Hot spots for game geeks

Seven sites found in the favourites folder of HUB videogame reporter Chad Sapieha

www.gamefaqs.com

There are few things more frustrating than putting dozens of hours into a game, only to get completely stumped by a mind-bending brainteaser or your rump repeatedly handed to you by a madly challenging boss. The quickest solution is to head to a game help site like the longstanding GameFA0s. It's a massive community that generates detailed game walkthroughs and tips for most well-known titles. Just be forewarned: the guides, often written by teenagers who should have spent more time doing their English homework and less time playing games, lack the polished prose of professional game aid publications. Expect misspelled words, disconcerting grammar and the writer's train of thought to take the occasional detour.

www.ige.com

So, you want a level 70 gnome warrior in World of Warcraft, but pesky things like your job and family keep getting in the way of you putting in the required hours. Or maybe there's a sword you've had your eye on for a few months in Final Fantasy XI, but you just haven't been able to save enough gil. No problem. Just head over to IGE and plop down 5600 for that veteran gnome or S1000 for enough virtual cash to buy that blade. Is it cheating? Sure. How much sense does it make to spend your hard earned real-world dollars on virtual items and currency? Not a lick. Do people really do it? All the time. The virtual assets industry is worth billions and employs thousands of garners overseas who spend their workdays wandering through fantasy realms, leveling up characters and collecting items to be sold.

www.grrlgamer.com

Let's face it: girl gamers get no respect. They're dissed by the developers, who have a knack for making female characters little more than busty sex pots, and their male counterparts often think little of their skills or dedication. That's where decade-old Grrlgamer comes in. Written by women garners for women garners, this site provides reviews and news from a female perspective while offering up the occasional essay on gaming culture and how girls fit into it. The site design is a little flat, but the content is well written and insightful. www.joystiq.com

Sort of an Engadget for garners, this lengthy, frequently-updated blog uses a witty, critical voice to report on all of the latest news from the videogame world while at the same time offering informed opinions on gaming rumours, trends and culture. The information is reliable and timely—Joystiq's contributors often scoop top-tier game sites and publications on major industry gossip and announcements.

www.gametap.com

Taking a cue from online music destinations like Napster, GameTap offers a subscription-based game service that delivers access to thousands of familiar titles. Eight bucks a month gives you the right to play until your fingers bleed. GameTap's selection includes arcade classics such as Defender and Frogger, hundreds of hits from past consoles like the Commodore 64 and Sega Dreamcast, and a broad range of Windows PC games, including exclusive new titles like Myst Online: Uru Live.

www.garnelemons.com

Rottentomatoes has become an indispensable reference tool for avid movie goers, reliably steering people clear of foul celluloid. And while RT has dabbled with doing the same for games, they can't match gamelemons, a site wholly dedicated to finding a critical median among widely recognized media outlets for newly released games. The founders wisely recognized that game review scores tend to skew high, so in order to receive a positive overall rating, a game has to average at least 70 percent among selected reviews.

www.hlcomic.com

A lot of garners might be geeks, but even they tend to look down their noses at the comic crowd. That might not be the case if they checked out Concerned, an epic—and hilarious—web comic composed of screenshots from Half Life 2. The story revolves around a cowardly and clueless fellow named Gordon Frohman who is continually mistaken for Gordon Freeman, the game's heroic freedom fighter. The panels in which Frohman stumbles into an online game and accidentally kills his entire team constitute just one of the highlights of this so-called "gamic."

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