AirConsole is a really cool website we recently ran across, because it lets you use any PC as a console, and turn all your phones and tablets into controllers.

Here’s how it works: head on over to the AirConsole website on both your PC and your phone. On your PC, click the massive, pulsating “start” button and you’ll be given an acess code. Punch in the access code on your phone, it it becomes a remote control which lets you scroll through the games.

Once you’ve found something you like, your phone will become a controller and you can play by yourself or, because a lot of the games are geared towards it, with friends.

It sounds simple, but it looks better in practice:

At this point, you may see some problems arise. First of all, this is all web-based, so if you don’t have an internet connection you’re plain out of luck.

In certain games there’s noticeable input lag, which we assume means that the controller inputs are received over the internet instead of some local solution. With our fast connection at work, it wasn’t a massive problem, but we can imagine it leading to much anger when you have multiple players frantically trying to play the same game on a single connection.

Regardless, we really like this platform. While we may have a console or PC at home with multiple physical controllers to go around, we know that’s a massive monetary investment, especially when all those controllers will be gathering dust when your friends aren’t over. This is a great compromise because it does away with extraneous hardware.

While there’s a lot of games on offer here, a developer took to Reddit to talk about the platform. Here’s their suggestions for games to check out:

Co-Op recommendations:

• CastleHustle: 2-5 player turn based castle defense strategy with a super cute art style.
• Rakete: 2-5 player physics puzzle game where every player controls one thruster of a spaceship and the ship needs to reach certain platforms.

VS recommendations:

• FriendsQuiz: One player is asked a personal question, the others have to guess what s/he answered.
• Silly World Series: A 1-8 players game collection inspired by stuff like Mario Party. We added a fourth game to it last week and are working on the next one already.

For more players:

• Battle Snakes: multiplayer version of classic Snake, allows 15 players.
• PolyRacer: reach the target zone quickly or shoot others, allows 32 players.