2006 Design Launch

PALGN Feature | PALGN spends a few hours at the plastic surgeon. Everyone's doing it, you know.

It’s been over 7 months since PALGN received its last face lift, so we decided it was time to fix a few more of our unsightly blemishes ready to move into the next generation of consoles. The main motivation behind this change was the need to find a better solution for listing our articles on the home page. On days when we posted a significant number of news items all of our reviews and previews would be pushed down and off the front page.

The only major design changes have been made with the home pages. There are now two columns. The one of the left lists news and rumours, while the one on the right lists all our latest features included reviews and previews. There is also featured content section at the top of the page that lets us display large images next to our most important articles.

Behind the scenes there have been some significant changes to the way the site is administered. It’s now much easier for our staff members to add media items to articles. We’ve also decreased the compression ratio that we use on our media, so all the pictures you’ll see on the site from now on will be of a much higher quality.

But no, we haven’t just made development changes to the site. PALGN now has a new retail affiliate. GameState.com.au is an online Australian games retailer. While they have an extensive selection of current generation games, they are also focused on bringing the next generation of consoles to Australia. With a smooth and efficient interface they certainly feel next gen.
PALGN readers receive an exclusive discount at their store. You can find out more information here.

You’ll also be seeing a new form of content on the site over the coming weeks. As we’ve alluded to before, we have teamed up with the Aaron and Michael from The Gaming Show to bring you video features on some of the latest games coming out in PAL territories. Check out our front page for a series of these features over the next few days. Last night Aaron did a special podcast interview with me talking about the changes we’re made to PALGN. You can listen to the podcast here.

Content wise, expect to see some Xbox 360 reviews appearing over the coming weeks. We’ve got a full line up this year, including first hand coverage of E3. Make sure you stay tuned to PALGN in 2006. We’ll be here to bring you the latest video game information for the rest of the world.

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10 Oct, 2005 The only way the Aussies are going to win this year's Ashes.

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36 Comments

Qbert

6 years ago

That is different! nice, I like it

838 La

6 years ago

As do I, thumbs up.

Infested Jibbs

6 years ago

Wow guys, just wow!

What an impressive facelift to ring in(if a touch late) the new year!I was a lil peeved (can you blame me?

) about the downtime getting the site back on-line, but it was more then a breath of fresh air to be welcomed by a new, colourful, and more importantly i believe, PROFESSIONAL pal gaming website.

I doubt i'm the person to make such claims, i feel the words of people who have been with this site from the very beginning have more weight then my own, but it really is more of 'giant leap' rather than a small step which i was expecting, judging by the recent 'sneak peak' featurette.

Though here it is, the inevitable, the thinly veiled 'constructive criticism' you all love to hate.No matter how many times one mentions it, the mere proposal of ways to improve on an already large improvement are hard to put across without sounding selfish/rude/ungrateful (you name it).

Though here goes

-Though James(?) has already brought up the reasons behind replacing the 'forums/release list' etc html links with flash links, i was alwasy a big fan of opening one palgn window, right clicking the forums tab and opening them in another window and hey presto, i've got my palgn forums and palgn updates/news in two separate windows with little fumbling.I'll live, but just b a r e l y

-That gamestate tab near the search box up the top looks as ugly-as-sin atm.No two ways about it :/.Actually so does that big green arrow.Something a lil more subtle.....maybe........maybe not?I dont know?

-And last, that 'older' tab, looks a little silly, because of it's very name.'Older' sounds odd......older what?Older articles?Older news?I think 'past headlines' or 'recent reviews' may sound better, or maybe 'All the Latest News >' (shamelessly stolen from gamespot).

Oh and post script, the right hand features column needs the same date mine-heading layout as the news column to 'break-up' all the the various updates.As it stands they sort of run into one another.

But it's not all bad!No siree!

I especially like the lil tabs near the doa girl that open up as the mouse pointer glides over them.......VERY swish!Complemented also by the the big feautered content window.It's very eye catching.And as a 56k user, not coma inducing like ign or gamespot either.Jeebus they take a longgggg time to load, especially if you've just had a cookie cleanout.

Also, gamestate appears to be a pretty cool lil place too.A very schmick website and alright-ish prices as well.Even more alrightish with that 7% off voucher.

With all this greatness Im even willing to turn a blind eye to how you've snuck in an extra ad on the homepage(there's a banner ad AND a column ad now, cheeky).

But seriously guys, hope i didn't sound too nit picky, just a bit of helpful feedback and if need be, re-read the positives more so then the ...(not negatives......constructive criticisms....remember?

) because the former certainly out-weigh the latter!

James

6 years ago

Thanks for the support guys. We've spent a long time working on this.

Jibbs: Thanks for the constructive criticism - if people don't tell us what they don't like, we won't know what to improve. I also don't like the "older" button. It was added as an after-thought since I thought been able to scroll back through the features would be cool. I can't think of a better way to do it though. Maybe changing it to "earlier features" would help.

Cerebral

6 years ago

Funky.

Personally, I'd streamline the flash menu more. By this I mean making it a tad smaller, 60fps (if it isn't already), and making the transitions a lot quicker - come to think of it, a lot like gamestate.com's style of menu + presentation. But hey, that's just my style.

However, some of the sdvertisments are unpleasing to the eye, particularly the DOA4 one. Whether this is in your control or not, I don't know, only they clash horribly with the rest of the site.

But that's some nice work, guys (I only know to credit James, and probably Sonicwired, so I will

)

Jellyfish

6 years ago

*Stream of words that'd make a sailor blush* This way more impressive then I thought it would be, great jobs guys. Well worth staying up till 3am to check it out.

