Delay for a few days

Hi all,

Swear to god, the next site of the week will be twice as good as any in the past, since it will be 2 weeks since I offered up a new site of the week :)

Be patient, and i'll aim for the 1st of December to get a new Site of the Week on board.

Pete

Site of the Week: Vooks

Hi all,

Welcome back to the site, and i'll get straight to it this week!

Site of the Week: Vooks
Site URL: http://www.vooks.net/

Visit this site if...: As of this past Saturday, when I made the trek down to Toys 'R' Us to pre-order for myself a Nintendo Wii (with some games), i'll be the proud owner of a Nintendo Wii in time for Christmas. But me being me, I need to know exactly what the system is capable of; what games are being released; what popular titles will be available; what accessories I need to get with the system; and most importantly, which shops have the best deals and bargains. That being said, the site I review this week contains all of the above, and some.

Synopsis: As usual, this is a site I stumbled upon through the wonder that is Google. As far back as 2 months ago, when the release date for the Nintendo Wii was announced for Australia (December 7th, as opposed to now just about everywhere else in the world), I was keen to brush up on my knowledge of the system, games, etc, without bugging Darren of VGIG too much. Living in Australia, I also wanted information that was relevant to me, and not related to the Japanese/American releases, which would not be as informative for me as Australian material.

So armed with that knowledge, I head to Google, type in a few keywords, click the button to search Australian sites only, and Vooks is one of the first few listed, and because I normally visit the first few results of Google when it comes to search queries (they're usually the most pertinent ones anyway), I click on it straight away.

What I was greeted with on the opening page, in the middle, was a link to the Ultimate Aussie Wii Launch Guide. Suddenly, all of the questions and queries I had about the Nintendo Wii, and its Australian release, were going to be answered by simply clicking there. Under that link, I found links to everything from the Games lineup and Accessories guide, all the way through to the Best Pre-Order deals and other Frequently Asked Questions. Personally, its where I spent the majority of my time.

Don't stop reading yet, because Vooks offer a hell of a lot more to offer than simply a launch guide. They also offer what all other good gaming sites do, by way of game reviews, game previews, release dates, podcasts, galleries and downloads (plus much more, including the ever popular forums feature, where gaming fanatics can congregate and comment on everything from favourite games and systems, to other trivial topics that I won't bore you with), so for all you international guests out there, there are some features that aren't Australian-specific for you too!

As with previous reviews, i'll keep this one short and sweet, so I encourage to have a look when you have some spare time, particular if you're as fascinated as I am with this whole interactive-gaming experience that the Nintendo Wii looks set to offer.

Until next time, adios muchachos!

Site of the Week: 1980 games

Hi all,

Apologies for the delay in getting this week's Site of the Week to you, but the delay was caused by a number of reasons.

Oh who am I kidding? I got lazy!

Anyway, here it is folks!

Site of the Week: 1980 games
Site URL: http://www.1980-games.com/us/

Visit this site if...: If you're old enough to remember the 80's, and can remember the local deli or shopping centre or games parlour that had those awesome classics such as Double Dragon, 1942 and Kung Fu that you used to play (normally for 20 cents, or if your local wasn't as generous, 40 cents), then this site is for you. If you simply have a lot of spare time on your hands to play games all day (be it at home or at work [and if its work, please leave a comment as to where you work and how I can get a job there!]), then this site is for you.

Failing that, if you just wanna waste a bit of time playing games, step right up!

Synopsis: I stumbled across this website about a year ago, when I was searching the web for sites with flash games (decent ones, not shit ones that don't load properly, or are too short). I can tell you I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled across this site, and with good reason.

As you can see, when you first visit the site, you are greeted with a number of clickable images, each linking to that particular game (which takes a little time to load, depending on your connection speed). Simple enough interface, which enables you to have fun quicker, which should be the aim of all free online gaming websites.

