The time-honoured tradition of "egging" the politician has become a dangerous activity, as Craig Evans found out last week when he ambushed John Prescott.

He might have been better advised to turn to the internet where the election campaign has spawned dozens of games allowing voters a safer place to vent their frustrations.

The photographs of "Two Jabs" Prescott taking on his attacker in Rhyl last week may have done little for Mr Prescott's long-term future but it proved a boon for a number of sites offering fun and games at the politicians' expense.

Panlogic, a London-based online marketing agency developed its "Splat-the-MP" game before the election but was waiting for an opportune moment to put the game live.

"We didn't really know when to publish," says William Makower, chief executive, "but then Mr Prescott gave us his gift."

Panlogic took the existing version of their game - which offers users the chance to throw missiles at a number of politicians including the three main party leaders, Baroness Thatcher and John Prescott - changed the projectiles to eggs and added a punch to the graphic of Mr Prescott

The game was published on Thursday, the day after Mr Prescott's Rhyl bout, and the address sent out to 500 people.

After less than a week Mr Makower estimates that as many as 6m people could have played the game, with Panlogic's site being accessed all over the world, from New Zealand to Namibia.

Even Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader whose face can be splattered at the site, has sent Panlogic his congratulations on the game.

"I support anything that draws people in who otherwise would not vote, and if that means myself being pelted by eggs then so be it," Mr Kennedy told Panlogic.

Another team having a good election is Rubberductions, the Bristol-based multi-media agency whose satirical Spinon web site is winning visitors and winning new business for its parent company.

Rubberductions launched Spinon in March in preparation for a May election, as a way of showcasing its talents. The site offers a series of satirical games, articles and other features sending up politicians.

Chris Quigley of Rubberductions believes the site, which was inspired by similar successful ventures during the recent US presidential election, helps to fill the satirical void left by the end of Spitting Image.

"Satire is at a low ebb, on TV there's really only Rory Bremner, and the internet could really pick up on those areas," Mr Quigley says.

Traffic on the site has been growing to about 2,000 unique, until Tuesday when traffic took off after a plug on another site.

Spinon's most popular game so far has been the "Hague goes trucking" simulator, in which users driving the "Hague bandwagon" are invited to run over asylum seekers while avoiding Mr Prescott' "two jags" and a drunken Euan Blair.

Such is the popularity of online games that the Labour party is using one to highlight one of the central planks of its election campaign: Tory spending cuts.

In "Cut'n'run", which features on the party's website, players must outrun a pack of angry voters in a PacMan style grid while cutting public services, cheered on by William Hague shouting: "Cut, cut, cut".

Unofficial polls also run throughout the web. Borrowing a format successfully applied by the US site "Amihotornot?" - to which individuals send photographs of themselves to be marked out of 10 - is "Amielectableornot?".

The site gives users the chance to give marks out of 10 to a bizarre array of politicians, celebrities, fictional characters and members of the public, and builds a "fantasy cabinet" out of the results.

It is possibly the first poll of the campaign to bring any cheer to William Hague, the leader of the embattled Conservative party, whose average vote is higher than that of Tony Blair and his potential Tory leadership rival Michael Portillo.

Mr Hague's score is not high enough to get him into the fantasy cabinet, however, which at the time of writing is led by Prime Minister Tigger of Winnie the Pooh fame.

Tigger's cabinet includes Jedi master Yoda as chancellor of the exchequer, Homer Simpson as education secretary and Dr Who in the foreign office.

The highest ranked politician is Mr Prescott, whose popularity would seem to stem from his less political attributes, judging from the photo of him which adorns the site.