First there was the Google Pac-Man game to waste a bit of online time, now Google has dropped an Easter Egg game into YouTube in the shape of the classic Snake. Yes, you can now play Snake on YouTube right in the middle of watching a video, right there in the video player.

YouTube is one of the biggest things in new media entertainment, and Snake is one of the oldest computer games to still be played by millions of folks around the world. The longevity and popularity of the deceptively simple game can be attributed to Nokia including it on their mobile phone ranges from the late 1990's. It was so popular that even in this age of the iPhone you can almost guarantee finding someone on the train playing Snake on their mobile.

You play Snake by directing a snake around the screen to chase dots while at the same time the snake itself grows longer. The game is over when the snake head crashes either into itself or a wall. Sounds simple, but proves difficult and it's very addictive. But how do you play it on YouTube?

Well it only works with the new YouTube player that was introduced earlier this year, and it does not work on embedded videos on sites such as DaniWeb (only the actual YouTube site itself) or those videos which feature embedded adverts.

If you find a video that matches those criteria, start watching it and then click the screen to pause play. Now hit the left and up arrow keys on your numerical keypad at the same time, and hey presto, with a good wind, the game should start playing over the top of the paused video itself.

Some people have said that the Snake game can only be triggered with videos that are in the Gaming category on YouTube but this does not appear to be the case. So go find a video, and get pressing. You can see the game in action on the following YouTube video.

[youtube]n30yjAn0KFk[/youtube]Oh, and the Pac-Man game proved to be so popular that Google decided to keep it on the site for anyone who missed it during the birthday celebrations. You can play Google Pac-Man here .