C:-)
kinn I don’t really like the color scheme used on this site, it isn’t appealing to me. As for the layout, there’s a lot of negative space all aroud the layout. If you’re going to leave empty space behind then maybe adding some kind of pattern background would help.
eyewake It’s been awhile since a well planned and well put together site has been submitted. I like this site, it’s very clean with an interesting concept. The only grip I have with it is the space below the layout, it doesn’t really serve any purpose.
hubl This site is nice as well, the layout is pretty sleek. The only problem I noticed is with the splash page. It’s not as clean as the main layout.
pixelpharm This is probably done of the wierdest looking layouts I’ve seen in awhile. Although it is something different, which I like, this one isn’t nicely put together. Everything doesn’t have that professional feel to it. The mechanical sound effects doesn’t match and the graphics are poor. It’s a cool concept, but it still needs a lot of work. Also work on a color scheme and keep it consistent.
takashi0808 I’m not too fond of sites that have big text and buttons. The viewers aren’t blind and plus it doesn’t look too clean when you have huge text. The 3D work is cool, but the way the site is designed, it doesn’t look too professional. This site also needs a consistent color scheme as well.
toseproeski music Very interesting layout, I like how some images have the effect of coming out of the layout. What I didn’t like was the image quality, some of them are pixelated a bit and some of the text is blurry as well.
mistermarkos I got 404 error page.
Ok, I didn’t view all the sites so I don’t have anything, but I saw EG got a 404 on mistermarkos page.
I clicked on the link and I didn’t get a 404 error page, but what I DID get was HTML site with one of those friggin Outwar pop-ups (the thing UncleGuito is always trying to exploit members for, it appears this guy is doing the same by submitting an HTML site for Flash SOTW)
So I say… Disqualified!!!
Anyone agree?
Many of the games on the site are Flash-based, so I don’t think disqualifying him would be the necessary action. But, the outwar pop-ups are a real pain. I would have no problem in having the site disqualified for that single reason alone though.
Cheers!
Kirupa 
but the award is <B>site</B> of the week award… not Flash games in an HTML site award. At least that’s how I feel.
And that outwar pop-up is quite annoying 
But whatever you decide Kirupa, I can always write what I have to say about it in my critique 
here we go:
mistermarkos:
Wow, how many times have I seen a site like this on the net? All the links work, the colors are perfect, and I like the limited use of images on it. Congratulations Microsoft, I hate you.
toesproeski music:
Okay site, might need a little work on the colors (i don’t take kindly to the FFs anymore, in this case, 0x00FF00). Where’s the content, is this just a site about him? I’m hoping this is unfinished, otherwise I wouldn’t vote for it.
takashi0808:
He seems really talented with what he does, though I don’t like the embossiness of his site, looks mediocre. Some of his work seems pretty good, although he did use some content found on the forums (eg, EG’s proton spinny thing). I didn’t like the music all that much. I’d vote for this one for effort, if the other choices don’t suffice my taste.
pixelpharm:
eh…ok, simple animations, that’s good, but when it gets in the way of the content, then it becomes a problem. I don’t want to have to sit through timelines of stuff just to find out what they do. sound is a little redundant. there’s a link bug in the digital media page. on to the next…
hubl:
Wow…from the moment I viewed the splash page, I knew this was gonna be a killer site. Pages load quickly, colors are a nice blend, transitions are top notch, will highly consider.
eyewake:
Am I seeing a lot of blue lately? I like this site and all, but it has a few flaws: I don’t like how the fighter jet continually moves back and forth when you keep your mouse over it (it generates that irritating sound everytime), when you click OPEN, it opens the sound panel like it should, but if you click it again, well, it opens again, the animation just loops; the link sound has this really annoying high-pitched ringing, the same sound clip plays for each content, and transitions are more or less the same. Next…
kinn:
I like this one. The site itself is simple, the colors don’t deviate from each other that much, and i love the background music. My only complaint is the text color, in some of the pages, it blends with the background too much, making it hard to read. Now the decision…
Among those choices I went with Hubl.
<B>kinn:</B> The colors are too dark, I had to strain my eyes to see that lighter green on that darker gree, and the text on some of the backgrounds was hard to read because of the distracting backgrounds. Those color overlays you did (the buttons you click to change hue) didn’t help much either, it just made things harder to see.
<B>eyewake:</B> Now this is nice. I love the crisp images, the color scheme, the transitions. I think this site functions well, serves it’s purpose well, and has a refreshingly nice look to it.
<B>hubl:</B> Nice clean colors and professional layout, but the transitions between sections seemed to lag big time on my computer, I think that was my biggest gripe with this site. In your links section you should have all your empty buttons not go to a URL, I didn’t like how it went to your site and those rollOver colors in there are sonic, they seemed to be toned down in the other sections.
<B>pixelpharm:</B> Is this a contest for who can squeeze the most information into the smallest area? For that “What we do” section do I have to watch that whole animation all over again if I miss something? All the other sections were just textboxes with text that was crammed in there. I also don’t think it looked too realistic on the screen, I didn’t get the vibe that this actions was taking place on whatever monitor thing that was.
<B>takashi0808:</B> A double splash screen? What for? I’m not a big fan of the giant navigation buttons and the giant buttons with the "X"s in them, they were a bit distracting. Some sections too a real long time to load (like a delay before the loading happened) and your transitions were kind of slow.
<B>toseproeski music:</B> Interesting layout, I did like the effect of the pictures of the guy coming out of the layout, nice touch. The text in your hover captions and next and back buttons (if that is what they are, I do not read russian, but they went next and back through the galleries).
<B>mistermarkos:</B> This is HTML, how did this make it into SOTW voting? This site automatically gets turned down by me. Oh yeah, and I find it incredibly ignorant to exploit your site visitors and this SOTW award for your Outwar game (the pop-up that automatically gets you a hit in your outwar game).
I voted <B>eyewake</B>. It was a refreshingly nice site to see in SOTW.
I’ve voted, critiques to follow when I have time to type them up. 
how come i always vote for the one nobody chooses? 
do i lack the taste?
Do you want us to answer that? 
I reckon about 7 times out of 10 I seem to back a site that no-one else likes.
*Originally posted by thoriphes *
**how come i always vote for the one nobody chooses?
do i lack the taste? **
No you don’t lack taste Thor, you have your own taste and that is good. I had trouble deciding between eyewake and hubl, so I just had to go through it in my head and figure out which one I liked better.
My vote is eyewake, although I was very, very close to voting for
toseproeski music.
Both sites are very functional. I really liked the style in toseproeski and I could have gone either way with my vote. The other sites did not provide the organization or usability that normally makes me want to vote for a site. Eyewake and toseproeski were both immediate eyecatchers. Sadly, I could only pick one of the two.
Word to the wise… If it takes me five minutes to figure out how to enter a site, Im likely to have moved on about 2 minutes into the exercise. I would venture to say that most users would feel the same.
