Part 1
Part 2

With the major news out of the way, all that's left is to pick up on little side stories and commentary on smaller sites. You're not going to be getting any earth-shattering news out of these sites (even they had any, you would probably have seen it other places first), but they each provide something unique in their own way.

I can't use the Horror Vision™ icon here, because none of these sites are ugly and they're generally too small to have gaudy Flash ad campaigns on them. None of them, with one possible exception, are even bad, so I'm mostly just going to run through and give quick descriptions and you can take them from there. I know, I'm disappointed too.

Game Politics

The name pretty much says it all -- GP reports all the political news of the gaming world, including the progress of violent game bills and government hearings (like the one currently underway concerning the VA Tech shootings), whatever Jack Thompson decides to crap out this week, mainstream media reports on games, and basically anything else related to the public perception of gaming.

Politics have never really interested me in video games or in general, but if you consider yourself any kind of gamer, you should really keep tabs on these things.

Lost Levels

I keep checking this site to see if it has updated again, but I guess Frank Cifaldi has gotten busy with having an actual job now. Anyway, this is a site dedicated to games that, for whatever reason, never saw the light of day, with information about the games pieced together from interviews, old magazine previews, and beta ROMs. Even though it doesn't look like there's anything new coming down the pipe, you should still check it out if you haven't before and read about things like the sordid history of Sonic X-Treme or the Final Fantasy SGI demo for the N64.

In lieu of new site content, you can check in with the Lost Treasures forum to find out about new discoveries in the realm of unreleased and beta games. The ASSEMblerGames forums are also useful for this. And by "this" I mean getting distracted from your work by early footage of Chrono Trigger and the NiGHTS engine Sonic X-Treme tech demo.

PC Games You Can't Find At Wal-Mart: GameTunnel and Fun-Motion

I must admit I never got around to using GameTunnel. Not because they're bad, but because I never had time to really look into independent games. But it's a handy resource if you're interested in finding some indie games to play, with reviews and yearly awards to the best titles to sort out the good from the bad. Some of the most interesting game concepts come from the indie scene, because the developers can afford to experiment.

Fun Motion covers the growing field of physics-based games, usually in the form of small indie productions like Armadillo Run and Line Rider. Physics games are almost always fun to goof around with, so it's worth checking in every once in a while to see what new titles have come up. Some are free, some aren't, but they always have a demo of some sort. The site also includes a video of each game they review, so you don't actually have to download each demo just to find out whether or not some game that sounds interesting actually is.

Video Game Media Watch

This site keeps petering out for a couple months and then coming back, but their most recent post assures readers that they will "return to form shortly" thanks to recent staff expansions. I seem to recall them saying this once already, but whatever.

VGMW is unique among game sites as it is purely about the video game media itself. They follow trends in game journalism as well as call out cases of sloppy reporting, such as IGN announcing a game based on a fake press release on the NeoGAF forums. Not terribly necessary to the average gamer, but worth keeping an eye on out of curiosity.

Insert Credit

You can't get much more niche than this (well, you can, but you have to try really hard, like having a site dedicated solely to Windjammers fanart or something). Insert Credit manages to always talk about things nobody else does, usually by focusing on obscure Japanese games and news. You should be able to find something that interests you here, even if you don't care about dating sims and Cave shmups. If you can't, maybe you're not nerdy enough.

Retro Gaming with Racketboy

It's a guy named Racketboy and he discusses retro gaming. Boy, these are a lot easier when people don't choose nonsensical names like "Error Macro." Old games are covered, of course, like the guides to undiscovered gems on various consoles, but there's also stuff more related to the hobby itself, like guides to the cheapest good games to build up your collection. And sometimes he just posts naked ladies for no reason.

That last part might not actually be true, I don't know.

GameSetWatch

I'm not quite sure how to encapsulate what GSW is. Their own description simply says "an alt.video game weblog from the people who run Game Developer and Gamasutra," which isn't very helpful, but at least gives you a clue that these are not the sorts to post "top 10 racks in gaming" articles.

Like Insert Credit, it's a lot of off-the-beaten-path type content, with a focus on the industry and game design instead of weird Japanese crap. If you like Gamasutra, you'll probably like this. That's the best summary I can come up with.

The Escapist

If you were wondering which one was going to be the "one possible exception", here you are. On one hand, I can appreciate what the Escapist tries to do. It tries to be thoughtful, in-depth and analytical, to be an intelligent examination of games and gaming. They want you to think about why we are what we are and play what we play; why games "work" and what they say about us. This is all fine and I think it's worth investigating.

On the other hand, The Escapist is ten pounds of bullshit in a five pound sack. The danger in analysis of this sort is taking it too far; not realizing that Mario punches blocks not because he is an avatar of the proletariat representing their unending struggle to achieve a greater goal that is ultimately illusory (and replaced with a midget), but because that is how you make the mushroom come out. These are the people who write seriously and at great length about things like ludology. I'm not saying there aren't concepts here worth being explored, but it should be done with one eye always watching the ground to see how detached from reality you're getting.

The magazine format, which can thankfully be skipped in favor of a simple article layout, only adds to the ridiculous pomposity of the articles. It came close to making me drag out the Horror Vision™ icon, but it's not ugly or obtrusive so much as damned silly. Each feature is designed with your average 15 year-old DeviantArtist's sense of drama and proportion. Quotes are taken out of the article and then BOLDED and CAPITALIZED RANDOMLY to give them more punch, accompanied by images meant to emphasize the tone and subject of the article. Got an article about Pirates of the Burning Sea? Throw in a picture of a pirate ship on the ocean with fire laid over it. Perfect! One of my favorite examples is an article on the Out of Hell mod for UT2K4; the visual theme is dark and firey and industrial, as you would expect, up to the last page which includes the phrase "time to kick the baby out of the nest." Naturally, then, this page had to be illustrated with what can only be described as the hell chicken. Never has a baby bird looked so sinister.

A Penny Saved is a Penny Spent on Another Game: Cheap Ass Gamer, Amazon's Game Outlet, Movers and Shakers and Deal of the Day

Cheap Ass Gamer is a source of deals, sales, and coupons on video games. The site layout is kind of messy and most of the deals are in the forums (which require a free registration), but such are the sacrifices of being a cheapskate.

Amazon's outlet is simply a list of games that have been marked down, which you can glance over to see if there's some old game you skipped over at release that you might want to give a shot at its new price. Movers and Shakers is a list of games that have hit sales spikes recently, either due to recent release, hype or (the reason for its inclusion here) a sale. Finally, the Deal of the Day is one game each day that gets put on sale for 24 hours. I can't link directly to it since it changes every day, of course, so the link above leads to Amazon's video game category page. The Deal of the Day link is in the upper right.

This is all terribly self-explanatory, but I'm sure there would be someone who couldn't figure it out if I didn't explain. The only other thing to note is that sometimes the Deal of the Day seems to fluctuate; it'll be $14.99 at first and then $9.99 a few hours later. I don't know why.

That's it. You now know everything I know. Pick out a handful and skim over them every day, or wallow in ignorance. Me, I'm finally going to get back to writing my own stuff instead of linking to other people.