Angled Whiteboards

A minor (but oh, so welcome) update to the official GameTap Forums just went live: new activity in watched forums/threads is now emailed straight to your inbox. Say you really wanna keep up with a particular thread but know that you might not be up in the forums every last second to see if there’s something new. Just click the “Watch this Thread” link:

And BOOM: any replies will be sent your way. Want to make sure that any thread you start or reply to is automatically watched? That’s easy, too. Head to Your Watches and update it with the appropriate radio buttonry:

I didn’t make it last night. I know dinah and mixednut were there right at 12:01 am to see the release of our special Midnight Madness catalog featuring Tomb Raider: Anniversary — but I was fast asleep. Twinkle, twinkle, little star sprites. How I wonder what [kind of game] you are? While I’m going all stream-of-consciousness stylee, let me just say that linking up the new games this week was sooooo much easier with our filterable catalog browser. Just applied “New” and I was practically set. Yes, Pyramid Magic 3’s in there to make me feel even more behind in life. Check mixednut’s fancy playlist for rest of the series (and more!). What else? I’m totally digging how link-y these “new this week” posts can be now that we’ve got a real website going on. Like this: Bust-a-Move tournament. Or this: free this week! Or … ummm, this?: lolcats.

New games:

• Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary
• Art of Fighting 2
• Liberator
• Pyramid Magic 3
• The King of Fighters ‘96
• Twinkle Star Sprites

New on GameTap TV:

• Gametap Presents: My Chemical Romance
• Computer Lab: Alien Language
• A Quick Hit: Cold War Kids
• A Quick Hit: Sevendust
• Play This Game: Castlevania
• Sealab 2021: Craptastic Voyage
• Gametap News: Halo 3 Beta

Last Thursday saw the relatively quiet release of a bunch of new GameTap features (in addition to the weekly stable of new games). Thanks to tomorrow’s release of Tomb Raider: Anniversary, the volume is getting turned up a bit louder out in the world. The website is still considered beta, but know that we’re working overtime to get everything just right. In fact, there are a number of fun, exciting, and useful improvements that have yet to be seen. They’ll come. And we’ll be right here to tell you about them.

In the meantime, we thought it would be revealing to talk through some of the user scenarios we had in mind when we were designing the latest updates:

• Feel like playing some co-op Metal Slug on your lunch break at work? Find the game on the redesigned website, log in, and launch it in the new Lite Player. Head to the challenge lobby and find someone to play with — whether they’re in the Lite OR Deluxe Player.

• Dying to share your [bizarre?] love of every game that features some sort of thing eating some other sort of thing? Create a custom playlist (call it, oh I don’t know, “Fast Food Nation“) and publish it for all the world to see. Those who subscribe to your playlists will see any changes you make — so you can keep adding games as the GameTap catalog expands.

• Played a bit of Myst Online: Uru Live and suddenly have a hankering for some more highly-rated adventure games? Browse or search on adventure, limit your results to games that other users have rated 7 or 8 and up, and dive in.

• Don’t feel like driving to the store just to pick up the latest Tomb Raider? Download it the day it comes out (like tonight at 12:01 am!) and be the very first to play it, beat it, and brag about it in the official GameTap forums.

• Find yourself looking forward to Thursdays so you can watch GameTap News? Now you can get your game news fix on a daily basis via the full-on GameTap TV on the web.

• Finally, you Gold-level members should now have an easier time convincing your friends to join you in your GameTap adventures. Simply point them to the rotating suite of free games and let the crazy-strong selection be that first taste that hooks ‘em.

And one more time (in case you missed it the other eleven-teen times): BETA website. Unfinished. In-progress. Go easy on us, please!