You can play free games on Bing, find the lyrics to popular songs, and even get movie show times. (Plus lots more!) Here's some free tips on the best way to get the most out of Bing's entertainment channel.
First, know where to find it. (On the left side of the Bing.com home page, it's the second-to-last choice in the menu.) Clicking on "Entertainment" brings up this special section, with several tabs (just below the search window). Clicking on the tabs leads to subsections devoted to music, movies, TV, Games, video games. And as a kind of "teaser," Bing scrolls through the top stories from each category. (If you want to scroll faster, click the symbol > at the right side of the screen - and if you want to go back to a past story, click the < on the left!)
But besides entertainment news, there's also links to free games! Bing's entertainment channel features two game-related subsections. If you're interesting in playing a game on your PC, the "Video Games" tab can lead you to helpful information about the latest popular titles, including game walkthroughs and even some helpful "cheats" (along with pointers to the games' official web sites.) But if you're interested in playing free games online, just click the "Games" tab. There'll you'll find several pages of free games hosted on the Bing site, including classic games like Bejeweled, Rise of Atlantis, and Text Twist. (And of course, there's also several versions of the Solitaire.) Bing even breaks their free games into sub-subcategories. Below the "Games" tab there's a second row of tabs letting you choose which kind of game you're interested in, from card games and word games to puzzle, action, arcade, and casino games.
I was really impressed by the selection in some of the categories. (For example, under "Puzzle" games, there's three different kinds of Majhongg tile games.) But the "Arcade" games featured just five games, with strange titles like "Plants vs. Zombies", and "Super Granny 4". (It seems unlikely that those games would ever appear in any actual real-world arcade!) But then again, Microsoft only released Bing in June of 2009. They'll probably add more games as the site gets more established, and hopefully there'll be more choices.'
Yes, it's possible to search using the search window at the top of the page, but Bing seems to want their Entertainment section to be more of a "content channel." Their music tab not only pulls up pictures of a recent popular artist - it lets you listen to free songs! (Though first you'll have to install Microsoft's Siverlight plug-in for your browser.) It seems like Bing's entertainment channel now has a lot of interesting new content - especially If you're looking for free entertainment.