Jim Regan -- Site Reviews
shockwave.com
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To achieve these ends, shockwave.com offers an interactive amusement park, with games, music videos and user-generated greeting cards, cartoons and puzzles. Whether the amusements are worth the commercialization is up to you -- but a quick game of Flash Football certainly breaks up the day.
Entry to shockwave.com is subject to passing a few browser compatibility tests. If JavaScript is not enabled, you are advised that it is necessary. Enable JavaScript, and try again, (re-enter the URL rather than using the new page's link, which is apparently out of date) and you'll receive a notice that Cookies are required (assuming you have them disabled on your browser). If at this point you wish to abandon attempts at entry, you may find yourself trapped -- the 'cookies required' page being one of the maddening variety that overrides the back button on your browser, and insists on reloading until you either resort to the "Go" menu, or close your browser window and start from scratch.
If both JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, you will be admitted to a home page which clearly and succinctly indicates all the features available at the site, and itself has a design feature whose greatest attribute is that you may never be aware of its existence. To experience this 'stealth' design, first notice how nicely the page fits into your browser window - now try resizing the window to about half its regular size. Through the magic of Shockwave, the entire page -images, graphics and text- will resize along with the browser itself, ensuring that your window is always full but never overflowing.
Take it too far, and you'll need a magnifying glass for the text, but within any normal limits, the page is easily legible. (Though this trick depends on Flash/Shockwave authoring, a friend loyal to Apple's aborted web browser, CyberDog, tells me that he can perform this feat with almost any HTML-coded Web site - which begs the question of why Netscape and Microsoft can't boast the same capability, years after CyberDog ceased development.)
Visually, shockwave.com's home page presents two navigation bars, (upper containing games, music and other entertainments, lower with privacy, account and other more utilitarian information) and a central area displaying current features. A banner ad at the top is always rotating, (one of the reasons I generally prefer to disable JavaScript) so downloads may be momentarily interrupted while waiting for the next commercial.
Games categories include Action, Arcade, Sports, Adventure, Classic and Puzzles. Mousing over each title presents a quick summary, and even more important, file size and estimated download time (most are under 500k). Choose a game, and a new window will open with a reminder to download the latest plug-ins (let's not forget why we're here) while the main window loads the game. (Some games are commercial entities of their own -- witness "Coca-Cola Hockey".)
Flash-animated Cartoons offered run from Peanuts to South Park (so clearly not all contents are suitable for the kids) and Music includes an MP3 directory, videos, 'Flash Radio' and such interactive offerings as online mixing boards, and music that you can 'touch, twist and bend.' Greetings and Creativity allows the visitor to create and send e-cards, original cartoons and jigsaw puzzles. (Since the jigsaw puzzle program is one of the site's larger downloads, shockwave.com keeps visitors amused with a basic version of "Concentration" to pass the time.) Finally, Search finds other shockwave sites around the Web, and highlights favorites with a Site Of The Day listing.
While much of the site can be accessed without registering an account, some features --such as downloading games for offline play-- require a name and e-mail address. (Of course, if you're not keen on being added to yet another database, a name like 'Alias Undercover' will work as well as John Smith, and a fictional e-mail address simply underlines your wishes when you uncheck the "Keep me informed.." checkbox.) In any case, it's always a good idea to survey a site's privacy policies to see if they meet your own requirements.
shockwave.com can be found at http://www.shockwave.com/. Or, if you'd rather not leave a Cookie trail behind you (keeping in mind, that like not registering, this choice will affect your interaction with the site) you can sneak past the Cookie guards and enter at http://www.shockwave.com/bin/shockwave/main/frame_set.jsp.
Jim Regan provides 'Today's Links' to the e--Monitor. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.