Now, listen people. When I tell you something is good, I'm not fucking around. Gaming is what I do and I like to think I know a thing or two about what makes a game good.

I know there's like a billion Flash games out there, and I know a lot of them are fun, but I'm going to bring you the cream of the goddamn crop. These are the games that got me hopelessly addicted for several hours at a time; the games that I can go back to over and over again. I'll replay them after I already know HOW to solve the puzzle JUST BECAUSE the act of solving it is so enjoyable. These are Flash games that you need to play.

BLOONS TOWER DEFENSE 2
http://www.addictinggames.com/bloonstowerdefense2.html
Yeah the first one's pretty good also, Google that shit yourself, this one is the real winner. The Bloons Tower Defense line throws a curveball at one of the main concepts of tower defense: hit points. Instead of each enemy having a set number of hit points, each "bloon" goes down with one shot - but each bloon has the next weakest bloon inside of it. I'll let you experience just how much this changes the game for yourself, but trust me when I say that you'll notice. One thing I particularly like about the game is that the difficulties are really spot on. Easy is quite easy, but friendly for beginners. Normal provides a decent challenge once you get the hang of it. But hard? Hard is pretty fuckin' hard. I've talked to quite a few people who have played the game and only a very small few have beaten it on hard. Pro tip: a lot of people look down on monkey glue and boomerang towers - these are two of the most useful tools in the game.

DESKTOP TOWER DEFENSE
http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/Game.asp
This is the deepest game on my list. Just throwing that out there right now. The number of different strategies for approaching this is mind blowing. I'll assume you're familiar with the popular tower defense formula, so I'll skip the basics. This one goes back to the roots of custom RTS map tower defenses in that the board is blank and it's your towers that control the pathing of your enemies. It doesn't have anything super unique going for it - the appeal is how flawlessly and balanced..ly it pulls off the staples of the tower defense genre. It has all the standard types of towers (cheap, AOE, anti-air only, slowing, weak-until-fully-upgraded-then-it-owns, etc.) and it has a points system that encourages you to send several waves of enemies at once. Most importantly, the most effective strategy is NOT to spam the weak-until-fully-upgraded-then-it-owns tower as soon as you can. This is the big one for me. As far as challenging tower defenses goes - this is the big one.

DRAW PLAY
http://www.gamegecko.com/drawplay.php
In Draw Play you use the arrow keys to maneuver your guy to the finish, avoiding obstacles along the way. The catch here is that all the terrain you walk on is drawn by you. It combines traditional platforming elements with the free-form aspect of literally paving your own path. If you like it, Draw Play 2 (http://www.dabontv.com/game254.html) adds a number of new puzzle types that really set it apart as a sequel - it isn't just more of the same.

MAGIC PEN
http://magic.pen.fizzlebot.com/
Sticking with the drawing theme, Magic Pen allows you to draw shapes that will materialize and become physics objects in the game world. Your goal is to move a rolling circle (or in a few cases, a not-so-rolling square) to one or more target areas. In addition to creating shapes, you can attach them with static connectors or spinning axles. The physics engine in the game allows you to create all sorts of wild contraptions from catapults, to carts, to see-saws. Get a friend hooked and compete with each other to see who can solve each puzzle in the least number of shapes - and no exploiting.

FANTASTIC CONTRAPTION
http://fantasticcontraption.com/
I'm not going to lie - this game is a lot like Magic Pen. The main difference is that you don't draw, you are simply given two types of objects to create from: wheels and rods. You still need to get an object (usually a circle) from start to finish. This is the game that really did me in. I haven't gotten hooked this hard since the night the Orange Box came out and I stayed up all night playing Portal start to finish. I was about to hit the hay when I stumbled this game and I ended up staying awake another two hours before I finally got stuck. Then when I went to bed all I could think about was the level I was on until I had an idea, got OUT of bed, and beat that one.

Those are my favorites. What are yours? I've started a thread called "Favorite Flash Games" in the General Discussion forums. First person to post a game that I think kicks ass gets to tell me what I write about next.