After forgetting to have the details ready for the next part of Moss Side Barrow Boy again, I'm going to write a site review instead. Despite my evident doziness, this might work out better as there is a danger of ver Stuff becoming fiction-heavy, and variety is always to be recommended. Who to choose for a probing review is a decision that has practically been made for me anyway, as Lima's departure from The Full 90 Mins makes this site almost ripe for judgement. Can they live without him? What does the future hold? And was it any good in the first place?

In many ways, Lima going couldn't have happened at a worse time for TF90. I think I'm right in thinking that he was the first to consider a CM alternative to Big Brother, with sites from around the scene taking the place of Jade and the other big thickos. Evidently, the project - still only a week old - had all the credentials of becoming a very popular feature, with 'housemates' happy to hype it up on their own webspace to create all the buzz necessary. An unfortunate side effect was that it precipitated a number of other stabs at BB contests, many of them identical, which is probably always going to happen in a scene pockmarked Ziege-style with webmasters whinging about having nothing to write about. But this isn't their problem. With its nice design that was inspired by the original idea, and daily updates, BB was a notable ratings winner, much like in real life.

The future for this feature is now in some considerable doubt. Mike Sand, who has been left to run TF90, has announced that he intends to keep the competition going, but is dropping the daily updates. To an extent, this is fair enough. Lima posted some inane comments each day about the personalities, and was looking to speak to people involved as often as possible to reflect diary room scenarios (I found some garbled nonsense I had spewed up one evening whilst considerably the worse for wear on the site the next day, but that's reality TV at it's best, or worst) and this will be missed. Instead, we will be kept up to date with nominations and evictions, but the actual BB-referential content being shunted out makes it into another 'Scene Survivor' (run originally by Horny Jim at CM Addict) with a more famous title. I will await Mike's progress with great interest.

On the face of it, Mike heads a good-sized team of staff, and you are in fact invited to nominate which of these is the best, in TF90's slightly narcissistic poll. With Gunnar (USA), Philipe (Brazil), Danny (England), Yushi (Israel) and Ian (Scotland) the site has an almost international tournament of contributors, and should be in reasonably healthy shape. However it has become clear that Lima was the driving force in recent weeks, with few updates occurring that did not have the BB touch. This left me to rifle through the site's drawers for all the dirty knickers and bras I could find in an effort to uncover the essence of TF90. Here's what I found.

Ignoring the Game Info section (nothing you would want to see here, unless you'd like to read what each edition of CM features once more), I sloped over to the Downloads HQ, though it is not an area I would often visit. And I didn't stay long either, as each utility, editor and demo came from somewhere else. Game Guides was more promising. All right, so much of the content on offer can be found all over the show, but the page was neatly divided into clear categories, and the guides were generally very well written (particularly when Yushi was behind them). I found the Technical Guides to be the most useful, because issues such as why the game might crash and the reasons for patches crop up as subjects all the time on forums. People want this kind of information, and what is there comes across as concise and user-friendly. Much of the rest, from its advice on how to stay solvent (sample quote - "If you do end up going into the red then sell, sell, sell. You need money") to a glance at the best players (Veron, van Nistelrooy and Crespo are all recommended, to those of you who are living in the 1980s) are eminently missable. Do stop to take a look at the General Options Guides, though. These might not tell you anything that isn't already had hammered into you, but they are readable.

Onto Articles, an area I am always interested in. There is quite a number for you to wade through here, and TF90 clearly went into overdrive during the World Cup as it has its own mini-section. The rest are halved off between CM articles and those about something called football, and there is some good entertainment to be had. Many moan about the frustrations of ChampMan, which is always worthwhile stuff, and the best of the bunch were probably penned by the sadly departed Dr Ice. What did rankle was the average length of the pieces on offer. You already know how long I spend working through an article on Stuff. Anything under 1,000 words in length I consider to be largely scratching the surface (unless your question is 'Can Bryan Robson manage?' which deserves a one-word answer, or two if you really don't like him). Weighing in at little more than 250 words usually, most TF90 articles barely pierced the skin of their subjects, and never gave themselves the chance to build up any argument such was the summarial tone. Disappointing. Stories was - in tandem with the current scheme of things - almost deserted, though the Arsenal tale did show some early signs of promise.

Players are here as well (aren't they always?) and thankfully TF90 goes down the route of writing something about each of its entrants instead of putting together an anonymous database. The in-depth player reviews were hardly that at around 150 words per suspect, and the lack of content within the various sub-sections suggested that this is an area under some considerable development. The Team Reviews I liked; these are quite rigorous in their appraisals, though some of their comments are rather sweeping. In the Middlesbrough summation, they recommend signing Agostinho as though he will be the answer to all their prayers. If I was being picky, I would suggest that TF90's team reviews perhaps choose obvious targets for assessment. You won't find any lower league sides here, leaving a set of critiques of giant clubs you already know about.

I don't want to go too deeply into their Scene pages, as I am already going to exceed the 1500-word mark (heavy editing aside), but hey that's the quality of a Stuff review for you. Or not. In any case, there are the same sections we all seem to possess these days - site and scene reviews, interviews and favourites. The former are a little short for my liking, as with the articles not really advancing beyond the first post. As an example of this, their assessment of Under Pressure notes that content is added frequently, but doesn't actually go into the nature of said content, or whether it is worth your time (it is, incidentally). The rigid categorisation of various aspects to the site reviews doesn't do them any favours either, as the same system can't be weighed equally to look at both, say, Project CM (content-heavy) and The Dugout (resource-based). Their latest scene round up was brief but to the point, which is fine by me, though I noted with some concern that The Dugout was still listed as a Top Site. I can only hope ver Stuff is considered so after a period of such idleness.

On a more general note, I was hugely impressed by the design of TF90, and indeed along with BB this is a very strong point for them. Though the site has gone for a standard layout, graphical quality is high throughout, with images prettying up content where possible without cluttering the space available. I still think that Davids is checking out Zidane's bald patch on the banner, but I am in a weak position to chide when a certain banner on the scene clearly depicts Ronaldo about to give oral relief to the invisible man. Dear oh dear. As/if TF90 develops, I would be surprised if I didn't see them attempt to develop the graphics side of their portfolio, as the potential is there. On the downside, there are numerous examples of sloppy English, which as many of you will know is my personal sore point. When I read poor grammar or misspelled words it is like the sound of someone scraping their nails along the surface of a blackboard, or watching a Mark Schwarzer goalkick. I do, however, appreciate that not all of the contributors are native English speakers so the black mark can be demoted to a brown stain. That's worse really, isn't it?

Despite a review that has in places been like a Victor Lewis-Smith assassination, I like this site a lot, and so does much of the scene. If the incumbents can get over Lima's shock exit they could do well. Mike has recently noted that he is likely to keep BB as the main focus of the site for the time being, which I personally see as a mistake. With the newness of the competition due to wear thin at any moment, especially without the momentum-gathering daily updates, TF90 is in danger of becoming little more than a novelty itself. There's nothing wrong with scene-based content, but this must be updated in tandem with other work. The alternative is that this fine-looking site will become something of a mirror, reflecting the scene but being quite shallow in itself.