Anonymous

6 years ago

ATM it's looking great, I'm egerly awating more from PALGN, now can we have a bigger buying list for our spoons, really there's nothign much to spend them on these days.

Matt3

6 years ago

yeah this is great, i shouldnt have judged it when i didnt see the full thing

thebigm

6 years ago

Cerebral wrote

)

What Cerebral said in regards to the layout and ads.

Also I think we should thank Tom (Greymist)...

But thanks PALGN, looks a bit nice then the previous design.

Anonymous

6 years ago

thebigm wrote

Cerebral wrote

)

What Cerebral said in regards to the layout and ads.

Also I think we should thank Tom (Greymist)...

But thanks PALGN, looks a bit nice then the previous design.

I've noticed a few things not to be pickey that I'd like to bring up:

-As said before the search button and bar looks a bit tackey, useful yes but the rollover ad and the search button really is a bit of an eyesore

-The title/header picture looks a bit out when it's connected to the plain blue bar thing, I can see where the image stops by the pattern.

- The game ads surrounding the feature flash article thing is an eyesore, don't remove it but edit the background so it blends better into it.

- As I said before can we have somethign a bit more worthwhile to spend our spoons on? There's nothing in the auction tab and the only thing we can really buy these days are username changes and personal ranks.
and what's with buys a coloum thingo as I saw there?

But that's just me being pickey, keep up with the good work!

Chris-Leigh

6 years ago

Very nice, chaps. Works well.

Great work Tom/James.

EDIT: Interesting choice to remove staff names from the front page (they were once next to articles). What was the thinking behind that?

warney7

6 years ago

Haven't been here for a bit.....and must say

not bad....not bad at all!!!!

segax

6 years ago

I have the solution to the older button fiasco .. how about the word "more" ?

I love the new site , two thumbs up !

Umm maybe the Dead or alive banner could be more like this one..
just a Mockup picture

DancesInUnderwear

6 years ago

I like, I like.

Frozencry

6 years ago

Wow, very slick design! I love it

Anonymous

6 years ago

segax wrote

I have the solution to the older button fiasco .. how about the word "more" ?

I love the new site , two thumbs up !

Umm maybe the Dead or alive banner could be more like this one..
just a Mockup picture

That's fantastic!

onggie

6 years ago

Looks good, I was thinking a forum face lift....But still looks good, the only thing IMO is the DoA picture around the flash featured content, it looks a bit babyish (in a way, don't know how to describe it) and thats because of the colour of it. Maybe if darker colours were used, but nice job looking good!

Brendan

6 years ago

The front page ad seems random, by the way - the PGR3 one looks a lot better.

Anonymous

6 years ago

Brendan wrote

The front page ad seems random, by the way - the PGR3 one looks a lot better.

It does but it could be done a lot better. I might do something of my own later if you guys don't mind.

GroovySamurai

6 years ago

Wow what a nice update. I really like how the articles and news are now divided and the flash box looks great. Much more appealing

Maybe the flash box could be halfed in size and next to it the articles and below them the news? But only a suggestion - Im liking it how it is more than before.

onggie

6 years ago

Brendan wrote

The front page ad seems random, by the way - the PGR3 one looks a lot better.

I just saw the PGR 3 one, after I refreshed it 10 times. And yes it looks much better!

James

6 years ago

To answer a few comments:

Jibbs wrote

Made button on the search a little more subtle, along with the "older" button which now reads "previous".

Jibbs wrote

I especially like the lil tabs near the doa girl that open up as the mouse pointer glides over them.......VERY swish!Complemented also by the the big feautered content window.It's very eye catching.And as a 56k user, not coma inducing like ign or gamespot either.Jeebus they take a longgggg time to load, especially if you've just had a cookie cleanout.

Yeah, we used gamespot / ign as an example of what not to do. For some reason the content never loads correctly on both sites and takes ages to work even on cable. We put loads of checks into the loading to make sure everything runs smoothly. It's good to hear it works well on 56k, I haven't actually managed to test it on a dailup connection yet.

Cerebral wrote

Personally, I'd streamline the flash menu more. By this I mean making it a tad smaller, 60fps (if it isn't already), and making the transitions a lot quicker - come to think of it, a lot like gamestate.com's style of menu + presentation. But hey, that's just my style.

Increased the speed on the tabs. 60fps is huge overkill for this kind of app. It would cripple lower spec conputers - flash doesn't handle moving dynamic images very well and it's quite resource intensive.

Whitegreek wrote

-The title/header picture looks a bit out when it's connected to the plain blue bar thing, I can see where the image stops by the pattern.

Can you get a screen shot of this and tell me your specs? I'm not sure what you mean. We've tested it on a lot of monitors and resolutions and it seems to work fine.

Chris-Leigh wrote

Interesting choice to remove staff names from the front page (they were once next to articles). What was the thinking behind that?

There wasn't much space when trying to squeeze the articles into two columns. We needed to remove some of the content. Many professional sites don't list authors in the index pages either.

Whitegreek wrote

It does but it could be done a lot better. I might do something of my own later if you guys don't mind.

We don't have direct control over the banners, so don't bother redesigning them. I personally quite like both of them, I guess it's mostly down to personal taste. I'm still waiting on your complete redesign of PALGN Whitegreek

Anonymous

6 years ago

Well I gave up when you released the new design.
oh and I'm running 1280x1024 on a LDC screen at 32bit color.

I might get a screenshot, it's not too noticeable but it does look a bit off.