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Content
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| Quality : |
17.5 / 20 |
| Quantity : |
13.0 / 15 |
| Entertain : |
13.5 / 15 |
| Updates : |
7.5 / 10 |
| Exclusive : |
5.0 / 05 |
| Download : |
4.0 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
60.5 / 70 |
| Navigation |
| Easy : |
9.0 / 10 |
| Features : |
2.5 / 05 |
| Design : |
3.5 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
15.0 / 20 |
| Other |
| Originality : |
4.5 / 05 |
| Hard Facts : |
3.0 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
7.5 / 10 |
Scoring Criteria New
New Update!
As of Aug 15th, 07, price of a site is no longer factored into the overall score/rank. |
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1. Nice quality video episodes.
2. Original British amateur guys.
3. Mix of softcore & hardcore.
1. No clips, only full-length vid files.
2. Could use faster journal updates.
"Blake Mason's specialty is high quality videos of British amateur guys." |
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Blake Mason is a clean cut amateur gay site. The guest tour and member's areas are well designed and it's clear as day what the site is all about. Besides the sample pics of all the shoots there are sections for "Who is Blake Mason?", "Want to Model?", charity support, and Mason's Diary. It's an exclusive collection of hardcore and softcore shoots with an emphasis on quality over quantity. With updates every Thursday and Sunday the site will continue to grow but its purpose is not to be a megasite. Their focus is to provide members with original British amateur scenes. For anyone who digs guys with British accents this would make for a good choice.
Each shoot has the model name(s), a write up of the shoot background, and some sample pics. It's also possible to click over to see a model bio for each guy. The pics are definitely meant to serve as a guide to the scene more than as a major part of the content. Blake Mason's value is in the videos. Scenes start with an introduction which I enjoyed. The banter between Mason and the performers can be fun to watch and it certainly gives the action an amateur feel. Solo shoots make up the majority of scenes although there's a good number of guy/guy and I also saw one threesome. For a site of this nature it's a respectable mix of action that I found to be a definite asset.
The videos are not broken into clips. Instead different quality levels are offered for downloading each full-length file: low-res, medium-res, and high-res. Streaming is also available and those play in a normal stand-alone media player. The high-res vids look very impressive and the medium-res are sharp too. Aside from the high quality level the other notable thing about the vids is the DRM setup they have in place. DRM of course restricts viewing on files even when downloaded to your computer. In this case it's not so bad since they give 365 days of viewing. They actually explain that they give the models a choice to have their content taken off the site after 18 months which is the reason for the restriction. Of course most of us aren't concerned with the reason, it's more important to know that after the year is up the videos will no longer play. As far as DRM goes this is worth noting but it's definitely one of the looser restrictions I've seen from sites using that technology.
Blake Mason has a solid foundation upon which to continue to grow. The content has variety, exclusivity, and high quality videos. Expansion is what I'll be looking for in future follow ups with more models and more hardcore. The price is pretty decent so aside from the DRM there's no real negatives that you need to be aware of. Browsing around the guest section will let you know if these are the types of guys and shoots that you're interested in seeing.
| 1st Follow-Up Review |
Review: 08-04-06 |
First thing first, Blake has dropped the DRM restrictions on the videos which is great. They weren't very restrictive anyways so it was an excellent decision to do away with that all together. The site design and updates pace of a new episode every 3-4 days continue on as before. The number of episodes and overall content quantity are clearly better than at the time of our initial review. For more recent updates it seems they've gone to a pattern of alternating updates with one hardcore followed by a softcore scene. My initial review pointed to the hardcore and softcore balance as an asset so this updates system will maintain and strengthen that part of the site.
Score increased from 78.3 to 80.6.
| 2nd Follow-Up Review |
Review: 06-21-07 |
Blake Mason continues to grow and as of the time of this follow-up review (June '07) they have 200+ episodes. Blake's journal entries also are steady at one new entry every week or two. The overall balance of hardcore and softcore which I admire about the collection remains in place. In fact, taking a look at the most recent month’s additions I see a bit more of an emphasis on the hardcore and even group scenes. Basically they've stuck to their guns and keep growing the site with original British content.
Score increased from 80.6 to 83.0.
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