I’ve recently been caught waxing poetic about my growing fondness for Gametap. You’ll pardon my, well, slight embarassment that this was the first story from our site to be mentioned in the ECA weekly newsletter (available by joining the ECA at their site), as it’s very close to the sort of fluff that I make a habit of sneering at while navigating gaming news sites in a quest for meat of substance.

Regardless, I maintain that Gametap is quickly approaching a requirement for gamers who consider themselves as such, both as a resource to investigate the trappings of the mediums past, and as a way to play and support games that got lost in the shuffle of “bigger” releases. However, I promise to stop gushing so much about the service when they stop getting better. Over at the Gametap forums, a moderator has spilled the beans on some future releases that are moving the monthly Gametap charge on my account from “pizza” to “cell phone bill” in terms of priority level. Next up for the service are the Bloodrayne series (a guilty pleasure of mine actually), the Thief series, and a personal favorite (and fellow folicularly deprived individual), Agent 47 and all of the Hitman titles. At this point, if Gametap accepted donations, I would consider it.

And then the aforementioned moderator mentioned Legacy of Kain and Wing Commander IV. I might as well just have them deduct their service fee from my paycheck like taxes.

-Aegies

It’s been a miraculous conversion of sorts for me over the past 2 months for Gametap; while previously, I felt like Gametap consisted mainly of old console and arcade games that are more easily (and, erm, freely) emulated in other ways, they’ve made huge strides over just those last 2 months to be much more of a relevant gaming portal than they ever were. Sure, getting Tomb Raider: Anniversary on day one (before the 360 and Wii no less) was a big deal, but more fundamentally, they’ve begun to serve as a sort of second home to games that never really got their shot.

Look at the more timely releases they’ve added to the service this year, and you have a who’s who of critical gems that never really saw big sales numbers, including Beyond Good & Evil and only a few weeks ago a personal favorite, Psychonauts. What’s more, in recent months, the service has slowly been adding Sega Saturn titles, a system that sold only around 4-5 million consoles in North America (if even that). The Saturn’s incredibly, er, complicated architecture has made emulation of the console more or less nonexistent, and finding a working system is difficult as well. Should you surmount either of those two obstacles, try looking for a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga on eBay. I hope you’re old enough to remember when cartridge based games were 80 dollars; otherwise, you may be in for a rude awakening. While Saga isn’t yet available on the service, I somehow get the impression that it will be, and in the meantime, you have Panzer Dragoon and Panzer Dragoon II to get you ready, as well as one of the more fun/underappreciated platformers of the 32-bit era, Clockwork Knight.

Oh, and if there was ever a Neo Geo fighting game you wanted to play, Gametap is your new friend. The Fatal Fury games, Art of Fighting, King of Fighters, and finally Samurai Showdown have all had multiple installments become available over the last two months.

Finally, Gametap has also been making strides to introduce more recent titles to the service, something that is adding to its value immensely. Recent games that have been very competent yet had the misfortune of releasing in the midst of heavier hitters are getting that second chance, including this week’s Rogue Trooper, a game that got pretty good reviews, and on June 28th, Project: Snowblind, a sort of offshoot of the Deus Ex series. These titles have also recently released on Steam, but their appearance on Gametap, combined with the rest of their library, is more of a selling point for me. So add these newer titles to the great sort of history of gaming that the site’s resources offer, and the introductory .99 cent price for the first month of Gametap, and really, how could I say no?

Thoughts?

-Aegies

GameTap has officially gone live with its free service.  Though those who sign up won’t be able to access all the games, it will give them a nice taste of what the service has to offer.  The GameTap library will rotate for those who are participating in the free service, while those who pay will have access to all the games and without the advertisements.

Also up is the GameTap digital retail store.  Here you can purchase not only new games, such as the much anticipated Tomb Raider:  Anniversary (available today), but older titles as well.  To see what content will soon be available go here.

More awesome than just the fact that there is a free service is the additions to the GameTap page.  Now players can get a free account and have access to GameTap forums.  The new version of the GameTap page feels much more community oriented.  There are forums for all kinds of topics including one that is dedicated to setting up matches between players.

Don’t go getting your hopes up though that you’ll be playing all the best the service has to offer for free.  The non-Gold GameTap service does not currently offer the Sam & Max games and it will not offer the new Tomb Raider game.  For these my friend, you must go Gold.

While I can’t say that the pay service of GameTap is something that everyone will enjoy enough to feel that the monetary investment is worth it, I can say that it is something worth a try.  If nothing else you should just check out the improved site and see what it’s all about.  We’re pretty big fans so far, but we’re also big enough suckers to pay.

Chufmoney

GameTap is moving towards a new model where they will offer numerous games free of charge. They are seeking to garner the attention of the casual audience who isn’t interested in paying the 10$ a month to check out the services. While not all games will be made available to those who want to check out the site for free, several selections, rated up to T, will be accessible to players thanks to the inclusion of advertisements. Players who wish to access all games and have ad free content can do so by paying the subscription fee of 9.95 a month.

(more…)