Alt+Escape: Effing Hail

Welcome to Alt+Escape, our weekly pick of browser-based games to help you start your weekend a little early. Check back each Friday for a new game!

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Effing Hail

If you have any recollection of the imagery in your 8th grade natural science textbook – you know, diagrams differentiating the windward and leeward sides of a mountain or representations of the water cycle – then Effing Hail will look pretty familiar. Framed as a sort of meteorological study, Effing Hail is actually pretty similar to Rampage. Your objective is to destroy a variety of objects and structures, from houses and skyscrapers to 747s and satellites, before the time limit expires. Instead of leaping onto a building and beating it into submission, your methods are a bit more subtle: You control an updraft that can send falling hail back into the “effingsphere,” where it grows in size and destructive potential.

It’s not an exact science – it can be a little bit difficult to impart the precise trajectory to your 45-meter-wide icy ball of death. Likewise, the time limits can be surprisingly punishing, and the thumping techno soundtrack doesn’t quite fit with the subject matter. But it’s always nice to see developers (in this case, the decidedly non-indie EA/Pogo.com label) try new aesthetics and game mechanics, especially when they work as well as they do in Effing Hail. Here’s hoping the developers expand your arsenal of weather patterns in the sequel – Effing Flash Floods or Effing Gale-Force Winds could be pretty fun.