Daily Bits

18 Undiscovered Websites Every Gamer Should Know

by 146 Comments

The gaming niche is characterized by its haves and have-nots. You’ve seen Kotaku, IGN, GameSpot, Joystiq, 1UP and the others, but what about the great, lesser-known gaming sites?

This post introduces 18 great gaming sites you might not have seen before. Whether you’re looking for freebies, music, laughs or oddities, there’s something here for occasional and hardcore gamers alike.

1. Overclocked Remix is a community hub of users who painstakingly remix and arrange video game music. There are thousands of tracks available for download. If you like the soundtrack to your favorite game, you can bet it has been remixed and reworked here.

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2. The Freeware Indie Games Database offers just under 1,000 play-tested freeware titles from independent game developers. The games here are innovative and unique. Some of them are bound to be re-developed as Wii titles.

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3. POKE is a light-weight utility that allows you to cheat in almost any single player game, whether it’s already published or to be published in the future.

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4. The Daedalus Project gets into the minds of MMORPG players. The website’s author has surveyed over 35,000 gamers and provides a detailed break-down of his findings in areas such as the player life-cycle, making friends and status reversal. It’s fascinating stuff.

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5. Gaming Magazines of the Pre-Internet Era is a treasure trove for retro gamers. It links out to .PDF databases of old and out of print gaming magazines.

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6. The Grand List of Role Playing Game Clichés is a list of 100+ painful clichés any RPG fan would have encountered before. My favorite? The No! My beloved peasant village cliché: “The hero’s home town, city, slum, or planet will usually be annihilated in a spectacular fashion before the end of the game, and often before the end of the opening scene.”

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7. GameCakes is the website for people who love cake and video games. These game-themed cakes run the gamut, from the bizarre to the majestic. The scrumptious photos will have you baking your own cupcakes in no time.

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8. CrazyPC is the hardcore gamer’s place for computer accessories. All the neon, case mods, plexiglass, tubes and coolant fluid you can poke a memory stick at.

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9. VGMusic is host to 24,000+ midi versions of video game tracks from all your retro favorites: Megaman, Mario, Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, et al.

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10. Build Your Own Gaming Computers is a website dedicated to helping you… well, you can probably guess. Gaming rigs sell for thousands of dollars and learning to build your own can save you lots of cash. This website provides advice on the entire process, from choosing parts to installation.

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11. Abandonia offers thousands of abandonware DOS downloads. Abandonware essentially means games which aren’t sold anymore, prompting their release into the public domain. They’re the games you might have owned and loved as a child or teenager. Chances are you’ll find some old favorites here.

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12. Jay is Games sources out the best casual games and brings them directly to you. The blog’s authors sure know their stuff and their opinions are worth listening to. Subscribe to their feed for a daily stream of gorgeous, idle distractions.

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13. Old Grandma Hardcore is the blog of a foul-mouthed, lovable gamer grandma (with the pictures to prove it!). No, we’re not talking Brain Training and The Sims — we’re talking games like Bioshock and The Darkness. This grandma really is hardcore!

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14. Insert Credit is a multi-author Japanese games and culture blog specializing in breaking news from the land of the rising sun.

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15. Replacementdocs is an online archive of .PDF game manuals for thousands of popular games. If you’ve experienced the frustration of losing the manual to your favorite title, replacementdocs should have a solution for you.

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16. Wonderland is an odds-and-ends gaming blog mainly known for its cool gamecrafts. From Darth Vader backpacks to Quake coasters, this blog is proof that gamers are an arty bunch.

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17. The Speed Demos Archive is host to hundreds of videos documenting the efforts of those dedicated individuals who’ve conquered games in the shortest time possible. Watch epic games like Half Life 2 and Icewind Dale beaten before your lunch-break is over.

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18. The System Requirements Lab analyzes your computer, benchmarking it against the minimum requirements of a specific product. Ever wondered if your computer can handle that gorgeous new release? Now you’ll know.

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Update: Here are some more great websites that you might not have seen before, suggested from our readers:

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. cwgreen says

    A very nice collection of sites. I can’t wait to check out the collection of old magazines in *.pdf. I see hours at work being wasted 😉

  3. DaveUK says

    gamespot? pleeeeeze.
    avoid the gamespot scum please.
    if you use firefox like me, try the customizegoogle plugin, it
    allows you to auto remove desired websites from google
    results. now i never have to see anything from crapspot.

  11. Justin says

    Just an FYI – I run http://www.modojo.com – a website focused on the handheld videogame space. DS, PSP, mobile, and iPod. We try to be professional and comprehensive, but we also don’t take ourselves too seriously.

    Cheers for the list. A few of them are now bookmarked.

  22. Daniel says

    OK looks like we’ll be able to do a “101 Websites Every Gamer Should Know – The Ultimate List” hehe.

  23. xyzzy says

    I have to say that vgviews.com is pretty sweet!

    It lets you review any game you have ever played and then people rate your review!

    They even have contest for the best review where you can win a Wii!

