There are more games to play online than in the best stocked family cupboard (even one with no missing pieces). Simple online games pit you against a computer, but the appeal for serious players comes from competing with human opponents, whether at chess, backgammon or in fantasy role.

Some people find it's more enjoyable playing a real intelligence than a computer, plus you can be playing people from anywhere in the world or against friends in the same town.

Team or 'clan' games, which require online collaboration, add another dimension. You find clan mates randomly online or by arranging to 'meet' friends at a game site at a set time. To succeed you then have to rely on your team-mates. Fellow players will make mistakes, but also pull off amazing feats instinctively.

Community Spirit
Many online games pull in a distinct community of players. Subscribers tend to play one game to the exclusion of other games, and some online gamers play on average four hours or more a day. Obsessive play is often associated with more violent games.

The idea of gamers as isolated geeks is all but true. The stereotype of the typical online player being a socially withdrawn young male with limited sex-role identity appears to be seriously misplaced. A significant minority of women play and it is striking to find quite a few people over the age of 40 taking part.

No matter how great a single-player game is, there is no guarantee the online experience will be a success. Conversely, some average single-player games turned out to be fantastic played in an online multiplayer environment.

And online gaming action is focused on the consoles market right now - all eyes are on 'live' services from Xbox and PlayStation. This doesn’t kill off PC online gaming, but it's significant that globally there are millions of consoles connected online. It took years for the PC gaming base to get close to that.

Over time there may be a divergence between types of games that are popular on a TV screen and those played via a monitor. People might play both, depending on their mood.

Even if online gaming doesn't become mainstream, it has already had some real-world side effects. Many players have found romance playing online, and some couples have even got married. Others are finding their fortune through play, with prizes on some games exceeding hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Traditional or arcade? Alone, with friends or against strangers? The Internet has it all.

Has the dog chewed the chequers board beyond recognition? Maybe your family denies all knowledge of the rules of bridge. Or perhaps you're too embarrassed to ask your friends whether they would like to join your level three wizard in a round of Dungeons & Dragons. Either way, it's easy to play online.

Traditional games
Bridge, chess, Connect 4, backgammon and so on are more fun against a real person than a computer. By playing online, you can easily find human opponents, even if no one at home wants to play. You just go to the relevant site, see who's there, and invite them to play.

Bridging the gap
You can play bridge online with thousands of other players. The annual subscription (around 50£ for the best sites) pays for all the games you want - day and night, social or competitive. Online bridge sites cater for different abilities (and bidding systems) and there's generally a free one or two-month guest membership. You just wait to be invited to play, or sit at an online table until other people come and join you. This is one of the few games where you need to download a small program to play.

Chess nuts
To compete against real opponents, try dedicated sites. Membership is often free, but you can pay - about £30 a year - for access to tournaments and lectures. You’ll also find advice about chess software so you can play against your computer offline.

Game collections
As well as these dedicated sites, others offer a range of games to play against other people. Most run automatically as they are Java applets (small programs embedded in the page). Players come and go, invite you to play, decline your invitation and so on.

You may not want the humiliation of being beaten by real people - or have time to wait for someone on the other side of the world to hurry up and move their bishop. So there are thousands of single-player Java games, from conversions of existing ones to ones invented to promote websites.

Not a cross word
If your brain requires a little more stimulation, daily crosswords are available on many newspaper websites. Some services are still free but some now have annual charges (between £4 and £10).

Action packed
Games for sale often have online options once you've installed the software. Check the information about multiplayer features. One of the best ways for the uninitiated to think about online gaming is that it makes the game you buy better value for money. You get maybe 30 or 40 hours of play out of a typical game in single-player mode, but when you go online, suddenly you get hundreds of additional hours.

Games supporting multiplayer play are many and varied. Shooters games are the most prevalent on some gaming sites. But action games and strategy games can be played online too.

Role-playing games are what turn many online gamers on, and some massively multiplayer online role-playing games have huge followings. Play is exclusively online in a 'persistent world'. This means the action never stops, even when you're not playing out your character's part. Most of these games take place in medieval or space-age worlds.

How to Play Online
When you play a game online you, and others playing at the same time, are connecting to a gaming server - which manages the flow of data to the connected computers, so you see what other players are doing and they see what you're doing.

Dedicated gaming sites are good places for new online gamers to start because they guide 'newbies' through the connecting process and offer a collection of gaming servers for most multiplayer games. Some gaming sites run regular ‘new gamers' nights to help bring newcomers up to speed. Basic play is free, or, for, two or three pounds a month, you can make use of bookable servers, so you can schedule games with friends, and play in leagues and tournaments. In fact, there are fewer and fewer sites now offering online gaming for free.

Experienced online gamers advise getting good at a game in single-player mode (i.e. against your computer) first. But some games are exclusively online. In such cases, you are launched straight into an online world from the beginning and you go directly to a dedicated server. This level of interactivity comes at an added price - you pay a monthly subscription of about £5 to £8 to play games like these, on top of the £25 or so upfront cost.

You’ll enjoy online gaming better with Broadband
A few online games play fine on standard 56k dial-up modems, especially strategy games.

But broadband (whether it's cable modem or ADSL) is preferable for action games against other people. This is down to the time for your computer to send information to the game server and receive it back. This time depends on your Internet connection, distance from the server (i.e. is it in the UK or US) and how you set up the game.

Without broadband you'll notice a delay between firing a shot, say, and it hitting the target. At this level play can get impossible. Your reactions may be lightning fast, but someone with broadband may shoot you before you even see them.

We hope that this is a nice start before playing new games online. To help you carry on with your research, we have selected a few websites that specialise in online games. Click on the links of your choice on the right hand side of the screen and you will find a wide range of online games available.

Enjoy,