Drug of Choice: Addictinggames.com

Between time-killing naps between classes and twiddling our thumbs while we avoid our homework, restlessness is America's college epidemic.

Those of us lucky enough to stumble upon the Web site www.addictinggames.com, however, realize the cure to the boredom disease. The prognosis is looking good.

The Web site is a catalog of hundreds of games in a variety of formats, including Flash and Shockwave. Some games require that you download external plug-ins. The good news is that these are usually small, fast, and reliable downloads available from Web sites such as www.shockwave.com.

The games on the site are conveniently divided into several different categories such as puzzle, action, sports, miscellaneous, and others. Each category has enough variety to keep any procrastinator busy for hours.

“I play online games like it’s my job," said Reed Branson, a freshman at SUNY Binghamton. “I play 25 hours a week, maybe more."

Even with a meager Internet connection, there shouldn’t be any problems loading games quickly. This is helped by the fact that many of the games have built-in quality adjustment options, which means good things for those of us with slow computers. These settings can be accessed from menus within the games, so long as the game contains this feature.

With so many games, though, it might be tough to find exactly what you want. To curb the problem of too much of a good thing, the site contains a search feature that allows you to look for a specific game. This is great for the gamers who know exactly what they’re looking for.

“My favorite game is definitely Bullet-Time Fighting…or maybe 3-D Pong," said Evan Dunn, a student from Purchase College who thinks the Web site is “good for procrastinating."

For the gamer who isn’t as discriminating, however, the Web site has a nice method for finding something enjoyable to play. This is an area of the site featuring the 100 top-played games, accessible from a link on the top right area of the main page reading “NEW - Addictinggames Top 100." These are the cream of the Internet gaming crop, so from violent shoot-em-ups to mind twisting puzzle games, there is something here for everyone.

The best part is that all of the content is free, and everyone knows that college students can’t afford to pay for anything that costs much more than zero.

So, you could be doing homework or getting that term paper out of the way. But why would you? With the ever-growing collection of fun awaiting on addictinggames.com, you have your work cut out for you.