B.J. Zanzibar's World of Darkness Don't let the name fool you. The World of Darkness isn't the online interpretation of some angst-ridden existentialist's world view. Likewise, B.J. Zanzibar is simply a pseudonym, or, in this case, a keyboard name. I'm sure some of you old-timers are saying "duh"at this point, but it must be made clear that World of Darkness is actually a role-playing game (RPG), as well as an über-game system for a collection of individual games titled Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, and Changeling. B.J. Zanzibar is Abe Dashiell, an avid gamer, computer consultant and recent graduate of Indiana University. As with many RPGs, Dashiell's game provides a fluid system in which players at home can create and manipulate characters, settings, and courses of action. Armchair Machiavellis can also implement rules variations. Dashiell gathered together as many RPG resources as he could find, and placed them in this single, huge site. Most of the material has been gleaned from the Internet, where it was originally posted on the newsgroups alt.games.whitewolf and rec.games.frp.storyteller. Dashiell emphasizes that World of Darkness is vastly different in comparison to the fantasy RPGs that follow the Dungeons and Dragons model, in which players spend their time killing monsters and finding treasures. He calls World of Darkness a "sociopathic vision of our own world. Everything seems normal on the surface, but you don't have to dig very deep to run into something rotten."The person in charge of a World of Darkness game is called a "storyteller,"and players' characters are supernatural creatures such as vampires and werewolves. Players also tend to be older than most RPGers, and more interested in character interaction and development. On this site, there are three to six sections for each game, with a multitude of articles in each section. Anyone involved in creating a World of Darkness game will find tons of valuable material here. It is all organized extremely well. Dashiell took the trouble to learn how to build HTML Frames, and incorporated them into the structure of the site. His Frames facilitate an index that resides on the left side of the page, so now you can jump from one section of the site to another. Subtopics are displayed along the bottom for easier navigation within a game section. -WKC

A

Addventure The site's creators encourage you to consider Addventure not a Multi-User Dungeon or Role-Playing Game, but instead a "shared story." And, as a shared story, content is only as compelling as the contributions of those involved. Personally, I appreciate entries like, "You hear a disembodied voice from the heavens say, 'I am such a moron. Maybe one day I'll learn to proofread.'" Overall, Addventure could offer newbies more helpful instructions. And, as a text adventure, the site is devoid of graphics.-JP

B

Bill Burcham's Champions Gallery The wacky world of role-playing games that began with Dungeons and Dragons has expanded to include many different genres, including, now, superhero comix. The game Champions lets players design custom superheroes and other peripheral material. Bill Burcham has created a Web archive where players can share such creations. The site's design and concept are solid, but the lack of contributions suggests the page is unknown - or the game just doesn't have that much popularity.-WKC

C+

CJS's Unofficial Descent WWW Page It's good that CJS calls this an "unofficial"page, because the creators and distributors of Descent would have good reason to be peeved if this single page of links was misidentified as "official"material. Granted, the links send you to useful content like the Descent Cheat Utility - anybody who's gone careening around the mining tunnels of Descent will appreciate the extra help that the Cheat Utility provides. But, overall, this site offers no intrinsic content, just pathways to richer territory.-WKC

C-

Grendel's Gaming Lair Main If you're specifically interested in PC gaming, enter Grendel's Lair - or, more precisely, labyrinth - but do so with caution. As of press time, The Lair was rife with "404 File Not Found"errors and areas under construction. Content (*available* content, that is) includes downloadable game demos; tips, tricks and cheats; and links to slick corporate sites from the likes of id, Interplay and ActiVision. Overall, The Lair is a middling resource for the PC-centric, and wields an amateurish, slightly juvenile, Dungeons-and Dragonsy aesthetic. This may be a turn-off for Mech-heads looking for a more post-modern approach.-JP

C

History of Home Video Games Here's a stellar example of a site that triumphs by sheer force of its written content. From the droll Pong FAQ - "Q: What's the little white thing on the left side of the screen? A: That is the "paddle." It is used to bounce the "ball." - to information on Sony's state-of-the-art PlayStation, this historical timeline is a good read for all gamers. The Bally Astrocade. The Milton Bradley Microvision. The Mattel Aquarius. Learn about all the ill-fated systems that waxed and waned before Nintendo and Sega developed their market strangleholds in the late 80s.-JP

