Its not unusual to find me in one of the major internet game sites whenever I have a little free time. Most frequently you'll find me hanging around Flipside.com in games such as Wordox or Wordyacht or more recently playing Tangleword at Playsite.com although I've switched over the old lycos ... Read review
...pot luck I landed on Goldrun.com which I thought just might have something to do with an online version of Bob Holness' Blockbuster which could have been kinda cool, but was presented instead with another U.S. based game site.
Goldrun.com is (yet) another of those game sites which offers you the chance to play sub-standard games for sub-standard prizes. It is also (yet!) another of those game sites which only offer the prizes to you ... ...happen to be an American, Goldrun.com offers things like a pair of sterling silver heart earings(you know, the tacky set the rest of the internet sells for $9) as a weekly prize or a coffee carafe, but of course none of that is going to matter to most readers of this. The only reason to visit for U.K. residents would be for the games, so lets get to what the site offers:
Its not unusual to find me in one of the major internet game sites whenever I have a little free time. Most frequently you'll find me hanging around Flipside.com in games such as Wordox or Wordyacht or more recently playing Tangleword at Playsite.com although I've switched over the old lycos hosted site (playsite.lycos.com)to play that since Playsite has become invaded by spoilers with cheat programs. On the rare occasion that these become a little boring, or like last night, buried under cheats and morons, I have a look at what other sites are around. Taking pot luck I landed on Goldrun.com which I thought just might have something to do with an online version of Bob Holness' Blockbuster which could have been kinda cool, but was presented instead with another U.S. based game site.
Goldrun.com is (yet) another of those game sites which offers you the chance to play sub-standard games for sub-standard prizes. It is also (yet!) another of those game sites which only offer the prizes to you if you happen to be a US citizen, everyone else can just forget it - obviously we don't count in advertising terms, page impressions and all that other revenue generating claptrap! Still, unlike somewhere like Flipside, or Uproar where the prizes are worth a look if you happen to be an American, Goldrun.com offers things like a pair of sterling silver heart earings(you know, the tacky set the rest of the internet sells for $9) as a weekly prize or a coffee carafe, but of course none of that is going to matter to most readers of this. The only reason to visit for U.K. residents would be for the games, so lets get to what the site offers:
~CASINO~
~9 Ball~
9 Ball pool game. You get 75 shots of the cue ball to clear the table to win nuggets - 10 for each ball sunk. The game physics aren't exactly perfect and its very basic looking but hey, if playing pool alone floats your boat then its here is the option.
~Blackjack~
Classic blackjack card game. I've no clue how you score nuggets for playing this game, win a few hands and cash out and it seems you do but there is no info. on site.
~Gold Nugget Slot Machine~
Spin the reels and win nuggets.
~Scratch & Match~
Scratch panels on the cards to win nuggets.
~Sports Slot Machine~
Same as the golden Nugget slots but with a sports theme on the reels.
~Video Poker~
Video poker slots machine.
Not on slots: It should be noted that all the slot machines are shown in a VERY small window of about 5 inches wide and 3 inches high which is a little lame. The sound effects are horrible but can at least be turned off as well and you only get 10 spins before you need to reload the game. *Sigh*
~ARCADE CLASSICS~
~Asteroids~
Powered by brainjam.com this is the cassic arcade game where you fly your monocrome spaceship around a tiny viewing area shooting rather large asteroids which break up into smaller asteroids before disappearing completely. Ridiculously simple, but horrifyingly addictive unless the control system is quite this over-senstitive! Score over 500 points and win nuggets.
~Block Breaker~
The classic Breakout arcade game cloned yet again. Bat your ball agiainst the bricks to make them disappear, miss the ball and lose a life, do well and win nuggets.
~Centripede~
The classic Centipede arcade game with a Golrun.com twist. The Goldrun guy is your main character, but thats where the originalty ends. shoot the centipede as it winds its way down the screen, leaving mushrooms with each bit you zap of it and breaking in half ever time you hit it. Kill all its portions before it reaches the bottom of the screen or lose a Goldrun guy - you only have three lives. Score over 100 points to win nuggets.
~G-Tris~
G-Tris is Tetris - now theres a surprise. I hate Tetris and there are other less annoying versions than this around. This kept ignoring my keyboard commands when I was playing which isn't that helpful in a game like this!
