alt Hacker NewsIt's not quite as stylish as these, but my personal favorite video game site was the Super Smash Bros. Brawl blog site, which had its heyday around 2007 or so.
https://web.archive.org/web/20071001132450/http://www.smashb...
It was the first time I had ever seen pre-release information about a game, and I checked the site religiously. The game director himself wrote all the posts, and it felt like a revolutionary way to get me excited about the game.
That blog definitely established character reveal drip feeds as the way to build hype for a fighting game (or similar genres like hero shooters), even today when it involves stupid things like announcing Ronaldo for the new Saudi-funded Fatal Fury.