[General Discussion] Gametap - Kinda sorta worth it

I'd been toying with the idea of trying out Gametap for awhile, and last month I finally caved in and gave it a shot. Now that I've tried it for several weeks I figured I would give a little review on here for anyone else who may be interested.

For those who are unaware: Gametap is a game-download service provided by Turner Broadcasting and Time Warner. It currently has a library of over 600 games covering a range of companies and systems including, but not limited to, Sega Genesis, Dreamcast, Arcade games, Neo-Geo, Atari, Commodore 64, and DOS/Windows.

So how does it compare to plain old piracy? I'll list some pros and cons:
Pros

It's convenient having all of these game titles in one spot, especially the PC games. I was actually surprised to see that some of the games available on Gametap are a little newer (Splinter Cell, Tomb Raider, Uru, Homeworld 2). The game list also covers a wide range of genres, so it encourages you to try games you may not have otherwise considered. Also, I'm not aware of any working Dreamcast emulators yet, so the inclusion of some Dreamcast games is a definite plus.

Cons

The Gametap interface is (to put it bluntly) kinda stupid. They couldn't just give you a simple window with a list of game titles, but instead they had to cook up a cool, hip, 3D-ish environment with streaming movies. Essentially, they're advertisements for things within Gametap which I have no interest in anyway. It's all very unnecessary, and if I'm paying a $10 a month I really don't see why I can't disable it.

Which brings me to another con of Gametap: It's not very configurable. The Settings menu lets you change the display settings (for the program and emulated games which run in its window), controls for individual games, storage, and the ever so important Family options. Personally, I would like more options for configuring Gametap itself. For instance, you can use a USB controller in all the Gametap menus, but you can't reassign the buttons. I would also like to keep Gametap from downloading all of its mini-movies to my hard drive, which I recently discovered were eating up a ton of space.

But most importantly, you can't configure the emulators. This is less important for console games which have their own menus, but for Arcade games it means you can't change difficulty settings or access certain features.

Overall, I can't say I recommend Gametap as a replacement for emulators. If you're still interested, check their game list for titles that are harder to emulate. They've also got a first two weeks free deal going on, so you can still try it without paying anything. Otherwise, Gametap is just too limited compared to emulation.

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How accurate is Gametap compared to freeware emulation? I certainly like the idea of this as well, however I don't have the money and right now I don't think it's Mac compatible.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Magic

But most importantly, you can't configure the emulators. This is less important for console games which have their own menus, but for Arcade games it means you can't change difficulty settings or access certain features.

Not that I condone this, but playing devil's advocate, it may well be to keep online scores honest. Not much fun trying to get on the Galaga board, say, if it's chock full of maxed scores gleaned from dip switch options.

As for Gametap itself, I can't get it, as my computer and connection aren't up to the task. But it does seem a bit poorly thought out. I think I remember hearing that most of its high-end stuff is all Ubisoft, and the titles they offer, such as Beyond Good & Evil and Rayman 2, can be bought and kept for less than $10 at any used game store.

Maybe if they offered something not-easily accessible, such as imported Saturn shooters, then I'd want to try it, but not currently, no.

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Originally Posted by SonicPanda

Not that I condone this, but playing devil's advocate, it may well be to keep online scores honest. Not much fun trying to get on the Galaga board, say, if it's chock full of maxed scores gleaned from dip switch options.

The solution is to simply have multiple scoreboards with modifiers for different advantages and disadvantages. Kinda like how every continue in Street Fighter adds 1 to your score.

Originally Posted by guyinrubbersuit

How accurate is Gametap compared to freeware emulation? I certainly like the idea of this as well, however I don't have the money and right now I don't think it's Mac compatible.

What do you mean by accurate? As far as I can tell, all the games work the way they're supposed to.

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