~M-Command~
A Missile Command clone which gives you (yet) another chance to play the classic arcade game online. There are better versions but all of these are horribly addictive so my advice is to stay clear unless you want to lose a couple of hours of your life playing one of the most basic games ever invented!
nb. wot no Pacman!
~TRIVIA~
~Crossword~
Non-cryptic crossword puzzles. Not bad, but not many of them! Easy way to collect nuggets though if you can use them! Win 1 nugget for each correct letter in the puzzle.
~Flip-Flop~
Umm. Well you are presented with a grid under which is a picture. Click on the one of the squares and part of the picture is revealed, however, clicking on one square covers up part of another. You have to work out the sequence to reveal the whole picture. Nuggets are awarded for the number of complete picture squares reveled at time of cashout.
~Hang The Bandit~
Hangman. Get too many letters wrong and the bandit hangs. Simple as that.
~New Movie Lines~
You are given ten movie quotes and soundbites from them and must guess from 4 options which movie they come from. Quite fun, although again, not many of them before they start repeating sadly.
~New Music Lines~
Same as "new movie lines" but with songs.
~Trivia~
Get asked a trivia question and choose from 5 answers the correct one. Answer 2 of the 2 you are posed and win 500 nuggets! 2 questions is hardly a trivia quiz though is it...
~Word Challenge~
You are given an obscure word and must guess its meaning from 4 options. Doesn't take a genius to work out the meaning seeing as the words aren't particularly obscure and repeat themselves very quickly but hey...its a way to make up your nugget count quickly as you get 500 just for answering 2 out of 2. Again, 2 questions hardly makes a quiz...
~STRATEGY~
~Bridges~
Build you bridge to the other side before the computer gets there first. Tough to explain, even tougher to beat the computer!
~Concentration~
The classic memory game. Find picture matches under covered squares within 100 turns to win nuggets.
~Freecell Solitaire~
Its solitaire 'Nuff said.
~Klondike Solitaire~
As above.
~Reversi~
The classic game of Reversi, aka. Othello. This is probably the only game which will keep me coming back here as I've yet to find another which is a single player version of it.
~Slider~
Slide the blocks to complete the picture.
~Solitaire~
Its solitaire.
~ACTION~
~Alien Invasion~
Guide your missiles into destroying the invading alien hoardes. A lot harder than it looks and strangely addictive.
~Duck Shoot~
A game thats about as exciting as it sounds. Shoot the ducks in the pond with you mouse crosshair and left button to win nuggets. each level sees the ducks get faster and you only have limited ammo. Almost fun for 2 games.
~Tail Gunner~
Another reason to perhaps come back to the site. Tail Gunner is a game which is distinclty reminiscent of the combat sequences in the classic 8-bit game Elite. You have two shoot the incoming crafts(missile or whatever they are) from your rear gunner point in a space craft before they get too close and knock out your shields.
~GAMES OF CHANCE~
~Five Bones~
5 Bones is basically Yachtzee for a single player. Flipside has a better version which can be played against upto 3 other human opponents but if you want to play alone then the option is here.
~Mother-Lode~
Mother-Load is Battleships but for a single player and with 'prospecting' in mind again to fit with the rest of the site's theme once more. Click about the place to uncover precious stones, find them all with less than 33 bad attempts and you'll get nuggets for doing so.
~Pan For Gold~
No so much "pan" as "click" for gold. You are presented with a river picture and must click about it in the hope of finding hidden treasure. Yes, its that exciting.
...so not a bad selection. I'm sure you'll excuse me for not describing every game in detail, I'm sure for example there is little need to give a description of Solitaire and such like! Most of those you can find on other game sites without having to look too hard. There is no reason for you to even think about checking out Solitaire here for example when there are a million better versions elsewhere including on the UK Flipside site where the tokens you win CAN be exchanged for prizes. The problem is that whilst these games are all very playable, there are much better examples of them all over the net, and they're not difficult to find. The trivia games are distinctly annoying because they require the page to refesh with each answer you give which isn't going to be much fun for anyone who doesn't have a nice speedy internet connection and there are also just TWO question to answer before you win the game which is a distinctive stroke of genius! Oh what fun!! I'm also not sure why you'd want to play pool alone when there are options elsewhere to play against real people(jippii.com for example although I wouldn't recommend them) and again things like the slot machines can be found at a much higher quality, and more plentifully on sites like Flipside.com and Pogo.com as can some of the arcade games.
