planet's nuclear arsenal, it's your job to personally destroy every incoming H-bomb before it obliterates your bases and cities.

The first major spin-off to "Pong," "Breakout" challenges you to bounce a ball at bricks that disappear when hit. Use the mouse to move from side to side. Insanely addictive, this is another one of those games whose success defies logic. Frankly, we had more fun playing "Breakout" parodies such as "Shockdave," which substitutes columnist Dave Barry's screaming head for the ball. Use the arrow keys to move.

Michael Whitney contributed to this report.