OFFICIAL
79.0
pretty good |
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Content
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| Quality : |
16.5 / 20 |
| Quantity : |
13.5 / 15 |
| Entertain : |
13.0 / 15 |
| Updates : |
7.5 / 10 |
| Exclusive : |
5.0 / 05 |
| Download : |
3.0 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
58.5 / 70 |
| Navigation |
| Easy : |
7.5 / 10 |
| Features : |
3.0 / 05 |
| Design : |
2.5 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
13.0 / 20 |
| Other |
| Originality : |
4.0 / 05 |
| Hard Facts : |
3.0 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
7.0 / 10 |
Scoring Criteria
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| Editor: Duke |
Initial Review: 06-13-05 |
| Follow-Up Review(s): 06-24-09 |
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1. Year of archives, lot of pics & vids.
2. Amateur & straigtht guy themes.
3. Steady updates, constant growth.
1. Design/navigation are choppy & rough.
2. Varying content quality, download limit.
"Buk Buddies has years of archives featuring amateur & straight guy photo/video shoots." |
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Buk Buddies isn't the prettiest site I've run across although something on the tour did surprise me. I'm talking about the "Free Mega Tour" where there quite a lot of free sample pics are available to non-members. This is one of those sites where they lay things out rather clearly and don't try to hide behind a flashy tour. The page design of the tour model index is identical to what members see with the obvious difference being that members get access to all the galleries in full. Spend time browsing the free section and you'll be able to tell whether or not Buk Buddies has a collection of dudes you want to see.
A big deal is made out of these being straight male hunks but occasional galleries have dudes doing some posing together. Also, on the bottom of the front tour page there's hardcore gay samples and a link over to another hardcore gay site. Overall the content offered is mostly solo guys so it's a well suited for an audience of either gay dudes or women. The site does refer to some of the content as "hardcore", and that basically means a dude jerking off by himself.
The pictures are exclusive and there's quite a bit of variety to the shoots. Lots of different locations are used including many outdoor settings. Pic quality is pretty good with sharpness being more of a strong point than size. What I would like to see is a clearer layout for each model's galleries, they're somewhat difficult to navigate right now. That's especially true when it comes to videos. The vids are listed on each models page (those that have vids) and there's no separate section for the site's movies. That makes it tough to figure out what kind of an overall movies collection the site has to offer. One redeeming quality though is that the quality of the WMV files I saw was very high. This video quality is a definite asset to Buk Buddies.
Something that could use touching up is the price. First, if you check the membership options you'll see this site is expensive at $38/mo or $21 for 7-days (non-recurring billing). What's more frustrating are links in the galleries that promote joining as a recurring member for just $24.99/mo. When I followed those links to the join page that price wasn't available, all I saw was the higher prices mentioned earlier. I'm sure the high price turns off a lot of surfers who might otherwise join. I don't see why it's so expensive especially since they're also selling DVDs at the BukBuddies store and have links to other paysites. You'd think those things would allow them to lower the basic membership here, but that's not the case.
| 1st Follow-Up Review |
Review: 06-24-09 |
Several years have gone by since TBP’s initial review of BukBuddies so a follow-up review is in order. Continual updates have allowed Buk to compile a sizable database of guys and both the gallery and video counts are impressive. An update log shows the weekly additions and that list goes back all the way to the beginning of the site. The collection continues to feature solo guy stripping, posing, and masturbation with the occasional two guy shoot. As it stands it is now a solid collection that incorporates both amateur and straight guy niches.
A model index remains the main navigation tool but in addition there is a separate “Video Archive” page for just the movie content which is good to see. While they have the basics covered with the update log, models index, and video page the overall design is still rough-around-the-edges. For instance the video page is one long text list without preview pics and requiring lots of scrolling. Content quality has improved as time has gone by with newer vids in decent quality WMV and Flash options. On the price issue they’ve settled on a standard $24.99/mo rate with some other non-recurring choices too. Overall the main think Buk Buddies has to offer is the sizable and well balanced collection of pics and vids and based on their track record they’re likely to continue to add on to what’s already here.
Score increased from 74.0 to 79.0.
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