    They are giving away a Wii every month for the next 3 months!

  33. Subsonic says

    Nice list, thanks, but I must add my favorite:

    http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/

    “It’s about PC games, it’s written by four of Britain’s top games journalists, and it aims to cover everything from the latest breaking stories about the biggest games to esoterica from the format’s obscurest peninsulas.”

  40. Fizzle says

    Great list you’ve got going here. I had heard of a few, but a few others were news to me (and great finds). Well played sirs. Well played.

  42. Scott says

    You’ve got indie game sites and abadonware game sites but no game mod sites? What about all the gamers who want to play something which is a modification of a AAA game they already own?

    Gameflood was already mentioned which is ok, but lacks a lot of content, http://www.moddb.com is a great resource for those looking for something different

  50. q3c says

    Build Your Own Gaming Computers is sadly filled with outdated infromation. It helps users decide between AGP and PCI-E! It talks about dual core computers as “becoming popular” while 64bit processing is supposedly the “latest trend”.

    Not a bad read, but could make an unexperienced computer builder commit some fatal judgement errors.

  56. marie-j says

    i don’t read the rest of the sites they’re with most of the time, but i really like ds fanboy (dsfanboy.com) because they can be really funny. their holiday stuff was a riot.

    great list here! the only one i really read already was insert credit, but now i have a lot of new places to go!

  62. Giania says

    Can’t mention OCRemix without mentioning Ormgas!
    It’s the streaming radio station for OCR.
    It allows you to listen to tons of OCR remixes without having to hunt and grab, and allows for listener voting. They’ve got a pretty strong community going, with forums and IRC.
    that’s http://oc.ormgas.com for those keeping score.

  65. Denny says

    Just because a product is no longer available for purchase does not mean that it is public domain. Copyright still persists, regardless of availability. “Abandonware” is a lie — websites like http://www.liberatedgames.com/ are more accurate.

  71. Olu says

    You should check out Vigster. its a social network for video games where users can create virtual game shelfs to show off their games, connect with friends, discover new and exciting video and computer games, rate and review games, voice their opinions, have their say, comment on games, share games, share gaming experiences, explore games and much more.

  73. Larry "Liontamer" Oji says

    Thanks very much for including OC ReMix on this important list, Skellie. We always appreciate the word of mouth! Indeed, we’ve got over 100 hours’ worth of free video game ReMixes tributing over 500 games, so there’s something for everyone.

    We definitely encourage any gamer or music fan to stop by and see what we have to offer. Analogous to how there are so many other good websites most don’t know about, we have tons of ReMixes from many game soundtracks that you probably haven’t heard of yet. Don’t let that stop you from downloading our music & album torrents (http://bt.ocremix.org/) and discovering tons of enjoyable music!

    Larry “Liontamer” Oji
    Head Submissions Evaluator, OverClocked ReMix
    Creator, VG Frequency
    http://www.ocremix.org
    http://www.vgfrequency.com

  82. Krinn DNZ says

    I have to echo #54: speeddemos.com is neat, but the sine qua non of the genre is TASVideos.org and the epic, game-breaking stunts that their speedrunners pull off. One recent example: how many stars do you need to beat Mario64? 20? 17? They did it in 16. Then in 10. Then 1. Then with zero. They astonish.

  84. Dan says

    C’mon, man – a lot of those undiscovered websites (OCR, Insert Credit, RPS) have been popular for ages. Eegra.com, on the other hand, is totally undiscovered – which is probably why you haven’t put us on your list. But now you can! Because we are pretty cool, and also, undiscovered! So hooray!

  87. bones says

    ok a lot of the comments that have links to other site….they suck. they’re just like ign or 1up or blogs.
    blogs are boring.

    the sites listed up here actually give us something.
    i don’t want reviews.
    or trailers.

  92. Brad K says

    I’ve been a member of this site since December and they currently occupy 85% of my online time. Best site by far for tips on unlocking achievements. Great community as well, however it is geared towards the 360. Check them out!

  93. Brad K says

    xbox360achievements.org
    Sorry for the double post, but I never gave a link, it links my name to the site because I am a n00b.

  104. Pauly_ says

    Hello everyone Im a host of a SA-MP server the name is badass roleplay you should check it out. It is a gta sa pc multiplayer online game. The ip is 208.43.217.142:7724 to download the online client if u do not have it go to http://www.sa-mp.com Tons of fun hop e to see u there

  109. moataz says

    What kind of content is blocked?

    The Saudi Arabia government states that is blocks around 400,000 websites from around the world. Their main target anti-Islamic content, although pornography, gambling and women rights are also usually restricted.
    …………….
    I live in saudi arabia,so I’d say that the gov just block sites that contain porn content as it’s anti-islamic principles….but women rights really not blocked……..

  117. homebrew for wii says

    Undiscovered, maybe. Haha. But really the reason why these websites lack is just because of the level of expectation we have for websites nowadays. With Facebook and youtube controlling most of our times we assume those are the best sites out there. Best at controlling our time and our personal information maybe.

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