Games, Games, Games

by Angela Walker

This blog, according to Angela's project proposal, is intended to present Angela's passion for video games in the form reports on the history of gaming, pieces on video game genres, opinionated lists, and other things. From what I can tell, the blog does just that. The order is different from the original plan, starting with a "now playing" rather than the "birth of video games" post, but the stuff is all still basically there.

The posts are mostly quite lengthy, whether they need to be or not. For example, take this rather lengthy, detailed account on the RPG genre. It makes perfect sense for the pieces on video game history and genres to be long, of course, but it's nice to see a lot of detail being put into less "studious" material as well, such as Angela's simple updates now and then.

The content itself, being video games, has a rather slim audience. Well, slim on a global scale, but then again there are an astronomical amount of gamers surfing the web. These gamers, myself included, will very much appreciate the work Angela has done and we'll be able to grasp it all quite easily. However, those who are not gamers might have quite the difficult time indeed staying particularly interested. But this is to be expected when the topic is of a singular hobby, so it's not as if it can be easily avoided. I commend Angela again though, for the amount of detail put into this, so that even some non-gamers (though not many, most likely) can get something out of this.

Other than the amount of detail, the ambitious sub-projects (genre and history series of posts), and the content itself being popular, there is another major strong point here: Angela's voice. She is not overly dry or textbook, even in subjects as seemingly dull as the history of video games (but you know, it's really not dull...if you're like me). She's personal, and not just in the fact that she posts about her personal life a bit. She includes what she herself has been playing recently, what she thinks of things, etc. It's got plenty of opinions and casual observations to balance out the factualness of a great deal of the blog.

Other mild successes here, though less important, are such things as the clean organization of the blog's layout, the inclusion of a calendar, and the fact Angela often includes what she will post about next at the end of a blogpost.

There are just a few slight issues I have with the project, though. For one thing, although I know Angela has given reason not to do so, it would be nice if she posted more often. For another thing, she should really consider using images or other embedded content more often. Lastly, I notice she doesn't really bother making good use of categories or tags...those could really help. It would make this blog much easier to navigate once it grows larger.

Hanna Lulu's Blog

by JoHanna Windecker

Now this is certainly an interesting blog. Chaos indeed. Anyway, according to JoHanna's project proposal, this blog is intended to be quite the random, chaotic bit of a blog with special focus on strange or interesting findings. Well, it certainly succeeds in that area, considering the extraordinary amount of ridiculous images, often seemingly randomly found. Take this post, for example. Lots of silly images and JoHanna's personal comments on them. There are many posts like this, easily filling the slot of the "chaos." She also mentioned in her proposal that she'd be focusing on other little things that interest her, like dreams, for example. From what I can tell, she has indeed been making these sorts of posts. I find it quite safe to say that she's doing what she set out to do.

The major strength in this blog lies in its dedication to humor. The internet is a funny place, let's face it. We internoids like to laugh. We spend hours on Youtube for that purpose. And because there's so very many of us out there always willing to have a good laugh on the internet, JoHanna's blog has an extraordinarily huge target audience. And from what I can tell, it works. She's gotten plenty of comments. And in dealing with the humor, another strength is that JoHanna doesn't hold back, and she gives us a very adult sense of humor, which is good. Vulgarity yields an even wider audience, and presenting it well...even wider. Another major strength is the large amount of imbedded material, especially images. These are of course highly eye-catching and make it easier for the blog to maintain its target audience.

Some minor strengths are the nice, simple theme chosen for the blog, the use of most of the better widgets, and the inclusion of more than simply the "about" page.

I have one issue with this blog. This is that...well, the chaos isn't just in the randomness, but also in the organization. It looks sloppy sometimes, loaded down with tons of images. To minimize this, she could perhaps use the "more" tags to make post excerpts instead of leaving the entire posts out in the open at all times. It really does tend to look a bit cluttered from time to time. It's not a big deal though, so don't worry about it too much, JoHanna!

Jessica's Diary

by Erika Ciminski

Uhh...inactive? There's almost nothing here. Skipping onto the next one I suppose instead...

Lazyczech Playlist

by Charles Pulkrabek

Ahh, music. How it woos me. And how it evidently woos Charles as well, because this blog is all about music. According to his project proposal, Charles' blog was intended to focus primarily on music. Well, considering every single post on his blog has something to do with music, he's certainly achieved that. Just as he said it would, the blog does much in the area of shining light on good music where it hasn't been shone enough, focusing quite often on indie acts and otherwise unappreciated artists. Take, for example, his quite lengthy post on the overlooked Betty Davis. Furthermore, the blog is linked to KAXE just as Charles said it would be, and there are numerous posts regarding the radio station and Charles' next show on it.

Music in itself is a strength for this blog, because it's a topic with a very wide audience. Furthermore, discovering new music is another strength, because there are many of us scrambling around the indie scene trying to pick up new, unappreciated artists to listen to all the time, including myself. We tend to be excitable about this and comment a lot...and it shows. Charles gets many comments (many from me, in fact).

There are a couple other minor strengths here as well. For one thing, the blog looks really nice, being very well organized, using an appealing and balanced color combo for its theme, and containing a very nice custom banner. Also, Charles has chosen to include a lot of eye-catching embedded material, including a great deal of album art, which is always nice to look at. And he posts many Youtube videos for viewers to get examples of these artists' material.

To be honest, for this particular blog, I can't think of anything to improve on. Charles is doing exactly what he set out to do and he's doing it well, at a nice, fairly even pace. Great work!



Points for my Studio Tour: No point in shooting low. 200 points. A full lobster dinner, mmm mmm.