The concept is simple. You are a little ball, or should I say gyroball, that needs to navigate levels without touching the side. In each level you have sixty seconds and get a point for each second left on the clock. You control your ball with your four directional buttons. Your goal in each level is to reach the portal to the next stage. You also have five lives, and get ten points per life that you retain. This is part of the beauty. If you lose lives early, that's ten points off your score for the rest of that session. This can be the difference between getting on the daily top ten and not.

As you advance in levels, you will find all sorts of hazards to make things more interesting. One of the more difficult are little hills. You need to zip over them without your little gravity ball falling off the side. Another tough one is the pads that shoot your ball in the direction the arrows point. These little critters combined together can make life difficult. There is nothing worse than getting shot over a hill. I invariably end up off the side.

Other hazards include pits and narrows passages. There are probably more, but I must confess I am simply not that good and after about six or seven levels, I always lose my last life and never get to go beyond.

This game is first and foremost addicting. It can be frustrating, but to me that is just a sign of how good it is. If I didn't care, I wouldn't get frustrated. The fact that I do, proves just how attached I have become. It also allows you to download a copy to your PC, so you do not even need the internet to play.

The game is not without flaws. It is extremely well made for a web-game, but in one level, my ball is always invisible until after my first death. Luckily, you can see your shadow and it is not that hard to play, but it is an obvious bug. There have also been occasions when I died near the end, but still advanced to the next level, which baffled me entirely. The former is purely a graphical anomaly that really does not alter gameplay (in fact, I often find it easier to play with just the shadow anyway), and the later is quite rare. After probably a hundred games, I've only seen this twice.

The sound is a simple music track that can - thankfully - be turned off. It is not that it is bad, but it can get old fast, and I typically like to have my own music on when at the computer. There is not much in the way of game-related sound.

There is nothing more fun than seeing your name hit the top ten. A nice feature is it also reads what country you are playing from. The best score lists have a feel of an international competition. They measure daily top tens, weekly top tens, and an all time top ten. After each game you are also told where your score ranks on each one.

What do you have to lose? Give a click and try Gyroball for yourself. It may not be for all, but it is a solid browser game, free and a good barrel of fun. It is not as complex as some of the similar retail games, and it probably will not keep anyone playing for years on end, but you get what you pay for, and in this case a heck of a lot more!