With games getting more and more expensive (not to mention nickel and diming you on DLC, right EA?), it’s nice to have good, cheap options to turn to. And what’s cheaper than free? When you’re looking for something good and free, browser-based Flash games are the best place to start. But with literally thousands upon thousands of games out there, where do you start?

Trust GamerPops to help you out!

Every now and then, under the Value Play banner, we’re going to highlight some very cool and (and usually free) browser-based games to check out. For this first edition, we’re checking out animal abuse and precious gems.

Hedgehog Launch 2 – Hedgehog Launch 2 is the best thing to happen to hedgehogs since Sonic discovered 3D. On second though, given how lousy Sonic games have been, maybe that’s not as positive as I wanted it to sound. Let’s try again: if you want a fun game to play for about an hour, you won’t find a better option than Hedgehog Launch 2.

Gameplay is simple: Your hedgehog starts in the launcher, and you send him flying into the sky. Once aloft, you can collect coins of varying denominations, and try to bounce off floating platforms for money and added height. Chaining these platforms together and using your thrusters helps you climb higher and higher, but once you hit the ground, the flight is over.

Between flights, you can spend your earnings to upgrade your launcher, your thrusters, and other accessories (hint: get radar early) to make your hedgehog fly faster, farther and longer.

Hedgehog Launch 2 is a game that you may only play a couple of times (once to finish, then a couple more times to see how fast you can reach Mars), and luck plays a huge factor early on, but there’s no denying this: Hedgehog Launch 2 proves that simple can be very, very good. And in this case, very, very free.

Gemcraft – Chapter 0 – If you are a fan of the tower defense genre, this one is a definite winner. You get 50+ levels, multiple play modes for each level, a solid upgrade system between levels, many different strategies to test and employ, and a many of the levels provide a significant challenge.

It’s a deep, but standard take on Tower Defense. Bad guys follow a path from their spawn points to your tower, and you have to create towers and traps, and fill them with magical gems to destroy the invaders. You can mix and match gem types to create differents effects and abilities, as well as to create increasingly stronger gems to fight the increasingly stronger gems.

If you really get into the Gemcraft Chapter 0, you can easily invest dozens of hours trying to perfect every level. Not that, you know, I’ve done that personally or anything….