DarrenBarefoot.com

This is one of the best free, online advergames I’ve ever seen. It’s an urban golf game set in London, designed by the folks at Jaguar. They just do everything right:

• Good-looking Flash-based game (for free and in a browser).
• They enable you to skip sections (meaning the fly-bys common in golf games).
• You can save your game (looks like it just writes a cookie to your machine).
• It’s challenging without being ridiculously difficult.
• There are no ‘beat this level’ restrictions. As long as you eventually hit the ‘hole’, you can proceed.
• There are simple, in-game instructions.
• The game continues to surprise. I was doing fine until hole #5, when I ran into the mother of all water hazards.
• They promote their car and brand without being really irritating.

I know I’m being effusive here, and it sounds like I’m whoring it up for Jaguar, but that’s not even the case. I played for about 15 minutes, and it was great fun. Thanks to Wonderland for the tip.

At the other end of the scale, you can also throw rocks at boys.