Then I noticed a little something something in the middle of that opening page. You can see it under the heading "Online Nintendo video games". Yep, that's right, this site has over 800 NES games available for you to play FOR FREE! So on top of old arcade favourites, such as the three I listed above, this site also has those old school NES classics such as Gauntlet, Arkanoid, Tetris, Battletoads, The Legend of Zelda and so many more! What an amazing collection, and it's all here, categorised just for you, and available to play at any time.

On a side note, I simply can't stress how happy I was to see the Nintendo stuff online. Back when I was young (around the time of the Gulf War; yes I am THAT old), I used to play my NES all day long, alternating between the few games I had (which at the time were Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a few others). Finding this site means I can reminisce about the good ole days, as well as try the games I always wanted, but never had.

Anyway, I hope the delay was well worth it, and you find this week's as fun and as enjoyable as I did.

Until next time, ciao!

Delay for a day!

Hi all,

Just running a little late on the site of the week for this week. Should be up and going in a day's time.

Pete

RSS/XML Feed

Hi all,

You may or may not have noticed, but below the counter on the right-hand side of my page, I have added an RSS/XML feed of the page, meaning if you have a newsreading program, or have a page that can view RSS/XML feeds (such as Google), you can now see when I post new stuff quicker and easier!

Pete

Site of the Week: YourMovies.com.au

Hi all,

Before I get into this week's Site of the Week, a big happy birthday goes out to my good mate and best friend Glenn, who turned 27 this past Friday. It was a great bbq, a good night out, and it was a shame that Burswood couldn't deal us winning cards in blackjack.

And just a short rant on that. I can handle not winning a hand for 2-3 rounds. Maybe even 4-5 during a really bad streak. But 9 in a row?? Give me a break! I am so sticking to online gambling from now (only making the exception for birthdays and celebrations). Online gambling means:

1) I don't have to dress up, and can gamble in the comfort of my own home;
2) On the website I play poker on, I can play with as little as $2 and still have fun for ages;
3) When i'm not involved in hands, I can watch tv, listen to music (ie. do whatever else I want); and finally
4) The odds of winning are far greater, and gambling stops becoming fun when you lose! (at leaset when you start losing more than you win)

Anyway, enough about my gambling (I will include a couple of gambling-related sites for SOTW in the coming weeks), lets get onto this week's Site of the Week!

Site of the Week: YourMovies.com.au
Site URL: http://www.yourmovies.com.au/

Visit this site if...: Admittedly, this site if catered more for the Australian readers of this site, in that it provides session times for movies at all cinemas in Australia. However, it also contains reviews and previews for movies that are on, or are about to be released at cinemas, so there is a bit in this site for everyone.

Synopsis: I found this website while visiting some search engine called Google (you guys might want to try it, its quite good, possible Site of the Week worthy! :P), when I needed to find out about the cinema times for a cinema north of the river here in Perth (over here, Greater Union are the cinemas that are north of the river; whilst Hoyts is the cinema chain south of the river. However, they aren't the only 2 cinema chains, with other chains of Readings, Grand etc popping up all over the joint). Anyway, not being certain which cinema I needed to search for, I decided to head on over to Google and search for "movie session times" in Australia, and hey presto, this was the first site listed.

For Australian readers of this site, when your first visit YourMovies, I encourage you to click on your state on the map that appears on the home page, so that you can set up the session time search parameters to best suit you. To the best of my knowledge, the site retains your special settings as long as you have cookies enabled and don't delete your temp files all that often.

From here on, the site is an easy one to navigate. If you want to search for session times, go to the bottom of the home page. If you want to read the reviews on movies before deciding whether its worthwhile seeing a particular movie, do that. If you'd rather watch a trailer instead of reading the review, do that, as this site has trailers in the easy to watch WMV format. Need to know when a movie is being released? Simply check that section of the website out. It has release dates going all the way to 2008!!

That concludes another Site of the Week review for this week. Hope you all enjoyed it, and until next time, good bye (yes, an english farewell this week!)