GameTap

[ilya]

...is getting pretty awesome. for those who don't know it's a PC-based game-download service with a flat monthly fee. you can keep old games while downloading new ones as long as you remain a customer and have enough space on your hard drive, although to play them you have to go through the GameTap front end. at first it seemed like a place for the old OLD school console fans...their collection consisted mostly of conversions of classic games for the Atari 2600, the Commodore, and other prehistoric consoles.

But lately they've been adding more good stuff, including less-old console games and a LOT of good PC games, some of them pretty recent. They've got Baldur's Gate I & II, Icewind Dale I & II, Planescape: Torment, Splinter Cell Original & Pandora Tomorrow, Far Cry, Civ III, Tropico, Ghost Recon (ok, just the first one for now), Second Sight, both Seroius Sam games, two of the new Prince of Persia games (and all the old ones), etc etc

Oh, and they'll soon have XCom: UFO Defense.

It's about $10/month and for me, between GameTap and Gamefly I feel like I'll rarely need or want to buy a game again.

[grandgnu]

Yeah, those games are great, if you're still gaming on a Celeron 600mhz.

Me n' my Intel Core 2 Duo 6600 with a 512MB ATI Radeon X1900XT don't have time for that stuff, what with all the fancy gee-whiz-bang graphical games nowadays.

Although I do miss Sid Meiers Gettysburg. Heck, I miss Champions of Krynn and War of the Lance from my ol' Commodore 64 days.

Still, I've got Battlefield 2, Medieval Total War 2, Galactic Civilizations II, Half-Life 2, even Sims 2, to keep me occupied.

Toss in some Company of Heroe's and The Elder Scrolls Oblivion and it's any wonder I find time to stuff my face morning, noon n' night!

[GetThere1Time]

Wow this sounds really awesome. I didnt know their game list was that huge. I'm def gonna check this out.

[MrWookie]

I'm tempted solely because of XCom. XCom is easily one of the very best games of all time, pixelated graphics at all. Personally, the only game I'd put up with it at the top is the original Half-Life.

It's $10/month, and if I cancel, I can't play any of the games anymore? Hmmm.

[Dazarath]

I'm tempted to sign up just to play some of those old adventure games I never got to play before. Too bad they don't have the Monkey Island games.

[JuntMonkey]

Any catch to the $0.99 first month other than having to cancel?

[ilya]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm tempted solely because of XCom. XCom is easily one of the very best games of all time, pixelated graphics at all. Personally, the only game I'd put up with it at the top is the original Half-Life.

It's $10/month, and if I cancel, I can't play any of the games anymore? Hmmm.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you like XCom, you'll probably appreciate that they also have Jagged Alliance 2.

I think it's a good deal even though you can't play the games unless you remain a paying member...the front end looks good and has convenient features to help you find and organize games. There's an integrated instant messenger and lots of multiplayer features including leaderboards and the ability to play games like Street Fighter live against other people. The software loads quickly and is stable.

[ilya]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, those games are great, if you're still gaming on a Celeron 600mhz.

[/ QUOTE ]

Those games are great if you're gaming on a $15,000 Falcon Northwest with a quad core processor, 4 gigs of RAM, and dual 786mb video cards.

That's not to say Company of Heroes and Oblivion and Battlefield 2 and other new, power-hungry games aren't awesome also.

[raptor517]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, those games are great, if you're still gaming on a Celeron 600mhz.

[/ QUOTE ]

Those games are great if you're gaming on a $15,000 Falcon Northwest with a quad core processor, 4 gigs of RAM, and dual 786mb video cards.

That's not to say Company of Heroes and Oblivion and Battlefield 2 and other new, power-hungry games aren't awesome also.

[/ QUOTE ]

i have 4 gigs of ram, but i havent played a game that requires more than 256mb ever i dont think. yay for multitabling and no slowdown ever.

[grandgnu]

[ QUOTE ]

Those games are great if you're gaming on a $15,000 Falcon Northwest with a quad core processor, 4 gigs of RAM, and dual 786mb video cards.

That's not to say Company of Heroes and Oblivion and Battlefield 2 and other new, power-hungry games aren't awesome also.

[/ QUOTE ]

I custom-built mine. Why pay some chuckleheads 3-4 grand extra for a fancy logo and special watercooling (which nabs you 1/2 a frame per second of additional gaming goodness) when you can build your own?

My system (now a few months old) was about $1600:

Lian Li Case
500W Modular Power Supply
ATI X1900XT 512MB Grahpics Card
2GB of DDR2
1/2 Terabyte of Hard Drive Space
Sound Blaster Audigy 4 (should've gotten the Xi-Fi)
16x DVD Drive
16x DVD Burner +/- RW

Anyway, what I'm saying is, you can get plenty of power without buying the absolute most expensive items on the block.

[ QUOTE ]
i have 4 gigs of ram, but i havent played a game that requires more than 256mb ever i dont think. yay for multitabling and no slowdown ever.


[/ QUOTE ]

It may be your processor that comes into play with handling the multiple tables and slowdown, although RAM can be important too. Depends on what programs you're using and what they make use of.

I used to run on a 3Ghz P4 that I overclocked and I had 1GB of Ram, but still experienced slowdown when I initially got BF2. I thought it was my graphics card, which was the aging Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB card.

After doing some checking online, I found that all I needed to do was bump to at least 1.5GB of system memory and any LAG that hit disappeared, as the game uses around 1.2-1.3 GB most of the time.