Game Blog Design - The ubiquitous cos play gallery

So I have a friend who is working on creating a "professional grade" blog. Meaning not just a place that he'll jot down what he had for lunch or what he thought of Inglorious Basterds, but a blog that will intelligently discuss a variety of specific topics related to a facet of the entertainment industry.

Lately we've been discussing blog design. And this has been causing me to take a closer look at some of the blogs that I frequent. Mostly I've been paying attention to the usability of the design decisions. It's interesting as I know that most of these blogs are revenue based so a lot of my problems with the web design is usually stuff that's only there because these sites need to get their clicks.

As anyone who reads my twitter feed knows, I'm no stranger to cosplay. So I've read through a lot of the cos play posts that the game sites have been throwing up last week and I definatly notice a few differences. Here's my thumbnail thoughts...what do you think?


First, you've got joystiq:




Starts off pretty good with a nice grid of clickable thumbnails.

Then when you click an image it drops the grid down and puts the clicked picture up. The "forward and backward buttons" are awkwardly placed so that they incorporate the ad to the right of the image...kind of lame, but I'm sure it gets a few accidental add clicks. Over all clean and straight forward.

Then you get Kotaku:





I like this one as it uses the same "grid pattern" but the thumbnails are a little bit easier to see. Also, the "Next" button is incorported a little bit better. They used to have a nice flash "arrow" overlay so you could browse without mousing around too much, but that also hid the images behind a flash wall so you couldn't download them. which isn't a big deal for a cosplay gallery, but is kind of lame if it's a screenshot or wallpaper you'd like to download.

Then there's Destructoid:






This thing is a hot mess. Naturally basicaly just says 'here's the babes" in usual destructoid "this is why no one respects gamers" narrative voice. The flash encoding is totally broken. I get the images over running hte horrible 90's style "next" hyperlink in both Google Chrome AND firefox. The images themselves are better than Kotakus or Joystiqs. Like they have a bit of fun and personality, where as kotaku's come off sort voyeristic.


Finally, you've got Wired's.





As usual wired keeps it classy and "periodical". Meaning it looks like it could be a Time Magazine "slide show". the pictures are all high quality and each is accompanied by a caption with just enough editorial discussion that even my mom could click through and get some idea of who "chun li" is or what exactly is going on in that crazy Tokyo she's heard so much about.

I didn't want to post this, but I just plain couldn't resist...I have a man crush on Frank West you see.

That picture up there...THAT is a nice piece of PR my friend. That makes me want to do the unthinkable. It makes me want to buy what I'm sure will be an inferior port (demake?) of one of my favorite Xbox 360 games.

Not only that, but it's good enough for me to link back to Destructoid twice in in one day.

You can check out jagged Wii Screen shots if that's your thing...but I'm just going to post up the AMAZING pre-rendred art of Frank and Isabela.

Silent Hill 2 demake makes me want to pick back up on my C++.

Lately, I've been kind of down on Destructoid. I've had to many shit heads post bitchy little "meh" comments on my blog over there. Plus, Retroforce Go!, has sort of worn out it's appeal. I'll never get tired of Chad, but the rest of those guys are too uninformed and or too single mindlessly obsessed with obscure genre's for my tastes. But today the Estrogen Filled Center of RFG posted up a pretty sweet article today which may have redeemed the robot. At least for a few weeks.

Essentially it's a demake of Silent Hill 2 called Soundless Mountain. It is supposed to be as if it was made for the NES, but according to the programmer Superflatit is really closer to a GameBoy Color game in terms of graphics and programming.

Anywho...check out this video of a game that I would buy if it came out on an NES cart (destructoid has a video up to, but it has a damn pop up add in the player and I don't like that...but it's essentially the same as the youtube below):