I like to come to a site which has different games on it, so many are all becoming the same now. Flipside, iWin, Uproar are all owned by the same company and many of the games just keep migrating from site to site, or are duplicated on them. Playsite has a few original ones which is one of the reasons I keep going back there as does Pogo, but this site has little which you can say is 'new' at all other than its 'Games of Chance' which are only really going to be of interest if you can spend the nuggets which you win!
The site is however quite speedy which is something in its favour and it doesn't require that you download its software to play the games unlike somewhere like Flipside for instance. Its also relatively Ad-Free which is equally a good thing, no pop-ups the whole time I was on site and so far no junk mail clogging up my inbox either. The lack of multi-player options is a bit of a bummer, but there is a chatroom on site for that little bit of community building spirit, but its a lot more fun to play against a human opponent than to play alone even if you can chat about it later.
I haven't mentoned the prizes very much so far because for most readers its pointless knowing about them, feel free to skip on to the last paragraph unless you live in the US or can log in as a friend/family member from that continent because otherwise the prizes are NOT available to you. Goldrun will NOT ship prizes to destinations outside of the US. :o(
But...if you can enter than this is what you can do with your nuggets. Every game gives the opportunity of winning nuggets and if you play the rather easy trivia games then you have a whole bunch in a very short time indeed. With these you can enter varioues prize draws for weekly or monthy drawings or enter into the Goldrun Auctions for some nasty old tat. The prize draw section consists of three treasure chests with assorted prizes. A ticket into a drawing will cost you between 50 and 100 nuggets depending on the prize and you can enter as many times as you want. Entry is easy and looking at this months prizes you may actualy have a chance to win something because there doesn't appear to be 'that' many entries - of course, you can always argue that ths kind of site never delivers on its promises that there is a prize waiting at the end of a drawing but on the surface it looks like you may have a chance. With a few days to go, each prize has around 6-18 thousand entries, which give you a better chance here than on somewhere like Flipside which generally has 50 thousand or more! That said, the prizes on offer here aren't really worth having typical example right now being:
~Monthly Prizes~
Zenith Universal Controller/TB-5 Snowboarding Video Bonus Pack (??) Men's Dunlop Golf Set(which doesn't look too bad, but has oodles of entries - 69k and counting!) Aluminium Cookset, kids puzzle and kids periscope(can't work out the connection, but you can win them) Mustek Scanner
~Weekly Prizes~
An auto-hammer (?) Sterling silver earings (an exact same pair being worth a whopping $9 from netjewels.com) A coffee carafe Backpack Treasure - Eddie Bauer backpack, baseball cap and a Goldrun Koozie(what the hell is a koozie?)
Alternatively you can guarantee yourself a prize by entering oodles of nuggets into one of the Goldrun auctions and win some old tat by outbidding the last schmuck to enter. Typical bids are in the hundreds of thousands and right now you get to win such delights as:
A Goldrun T-Shirt (presently over 300,000 nuggets will put you in the drivers seat for that little delight!) Silver Earrings...yes the $9 delights also seen in the weekly draw section(over 200,000 nuggets might win you these) A video movie and inflatable armchair combo...the video will be picked at random and will be the site's choice(over 300,00 nuggets will put you in with a chance of winning this as well)
...so like I said, no one in the UK is really missing out on not being able to enter for the prize draws, although the option would have been nice! 300,000 nuggets sounds like alot to win a crappy T-shirt or a $9 set of earrings but I suppose if you enjoy the games then its something for nothing, but bear in mind too that there is a limit on you winning 10,000 nuggets within a 24 hours time period, anything more is just discarded! Winners to the draws are chosen at random by a computer, winners to auctions are the person who entered the last winning bid before the close of the draw - so expect to be outbid at the last second by some lowlife desperate for a $9 set of earrings ;o)
Overall, Goldrun.com isn't a bad site its just not one of the best out there. If you could win prizes(no matter how naff) then it might spice up the games a little but as most of us can't then it just comes down to game quality on whether you'll keep coming back - and to be fair, these aren't the best examples you can find online. Goldrun is worth a look, but probably not a site you'll be visiting too often. I recommend you check out Flipside(US site), Playsite, Pogo or Uproar(US site) before you think about coming here, because they are far better!
....or try www.kungfuchess.com for real time chess!
Be careful that the US flipside site doesn't just redirect you to the inferior UK site which it has a tendency to do. Look for the US flag on the UK homepage if it does and click through from there because the US site is far better.