B

MacDOOM Park When Doom II arrived for the Mac, friends of the *other* platform finally got a chance to contribute to id Software's cultural phenomenon. Now Mac-oriented Doomheads can surf an excellent site that properly represents the Doom gestalt. MacDOOM Park excels with brevity, and offers wild background textures, cool button icons, and concise, valuable content items, including cheats, downloadable files and links to other cool Web pages (check out Ah, Hell, a commentary on Doom from a feminine perspective). Just one gripe: Since the site *looks* so cool, one would expect more technical bells and whistles.-JP

A-

Oh No The Lemmings Games Web Page Lemmings. Kids, parents, twentysomething hipsters - everybody loves lemmings. These little green-haired cuties dressed in Dr. Denton jammies frolic across all software platforms, just waiting to be rescued by smitten gamers. While this site does in fact provide the down-low on Lemmings minutiae, it's poorly constructed. Children - shoot, even adults - may have trouble navigating the confusing barrage of text links. The graphic underplay? That's OK. All gaming sites would do well to minimize the artwork, and instead focus on quickly accessed information.-JP

B

Paolo Marcucci's Shadowrun Archive Here's *yet another* role-playing game archive on the Web. But this one has pages and pages of information and resources for the game Shadowrun, which is set in a cyberpunk future. Paolo Marcucci has used the new HTML Frames function to organize his site, and it works very well; I highly reccommend visiting the archive with a browser that supports Frames. The site is based in Italy, but I didn't notice any lag in connection time. Wow, are RPGers really all sitting around their basements with laptops these days?-WKC

A-

The Braintainment Center When I discovered that this site hawks a game called THINKfast, I initially concluded that The Braintainment Center is a mere software promotion venture. Further exploration, however, revealed much more material. Most of the content describes new concepts on how the brain works, and justification on how THINKfast can improve cranial operations. Interesting stuff; certain to raise some skeptical eyebrows. An online intelligence test may make visitors feel inferior. It certainly had this effect on me.-WKC

B

The Chess Connection The Chess Connection is the site of sites for chess fans, as it publishes chess columns from various British publications, such as *The Spectator*, *The Independent*, and *The New Statesman*. While it's a great repository for game stratagem, it would be nice if the Connection included an online archive. The Chess Connection Shop has the one of the more interesting uses of Frames I have seen.-WKC

A

The Pinball Archive Closely related to the newsgroup rec.games.pinball, this Web site stores the collective wisdom of people serious enough about pinball to discuss their passion on the Internet. I spent a few hours going through the rule sheets posted here, finding the ins and outs of my favorite machines. Besides just offering rules, the site also lists the easter eggs hidden throughout various games. For some wacky reason, the site includes a search utility - I guess so you can get back to the tables as soon as possible.-WKC

B+

The Sprawl Homepage Cyber-pundits have long evangelized the virtues of virtual communities. You know the spiel: sharing, bonding, nurturing a sense of togetherness in a post-modern hell. It's just one big sticky group hug. But some Intermaniacs just want to have fun. Enter The Sprawl, a comfortable intersection between gaming and community building. Within The Sprawl, players can navigate RPG-like environs, help expand the environs, and chat with other residents. Compared to similar areas, this site boasts superior imagery and well-conceived organization, which fosters smoother navigation.-JP

A

The Virtual Multimedia Interactive Mystery Theater Rule Number One: When constructing a voluminous interactive story with image maps, use a *very* fast server. Rule Number Two: Provide players with clear-cut objectives. Rule Number Three: Make sure *all* your links work. Rule Number Four: If you include sound files, make sure they're worth their download time. And finally, Rule Number Five: Don't link to pages with big graphics that don't advance plotlines. This site broke every rule.-WKC

D

The Wacky Hexen Page Hexen, like Doom, has garnered great popularity among the net set, and Web sites filled with helpful Hexen information abound. The Wacky Hexen Page is indeed wacky, but also provides a very nicely formatted set of cheat codes that helps you overcome any obstacles you may encounter in the game. There's also a set of recipes that were somehow extracted from the game, and a very fast search utility for help on specific topics. -WKC

A

Wacky WWW Adventure Although the concept behind this site is simplistic, the site itself is brilliantly executed and boasts a ton of content. Here you'll find an interactive story that begins with a single paragraph ending with you, the protagonist, walking out your front door. Now you're afforded 170 choices as to what you want to do next. At least it was up to 170 when I last visited. Since multiple users can add their own choices, the whole affair is fluid - and some of the contributions are naturally infantile.-WKC

A