GameTap-gold is not available in Europe any more. Somewhere in January 2008 I opted to temporarily become a non-paying subscriber to Gametap with plans to reactivate the gold status somewhere later down the line - just to save a little money I thought.

Seems like Gametap lost contracts with EA, Interplay and Atari and 70+ titles are being removed from the system.

You may have noticed (hopefully with some sadness!) that I haven't been posting as much as I usually do here on Armchair Arcade. Part of the reason is that I've been overloaded with school work (this is finals week), but the true reason is that I've become a GameTapaholic. Don't get me wrong--the system is not without its faults, and is not available in Europe. However, it's far too easy to get sucked into games like Baldur's Gate again and end up losing days and even weeks of productivity. It's really hard to believe how much is available! Nevertheless, while there are plenty of classic games to keep you busy, we can't ignore the Sam & Max series. As far as I know, these are only available on GameTap, and well worth the price of admission.

Well, I've recently been taking advantage of a 3-month freebie subscription to check out the infamous GameTap service, which, for those of you who haven't been keeping up with Bill's many posts on it, is a sort of "cable" for gamers. Following my "first glance" at the system after some 5 hours of exploration.

In the world of videogames, there are few times when something that failed has been given a second chance at success. GameTap has certainly done its part with not only bringing officially licensed emulation to PC users in the US, but also by taking on classic properties cast-off by their original publishers, such as "Sam & Max" and "Myst Online: Uru Live". It's the latter for which we have the latest press release, direct from GameTap. While I have the original game sent by a friend who used to work at Ubisoft, I never did get a chance to try it. I'm certainly not the biggest Myst fan out there, but I do have countless conversions of the original that started it all and this massively multiplayer version does seem intriguing and takes some of the best elements from the later games. As a GameTap subscriber myself, I'll definitely try to check this re-launch out.

The full press release follows:

To the average Armchair Arcader, it's a self-evident truth that classic old games like Joust, Galaga, and Frogger are just as fun to play (if not more so) as the latest "AAA Title." The popularity of retrogaming as a whole has recently surged in both the PC and console markets, and more and more people are discovering (or re-discovering) the joys of classic games. However, as any child of the 80s knows, a big part of the thrill associated with retrogaming isn't just the games, but rather the competitive atmosphere of the arcade. In these dimly lit dens of digital delinquency, a generation honed their hand-eye coordination in exhilerating coin-op competition. These deftly-wristed heroes fought for personal glory--specifically, the glory of entering their initials into the high score tables kept by the arcade machines. It's certainly no coincidence that the arcade machines one still finds alongside pool tables and dartboards in smoky taverns are classics like Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga: These games are designed to be played in social environments.

GameTap for PCFor those following the ongoing GameTap saga on Armchair Arcade, for instance here, I recently signed up and finally gave it a whirl. What follows are some stream of consciousness first impressions...

I got a chance last night into early this morning to play around with GameTap on my MAME arcade machine in between paying bills, backing up my main PC and working out (don't ask). If you remember, the arcade cabinet contains a fairly high end 1GB PC with a 128MB ArcadeVGA card (ATI-based) and 27" Wells Gardner arcade PC monitor. I have a regular mouse and keyboard inside the cabinet, but use the main control panel as my primary means of doing most things, save for typing. It has a plethora of buttons, three joysticks, a trackball and a spinner.