The (Ever So Slightly) New Games Room

Written by: Matt

To do lists are perhaps the most hated item in anyone's life. The words beaming down at you from the piece of paper hanging up somehow have a demotivating effect. It's a way to force someone to do something, to reduce their morale and sense of freedom. "Free will doesn't exist," the to do list cries, "I will command your life."

This isn't just a general moaning, but it's actually very relevant. Partly because it explains why this article is later, and partly it perhaps explains the overdue revamping of the games room in Neopets. What's that? Yes, it really has been revamped! This momentous step happened on the 22nd of November 2006 so this article isn't really current affairs, but let's all smile and pretend that it is.

Aesthetics

Nobody can look at that and say it's uglier than the old game screen. It loads up in array of primary colours and you can see immediately the newest games, the featured games and a lot more than what you used to be able to; with four rather stiff graphics showing Action, Puzzle and Luck. Each of the new categories has a simple name which explains concisely and clearly what it means and gives you a bit more of an insight into each game.

The games screens themselves have had a spruce-up, themed around the world they're in. They have all the information you'll require listed clearly and concisely. It looks clean and calm, and it is! It certainly works better than the last games room displaying more information in a little bit less space. Those of you still on dial-up will probably dislike the graphic intense part, but can't complain about its ugliness when it loads up.

My only real complaint is about the abundance of buttons. Very few games have enough buttons lit up as black to justify all those rows, causing redundancy. Also, on non-flash games such as Neoquest II and Lenny Conundrum, all of this work has been undone by the fact that all of the squares have N/A in them. I'm not saying they should make up statistics, but they could have thought that through.

Functionality

In order to access a game on the old page, you had to click three times. Once to open up the menu, once to open up the specific game page and once more to load up the flash pop-up. If I wanted to play, for example, Invasion of Meridell, then this remains the same. However, for about eighty of the games on the site, it's now been reduced by a click, with so many of the games on the front page, making it a lot more efficient. However, games not on the front page lose popularity.

The popularity medals are a good idea, but don't really suggest the real popularity, with the vast majority of those in the top ten being popular purely because of an avatar. Again, the sort function is rather pointless. Why would you ever sort to find the newest action game when the 'new games' feature is at the top of the home page? It just has a feeling of features for the sake of features: not intrinsically a bad thing, just a bit jarring.

The prevalence of categories make no sense. If I wanted to play, for example, Plushie Tycoon, I look down the categories. It doesn't intuitively fit into any category, so they arbitrarily put it in Educational and Strategy. I don't understand the point of the Word Games category, when the Educational Games are just those five, with a couple more thrown in to hope people don't notice the fact that they've got two identical categories. Again, what's the difference between Action and Adventure? I'd hardly call Faerie Bubbles action or the Brain Tree Quest an adventure. They could really have cut down on categories here, or used them more efficiently. It's a good idea...in theory.

Conclusion

Is it a good thing? Undoubtedly. It may have come across very negative in my review, but it's so much easier to elaborate on the bad things than to elaborate on the good things; there's only a finite number of synonyms for 'good'. To be frank, anything was an improvement on what there was before. Each game has its own mini-page which looks great. Each page is linked with this banner and it makes navigation a lot easier.

As a gamer myself, I have to applaud The Neopets Team: anything they do to help the dying breed of gamers has to be good.

Matt is an amazing gamer who has contributed to Pink Ink since 2005. The Pink Ink Team supports efforts to conserve endangered Neopian gamers like him. They have ribbons on the company cars and everything.

Lillie edited another article?! Jeez, does this girl ever stop?!