3 blogs about video games

I like to visit the following 3 blogs about video games.

1. Blue's News

Blue's News is a blog that focuses on PC games. The author of the blog, Blue, updates the site twice a day with dozens of links to computer game related articles, such as game industry press releases, computer game hardware reviews, computer game reviews, and downloadable user-created game content . Much of the blog's links are links found by readers of Blue's News, who e-mail Blue with stuff they think their fellow PC gamers will find interesting, useful, or funny. At the end of each batch of links, Blue writes a small section called "Out of the Blue" where he briefly comments on his personal life or a video game he's been playing, then finishes that off with links that are not necessarily related to gaming, but are interesting and/or funny things to check out.

Blue's News is my favorite game blog and probably the site I visit the most on the Internet. I visit it at least once a day, usually every day, and have been doing so for at least 5 years. I really like the "no nonsense / no frills" approach to the site. The site has very little advertising (at the top, there are only 2 small ads), and the advertising that is there is not obtrusive or distracting like other websites' ads. And besides the 2-3 ads on the site, the blog has no images at all, which gives the site a clean look and an efficient layout.

2. Joystiq

Joystiq is a blog that covers both video and computer games, while adding in a bit of humor in their news posts and/or custom-made images. In many ways, it's the opposite of what Blue's News is. Instead of just throwing out dozens of links at you, Joystiq usually focuses on just a few news stories a day, and each story is often accompanied by a funny picture and a joke or two in the post itself.

I especially like the user comment sections of the site. You can choose from a variety of video game-related Avatars to represent yourself with. And your fellow commentators can then judge your comments with a positive or negative rating. If you comment is rated negatively too often, your avatar and your comment will lose its "health hearts" and become less visible and harder to read. Joystiq also supports del.icio.us and Digg it features.

3. Kotaku

Kotaku is similar to Joystiq, except with much less of the Funny. A lot of the attempts at humor kinda fall flat for me. Another difference is that one or two of the site's authors live in Japan and they sometimes comment on gaming news coming out of Japan faster than most other blogs.

One gripe I have with the site is that to subscribe to the blog's RSS, you have to look at the left-hand side of the site, past a lengthy staff list, to find the RSS buttons. It's much easier to see the RSS feed buttons of Joystiq and Blue's News. Kotaku supports only Digg it features.