Facebook Herald

What it Does:

This application was developed by Alex Moskalyuk as a way to display your video game collection on your Facebook profile.

How Well It Does It:

The app does this by allowing you to select games from an expansive list of box art that includes the current generation of consoles (Wii, XBox 360, PS3) and hand helds (PSP, and Nintendo DS), goes one step further and allows for the previous generation of systems (XBox, PS2, Gamecube, GBA) and PC. There is one more option which is labeled “Old School”. Old school contains everything that came before the last generation of game systems with your ability to find software getting iffy right around the Super Nintendo era.

All in all the software library you can choose from is pretty impressive. You will be able to find current releases with a problem, including those games that have not hit the shelves yet. This last bit is important, because not only can you list the games you have, you can also list the games you would like. If you have recently because disillusioned with review sites like Gamespot that allow you to keep a “Want List”, like I have, this is a welcome feature if only for the fact that you can keep track of what games you wanted in the constant streams of releases. This feature also allows any friends that you have running the app to see what games you would like and provides a link to the product on Amazon so that they may buy it for you. Unless you have some very generous friends, this link won’t get much use other than on your birthday or other holidays. Hmmm, perhaps it is time to hook your mother up with a Facebook account.

The links across the top are as follows: “Home”, which provides a seemingly random list of games and peripherals. Next to that is the “My Games” link which when pressed will take you to all of the items you have entered into your library. Though this is great, it has the unfortunate look of being totally randomly arranged. There are sometimes wide spaces between items on the list and there is no way to order them. It would be nice if there were a way to decide how your library displayed, such as alphabetically, by favorites or ratings, or just being able to order them how you would like.

To the right of the library link is “My friends’ games” which allows you to see the library of any of your friends using the application. For example, the first game that appears on the list is Mario Kart DS and displays the box art for it. To the right of the box art it shows the name and profile pictures of two of my friends that have the game. If you do not have the game this section also gives you a link under each friend that says “borrow it”, clicking it will notify your friend that you wish to borrow that game.

The fourth link over is the “Games I Want Link”. This is where your wish list is kept. I do not currently own Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii, but to help me with that soul crushing problem a “Buy it” link is provided to the product on Amazon. The last link across the top is the “Games my friends want”; basically, your friends wish list. This is your chance to be that generous friend or mother. This is displayed just like your friends’ library, showing the game box art and then next to it the friend’s name and profile picture with the helpful “Buy it for them” link to Amazon under it.

All in all this is a pretty neat application, ever more so if you and your friends are active in video games as a pass time. Currently I have three friends using it on my personal account and if I had more friends that played I am sure it would be an easy convince for them to get it. The application is pretty non-intrusive on your profile as far as applications go. It does display a partial library and a partial wish list in your profile and it does publish to you mini news feed but all of these things are optional. The display of your wish list is particularly handy if you have some one like my girlfriend who doesn’t know much about the hobby buying you games.

Here at Facebook Herald we rate on a 1-10 scale and this application receives an 8/10, which ranks it as a keeper. It’s a good app that does what it sets out to do, but could use some improvement with the display of the list and would benefit greatly from the addition of a ratings system. This application can be obtained for free from: VideoGames

Score: 8/10

Popularity: 5% [?]

Filed under: Reviews