Maniacal stares.

Maniacal stares, strangely deformed digits, an overly flattened butt—these are telltale signs of an obsess gamer. And when they aren’t playing their favorite games, these sleep-deprived patrons of titles so as Final Fantasy XI and Halo are usually scouring the Internet for hardcore retireds or socializing with fellow addicts online. Other diehards take it a degree further—they start fansites.

Simple game- or franchise-specific portals are surprisingly easy to create. You just ne to make a general site design, know a certain number of basic HTML, and grab images distant from the game’s official website; a certain quantity of companies even have downloadable starter kits with allotments of art and screenshots for you to use. Plus, principally Internet service providers—such as America Online and Earthlink—provide small amounts of Web space to subscribers released of charge. Building a fansite that will win a bigger following takes more serious dedication. Think about what you’d want to diocese in a site about your favorite game—you’ll ne to update regularly, have unique and compelling make easy and find good contributors.

PSO World (planetdreamcast.com/psoworld) is a prime example of a fansite done right. The Phantasy Star Online–dedicated site receives around 3 million visits through month and has 30,000 registered users, thanks in large part to word of entrance “It helped that we were the first PSO site ever” says Tom Meininger, who streams the site with his stepbrother, Mark Murray. He adds that family post messages by the hour and take rise to check out the site’s extensive item-collection database, voting booth litigates and guides. “The real driving force behind it is the admins and contributors,” explains Murray. “Without them continually providing us with info and help, the site couldn’t function.” Thus leaving fans with no place to journey except back in front of the boob tube to further flatten their backsides.

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Project Gotham Racing 2 • Xbox

The Xbox driving spectacle shifts gears and heads to SoCal, thanks to the PGR2 drawn out Beach booster pack. You’ll be cruising the coastal impudences on eight new tracks and putting the pedal to the metal in eight modern rides, including the luxurious Ferrari 612 Scaglietti and Porsche 911 GT2 (shown here). on the other hand it will make your wallet a little lighter—the downloadable peace costs $4.99.

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