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Howdy guys, I've been looking to buy a few older games that I can't find easily that aren't on GOG, but noticed that GameTap has several of these games along with others that I've considered.
For ten bucks a month, this service seems like a steal. But I'm worried that there is a catch... can anybody tell me a little bit more about this, and whether or not it's good?
Searching is good for ye soul.
Well, thank you for the link. It makes me sad, but better than paying and then finding out it sucks.
Yeah you're not missing out on much. Ever since they sold out to metaboli their quality has plummeted. It used to be a pretty awesome service, great for arcade games, when they had the actual client. Now that it's all browser based... meh.
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Gamerkought: Yeah you're not missing out on much. Ever since they sold out to metaboli their quality has plummeted. It used to be a pretty awesome service, great for arcade games, when they had the actual client. Now that it's all browser based... meh.

It does show that French people ruin things.
Browser based = epic fail
The client was waaaaaaay cool. Now they just fail...
Well dang, maybe they can fix it some day, it seems like a cool idea. Or, who knows, maybe OnLive will trump it if they actually manage to make that work well at all.
Thanks for the comments on it!
Well, I'm still a subscriber, but I still wouldn't recommend it yet. The browser player is still glitchy and you still can't play the Windows games in a 64 bit OS. Like I said in the other thread, my sub expires in October. I'm not going to quit early, but as of right now, I'm not going to re-up with them. I'm still in with the $60 a year pricing. But a new yearly sub is now $70 or $80 (I can't remember). My HTPC is 32 bit Vista Ultimate with an integrated ATI X1250 video card. Not a great set up, but it played plenty of Windows games just fine in the old player and I could do it on a 37" HDTV. Now I can only play a few Windows games with the new player. Thanks goodness I have two XP machines to play on.
The thing that really pisses me off about this whole situation is that they didn't do enough testing before they released it. Reading their comments on the forum, it looks like they didn't have much time before Turner pulled the plug on the old player and servers. But Metoboli already had a player set up for their service and could have done a lot more of the Beta testing with Gametap volunteers than they did.
I hate to say this - I have gametap and generally I wouldn't recommend it either unless you are good at debugging your own stuff. There are good games and when they work its not too bad. But if you have problems the customer support is pretty worthless and when the player /game craps out it rarely gives you usable information to fix the problem yourself. I will probably not renew next year. The new player is much worse than the original; and they once had good customer support.
I've had nothing but bad experiences with GameTap and their browser-based plugins.
As mogamer has mentioned, you cannot play any of the DOS and Windows games on a 64-bit OS because of GameTap's retarded DRM scheme. It also prevents you from using any mods or tweaks that require direct access to the games' files (because of the way it is implemented--mounting virtual drive and disc images to X: and Y:, respectively--you can't even get around it using VirtualStore). The GameTap staff is supposedly working on resolving both of these limitations, but they have been saying that for many years now.
Well, before the client used to be extremely cool, with the small (cough) bug if you happen to switch drives at any point (it's a bit complex but basically, it involves installing gametap on one drive and then installing it on the other) you will lose access to any downloaded games you have as well as your save games. You also lost the ability to use gametap on your computer.
And this is why I stopped using gametap.
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Arkose: As mogamer has mentioned, you cannot play any of the DOS and Windows games on a 64-bit OS because of GameTap's retarded DRM scheme. It also prevents you from using any mods or tweaks that require direct access to the games' files (because of the way it is implemented--mounting virtual drive and disc images to X: and Y:, respectively--you can't even get around it using VirtualStore). The GameTap staff is supposedly working on resolving both of these limitations, but they have been saying that for many years now.

The fact that there is still no 64 bit client is pathetic. How many years has Vista 64 bit been around? The staff gives plenty of excuses, but I feel the real reason is that Turner didn't want to pay for it. Metoboli is supposed to working on it, but god knows when it will be released. And seeing how the current player is, it will probably be as buggy as hell. And now that Windows 7 is right around the corner, I can see months of problems down the road.
Post edited June 23, 2009 by mogamer
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mogamer: Well, I'm still a subscriber, but I still wouldn't recommend it yet. The browser player is still glitchy and you still can't play the Windows games in a 64 bit OS. Like I said in the other thread, my sub expires in October. I'm not going to quit early, but as of right now, I'm not going to re-up with them. I'm still in with the $60 a year pricing. But a new yearly sub is now $70 or $80 (I can't remember). My HTPC is 32 bit Vista Ultimate with an integrated ATI X1250 video card. Not a great set up, but it played plenty of Windows games just fine in the old player and I could do it on a 37" HDTV. Now I can only play a few Windows games with the new player. Thanks goodness I have two XP machines to play on.
The thing that really pisses me off about this whole situation is that they didn't do enough testing before they released it. Reading their comments on the forum, it looks like they didn't have much time before Turner pulled the plug on the old player and servers. But Metoboli already had a player set up for their service and could have done a lot more of the Beta testing with Gametap volunteers than they did.

For $70 to $80 a year you could buy a lot of GOG's, and have them forever.