Just random thoughts, and various user created sites I enjoy visiting.

I've said it before that the internet of ten years ago was a vastly different place than the internet of today. Today's internet has become predominantly corporate in nature, and it seems that the days of the user created site are nearly a thing of the past. It's actually what inspired me to make my own roughly-made review site.

When I first encountered the internet in the mid to late nineties, it was a completely different place. Instead of earning money for the large corporate gaming sites by submitting user reviews, many gamers of that era instead made their own free hosted gaming related sites with which to get their opinion out here. These sites were rough in nature, and weren't always the most professional in nature, but they had charm. If the creator was interesting, their site was just as likely interesting. There were also many sites that got other gamers to do reviews and whatnot for them. Now I just mentioned that corporate site visitors give those sites money by often times doing their jobs for them with user reviews, but the difference is that the user created sites weren't usually for profit, and they were usually made by one or two individuals instead of a staff of people. They had more the feel of the common gamer supporting his fellow common gamer. These site were made out of passion, and not out of the want for profits. Often times, the site administrators never got a dime for all their hard work.

It was a community of sorts where the members would often times support other members of that community by writing stuff for their sites. Often times those submitting reviews also had sites of their own, and would cross over to a friend's site to give it support. Those sites had more of a feel of independent free thought from those common gamers that has seemed to disappear in gaming.

Lately, there has been a mob mentality in gaming. Those who go against the grain and don't agree with the mainstream of gaming thought are outcasts, who opinions are "wrong." The mainstream gamers of today blindly follow, and worship the reviews of the corporate sites like they are gospel. How many arguments have you personally seen lately quoting review scores instead of that gamer's own opinion (usually because they haven't played the games they are bashing) that use review scores to argue whether or not a game is good or not. Site like Metacritic are quoted as gospel in such arguments, and anyone who has actually played the game in question, and has a different opinion of it, is ignored. Heaven forbid someone have an opinion of a game from their own experience over what some meaningless score on a review site says. If a game gets bad reviews, it's fact that it's bad apparently. Instead of free thought, people now allow gaming websites to do their thinking for them. There were always mindless people, don't get me wrong, but there were always gamers who weren't afraid to speak their opposing opinions, and to even criticize the gaming media for any inaccuracies they had in their reviews, or for the quality of them.

There are still people who speak out, but there is now more than ever, a consensus of mindlessness that has a strong hold over gamers. I despise Metacritic, and the mindlessness it creates amongst gamers. In fact, there are many games that I enjoyed that by Metacritic's standards were horrid. I enjoyed Haze, LAIR, and especially enjoyed Socom Confrontation. It just goes to show that though they get paid to write their opinions, a professional reviewer is just another gamer with an opinion. Their views aren't more valid than the average joe shmoe on the street, they just get put out there on a bigger stage. That means that you won't necessarily agree with their opinions either. In fact I'm willing to bet that there are games that you completely disagree with them on, but some of you are just afraid to come out and go against the mob mentality of gaming's mainstream for fear of being viewed as un-cool (which considering that being a gaming geek is so cool to begin with this fear amuses me).

I honestly encourage all five of you reading this to get your own opinions out there in some way shape and form. I realize I'm writing this from a blog, which is a convenient and easy way to do it for sure, but I would love to see a resurgence of the poorly made, but charming user created sites from free web hosting services like tripod. I realize that not everyone has the time to make such things, but even a common blog is OK for such things.

I do realize, however, that in an internet world out there, it's very hard to get your site, or blog noticed in the sea of blogs, and websites, but that's where the good old fashioned web-ring concept comes in. Users supporting other users by posting links to their sites and blogs. I actually see similar things done on Youtube as well where some members will spotlight other member's youtube channels, but I haven't seen a whole lot of that sort of thing going on lately. It seems that a lot of people have become aesthetic to such things. To many people are less interested in promoting others over themselves.

I'm not sure how to do the whole web-ring thing, but if anyone wants me to promote, or link to their gaming related sites, or blogs (after I check the content myself that is), let me known. I'm actually going on a trip soon, so I won't be on much (not like I'm on much now as it is), but when I come back, I will definitely be willing to start a web-ring where we average gamers bring attention to the works of our fellow average gamers in order to promote free thought over corporate mindless takeovers.

Here are some user created sites I have discovered, and enjoy visiting

(some of them are long dead, but still have their own user created charm to them, and are like a time capsule to gaming's past):

Dave's Sega Saturn Page (hasn't been updated in years, but is a good archive of Sega Saturn stuff)

Game Zero (The site appears to not have been updated since 2005)

The Game Room Blitz

The Video Game Critic

Gaming Sanctuary

Retro Sanctuary

Sega 16

The Video Game Museum

VirtualBoy.Net

The Playstation Museum

Sega 8-Bit

The Playstation Galleria (this one is long dead, and takes a while to load some pages)

DAVE SHARPES SEGA SATURN SITE (another long dead site)

racket Boy

Absolute Playstation

Online Consoles (this site doesn't feature any reviews, but is a site for members to link up and play DC, GC, and PS2 games online with each other.)

And I'm sure I'm forgetting about a few that I haven't listed here as well. I'm always on the lookout for a new user created site, or blog, so feel free to promote you own work in the comments section, or even promote a site you enjoy going to.