Awesome Websites

Despite an often maddening interface, City Creator gets addictive; create pixel cities from one of three tile sets, and save or send them as an e-card. Above: view our misguided creations.

MGS fans will love Flash Gear Solid VR Trainer; it not only includes the much-beloved cardboard box but it can be played both top-down and from a first person view. Thanks, Ray!

An epic soundtrack and a color commentator? Nope, it’s not the latest football flick: this is Elbow Wars, an interactive two-player movie theater slugfest with no-holds (or elbows) barred.

As a rule of thumb, we aren’t into the whole Hallmark thing. WrongCards.com just might work, with cards that are a bit sarcastic and mostly blunt–just like most guys we know.

Good artists can create even with simple tools; Font Park’s website has a gallery of pretty sweet art made using only Asian brush strokes. Hint: click “View List” in the upper right.

Using office supplies such as clips and rubber bands to make guns, OfficeGuns.com is simultaneously cool and dangerous: you really *will* shoot your eye out with these beasties.

We have to say this Shanghai map is even better than Onion Maps; it’s a heavily detailed map of the booming metropolis, with graphics that are on par with something you’d see in SimCity.

Want to create trendy word clouds like the one above? Wordle.net automatically creates a cloud for you from either your website or your own words, with your choice of colors and fonts.

Design minimalists will love MinimalSites.com: it collects websites with simple and clean layouts, and then allows visitors to vote and comment on them; you can sort by date or rating.

We’ve seen pixel cities before, but Ryan Allen’s Google-maps based Goon City is special because Something Awful forum members are helping out, ensuring plenty of wackiness.

Causecast.org is like YouTube for social causes, with videos and pitches for everything from human rights to the environment; above is Jenny McCarthy speaking for autism.

Ad agency BigMan’s website is one of coolest we’ve seen; the interface is dominated by a Big Man (of course) and lots of flashing, sliding bits of text: kinda like Times Square on crack.

Sean Cooper’s addictive Boxhead is a free flash game with clean, crisp artwork and waves of zombies; if that wasn’t enough, they also have co-op and death match modes.

It’s not quite Monday Night, but you can catch Sunday Night Football with Madden and Co. for free online; now if they could only get Frank Caliendo in on the action, we’d be good.

Stormpulse is a visual web app that lets you keep track of storms and hurricanes brewing in the Atlantic. It forecasts direction and wind speed, but also shows historical storms.

This is one deck you won’t thrash: DolceQ’s sexy skateboards are actually printed by Deckpeck. They allow artists to create their own custom decks and wheels as well as sell them.

Canyon Defense isn’t the only Tower Defense-style game, but it’s quite fun, with good graphics and futuristic weapons. Our only complaint is that it is a bit easy; more levels, por favor.

Onion Maps initially reminds us of Google Earth, minus many features — but its simplicity and focus on isometric views works, especially for tourists who just want landmarks.

Sonny is a fun and free Flash-based RPG a-la Final Fantasy; you start off as an amnesiac zombie armed with an iron pipe. The production values are surprisingly high.

Just launched: Google’s brand-new browser, Google Chrome. It aims to minimize memory bloat (you can selectively shut down tasks) and is lightweight, with a 500KB install file.

3D printing is here: Philips’ Shapeways site will take just about any 3D model you submit and “print” it using one of four materials; they charge by the cubic centimeter.

PatternTap.com is a boon to web designers; it compiles examples of common website parts (borders, comments, backgrounds). It’s a great place to get ideas and inspiration.

Springfield Punx is a pet project of artist Dean Fraser; he does an amazing job creating Simpsons styled versions of popular superheroes and celebs. Our fave: The Dark Knight‘s Joker.