It is a sinking feeling that any Web surfer knows all too well. You click on a an interesting looking link, and suddenly you are on a Geocities site (www.geocities.com). Geocities provides free web space, as much as 11 megabytes, to virtually any page designer, which in itself is a good thing. However, companies of this type make money by selling advertising, conveniently located on your web site. These usually take the form of popup ads, in effect an extra web page which drops down from the top of your screen and covers most of your toolbar buttons. They also bring frequent browser crashes and screen freezes, especially if you have the nerve to hit your back button. Geocities now places these things on every page on every site, unless the site owner is willing to have a banner of sorts on all pages instead, thereby ruining their look. The company’s latest invention is a watermark, much like the network logos now seen often in the corner of your television set. These are not only distracting, but they manage to crash Netscape 4 browsers, which once were able to get through Geocities land fairly well. Considering the problems these sites cause for surfers, and the lengthy URLs that go with these, it is reasonable to ask if anyone actually uses the company as a host. Actually, yes. Geocities claims to host about eight per cent of all web pages on the Internet, and there is no reason to doubt the claim. After all, America Online is the largest ISP. The always capable Yahoo (www.ya hoo.com) bought Geocities recently, so at least there is hope.

This column normally avoids reviewing Geocities pages as they are not usually worth the aggravation, unless the editor’s deadline is approaching and a few more sites are needed to pad a review essay (e.g. last issue). However, there are those sites which are simply too strong to ignore, regardless of their cyberlocale. ZOCo (www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Battlefield/8948) is such. Grayde Bowen edits the paper version of his English wargaming magazine and has reprinted articles from the first twenty-five issues on his site. There are over 140 files on ZOCo, mainly game reviews organized alphabetically. Bowen’s witty reviews are more along the lines of commentary. He discusses his reactions to the game as he plays it and offers appropriate strategies. He does not review games as they come out. One is just as likely to find a simulation from the 1980s as from this year on site. There is also miniatures materials and reviews offered. Bowen also tinkers with game design and there many player aids, scenarios, and variants on the site. In addition, ZOCo offer a game assistance program for Avalon Hill’s Hannibal. This plays the battle cards for the defensive side and thus makes the game playable solitaire. In addition, he includes two free gamekits--Reds (Russian Civil War, strategic with political rules), and Dervishes (Anglo-Egyptian campaigns against the Mahdists in the 1880s).

In short, this is a pretty good site, despite its web host. By all means visit, but kept a bottle of tranquilizers handy.