Hah, this is turning into a farse. Everyone knows that Home of the Underdogs have been on a retreating boat ever since the last update from its webmaster in 2005-ish. Domain changes, offline and my Mother Mary what not. Earlier this year HoTU's host provider went bankcrupt, effectively sealing the deal of this long overdue coffin.
But, you know what? Internet's greatest Abandonware phenomenon isn't something that simply goes away - for that it has too many dedicated fans with nothing better to do. And that's great news for us.
On 8th of March 2009, most of HoTU's previous catalog is back under www.hotud.org. Even though no downloads are available and the catalog is still updating, it seems like Sarinee's vision of a wiki like contribution system finally got to see the light of day, as this time around everything is based on the Joomla! CMS. The overall layout is pretty decent, and with much less amount of ads than before. I still miss some of the "HoTU" feeling here and many links are outdated, but I guess we ought to give them time. The overall impression is still very good for those well documented reviews.
Keep it up HoTuD ppl!
Also, I can't think of a better time to combine Turin Brake's eminent song "Underdog" with this, than now:
Also, 1 update appended. Abandonia Reloaded to be exact. They added Battle Tanks, a competitive tank game.
A quiet evening has passed, only three new updates. Not much happened: TGOD and Mr. Oldgames added one new game each, and CGN added umm... they don't say.
I'd like all webmasters to pay attention to the following: I've been working on rating all not-yet-rated members and re-rating some that were rated in the past. I understand all webmasters do their best to have a 5 star site, and of course most of you have a better image of your own sites than everyone else does.
Some problems migh arise, of course. I couldn't check of every single page and download of every single member, but I analysed every site critically having various aspects in mind. I'm in the middle of the work, but already I encourage everyone to contact me through the "Contact AR" link on the menu if:
- You want to read my comment on your site
- You feel the rating is unfair (to which I'll reply with aforementioned comment)
- You want me to rate your site first
Great, another update, another fine applicant. Here it is...
So here's a lesson: what do you want with reviews and screenshots? Face it, we all want to play already, and not bother with superfluous plot, info, random screenshots. Hundreds of downloads and downloads only, coming right out! All welcome our new member Old School Apps!
By the way, Dan, Sean, always write your URL complete with "http://..." otherwise your link will be broken. Brought to you by Lone Lee...
Have a good one folks.