I'll be honest. I was never a fan of the original ReviewTrax design. Time constraints forced me to throw that thing together in less than a week after finishing the tech, and it showed. What you see now is the layout I had originally envisioned - and it's part one of numerous changes coming soon to the site.

Here's what's new:

Dark on Light to Light on Dark
As you've probably noticed, the dark color scheme from the old layout is no more, replaced with a light-colored design instead. It allows the site to maintain a more professional look, which I also believe many will find easier on the eyes. It was also part of the initial design doc - it just took a little while to implement.

Home Page Tweaks
The home page has seen only minor changes, but they're good ones. The New Releases section has been expanded upward to allow for more games to be shown without adding to the height of the design. The right navigation bar also includes links to more content across the site.

The New Game Page
The game page has been completely overhauled to take advantage of the new design and its features. The top of each page now includes a numeric breakdown of all reception ratings, and has been formatted to maximize horizontal space. The right navigation bar lists the new releases, so you can find other titles with less forced navigation. The old review list has been gutted in favor of a new theme, which includes publication logos and author pictures, if applicable. Authors now have priority on these pages, since writer names and images are always shown before the publications they represent.

Author and Publication Pages
There have been only a few modifications made to the author and publication pages. Each shares the same header that game pages have, with a better breakdown of user reviews. Additionally, author pages now display job titles, which we'll update whenever that information has been made publicly available.

Best of 2010
Despite limited promotion, people seemed to like the Best of 2009 listing that went up late last year. As such, I've thrown together a version for this year as well. Now, it'll function in real-time, automatically updating as more critic and user reviews roll in.

ReviewTrax on The Go
ReviewTrax now has a section specifically designed for modern mobile browsers. It's lightweight and includes all of the basic functionality you'd expect from an aggregator, including new release lists, game filtering, critic reviews, and our powerful search engine. It loads more than 100% faster than the full site on most handhelds, so it's highly recommended for when you're not at your computer. It can be found at http://mobile.reviewtrax.com or http://m.reviewtrax.com.

The Less Numbers, The Better
The PseudoScore is likely the only casualty of the redesign. It was actually quietly shut down earlier in the month because I felt that it became redundant when combined with the new game pages. More importantly, it also clashed with the philosophy behind the site. Old users who haven't switched it off yet will find that it still may be active - this will eventually correct itself. In the meantime, these users can forcefully shut it down in the settings menu.

It Goes Faster
While the site was already pretty fast, there have been a quite a few optimizations that should provide speedier page access. Specifically, the search engine and game pages have both been tweaked to allow for quicker loading.

Coming Soon
There's quite a bit more planned, but before any of that happens, I'm going to take a hard look at both the publication and author lists and update them as needed. There are a few publications on probationary status that require some attention, but I am also interested in adding a few more quality outlets. Authors are a little trickier, and I may add automated criteria to determine whether or not specific author pages are generated.

Feedback, It's Important
All of these changes came about as a result of the feedback I've received so far. I'm always interested in more, so feel free to e-mail me or post any suggestions, criticism, or feedback you may have. I make an effort to read everything that comes my way, so please let me know what you think.