New this week.
April 5th, 2007 by xamountThe three easily visible new games this week all come from the Empire series of simulation games. I gave Zoo Empire a shot, but stopped when I realized that just because I could guide the poor park visitors into the polar bear/alligator exhibit, it didn’t mean the polar bears/alligators would actually eat them. (And further, even though the old man’s status was “being chased by a polar bear” his “bathroom needs” did NOT go up proportionally.) Maybe I need to play it the proper way?
But those aren’t the only new games this week. Easter isn’t until Sunday, but there are already three eggs hidden away for you in the vault. Look to the middle posters in GameTap Home (or the Spotlight area of GameTap TV) for clues.
And what’s this? A new A Day in the Extra Life short?! One of my favorite GameTap TV original series returns.
New games:
- Marine Park Empire
- Restaurant Empire
- Zoo Empire
Easter Egg Empire
New on GameTap TV:
- GameTap News: Game Developer’s Conference
- A Day in the Extra Life: Rampage: Nag
- Play This Game: SimCity 2000 Special Edition
- Quick Hit: Akon
- Sealab 2021: Red Dawn
- Sam & Max: Artichoke
April 5th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Thanks for the new games, of course! However, I wanted to ask a question:
These three empire games (and several other new games added by GameTap recently) are published by Enlight, which has in the past released some of their games with the Pure Concentrated Evil copy prevention system known as Starforce. Starforce sneakily installs itself on people’s computers and causes problems even when you’re not playing the game it’s meant to protect, and it can even cause permanent problems with hardware.
Since GameTap has its own system for preventing us from ripping off games, do you guys strip out copy prevention systems like Starforce before putting the games up on GameTap?
Thanks again. BTW, I’ve only found one of the easter eggs so far (#1). I must not be smart enough to find the other two
April 5th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Hey guys, really excited about this week. The Sam and Max short was hilarious, I’m glad A Day in the Extra Life has returned, and those are some really fine easter eggs.
One complaint about one of them though..
(SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!)
For uh.. Tiger Claw, I’m rather surprised that its the MS-DOS version that’s up instead of the Windows “Kilrathi Saga” version. The KS version had speed tweeks, a revamped soundtrack, and most importantly.. NO COPY PROTECTION THAT YOU NEED TO PRINT THE WHOLE FREAKING MANUAL OUT TO BE ABLE TO PLAY THE GAME! AND THAT’S STILL PRESENT IN THE GAMETAP VERSION! ARRRRRRRRRGGHHHH!
April 5th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Notice that they said “Preview for a Week” just to give you a taste. By next weeks update it will be zapped from the catalog. They probably will fix this before officially releasing it.
April 5th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Barry: It emulates StarForce, I’ve been playing Colin McRae 05 without a trace of StarForce on my computer at all.
April 5th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Thanks for the answer, Penquin! Although, there does seem to be some irony in emulating a copy protection scheme in order to bypass it, when one of the reasons Starforce is so egregious is because they go to extreme lengths to prevent people from bypassing it. Ah, well, it just goes to show you that providing a good service or product and treating your customers with respect is a far better way to keep people legit than trying to ownz0r their boxen.
Kudos to GameTap for being a net positive in this respect (although providing an online no-questions-asked unsubscription method would still be a good PR gesture).
April 6th, 2007 at 1:54 am
Bloody hell. Wing Commander did some wierd stuff to my Gametap.
I loaded up the game and all it did was give me a white screen, so I hit Alt-f4 to close out, got a normal shutdown message, but then when I restarted it, all my downloads were gone, except wing commander.
Deleted it, ran a reset from the utilities, and everything’s back now.
April 6th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Sounds like a one off glitch. Wing Commander ran fine for me, though I wish it supported my USB gamepad. I hate flying with keyboards now.