GameTap Service: Review

[Howard_Casto]

I mentioned this earlier, but I am finally getting around to testing out the gametap service and posting a review here.  My main focus will be not the games themselves, but the selection of games and the possiblity of using this service in a arcade cabinet.  This review will be added to as I explore the service over the next few weeks, but for now I'll go over the basics.


Interface:

The interface is suprisingly good.  Good for a commercial interface that is.    The gametap hub is obviously flash/director/whatever based.  It comes up with a nice gametap intro video and is full screen and very non-windowsy (initially anyway, but we'll get to that later). It navigates very much like a windows front end.  The arrow keys move around and the enter key selects.  The escape key exits you out of windows and like many windows apps, you can switch through various option tabs with the "tab" key (imagine that!).  The games are arranged in various filtered lists (again like a typical windows fe)  where you can select games by genre, game system gametaps favorites, and your favortes that you can tag. 

When you select a game a very windows-like info box pops up.  While it doesn't scream "bill gates wuz here" it does have scroll bars, tabs and clickable buttons.  Now as I mentioned, it is completely possible to navigate with just the keyboard, but those buttons and scroll bars are still there, gloating, mocking you.  But anyway, inside info box you have a nice shot of the flyer/gameart/whatever, some very listinfo-like game stats and a few tabs.  Tabs include an area to redefine controls (thank god)  a "how to play" screen, and an area called "bonus materials" that can have anything from gameplay tips, to game trivia, to ads to "I finished this game in XX minutes" videos.


Once you press enter to finalize your selection, you might as well go get a sandwich or something if the game is farily recent or has a big filesize in mame. The game is downloaded locally on your harddrive and some of the larger roms and pc games can take up to 30 minutes to download on the average broadband connection.  Luckily you don't have to wait.   

Once the game download begins, the area that contained the artwork in the pop-up is replaced by a video window and you are "entertained" by random videos.  Notice the quotes...... What you get is a mixed bag.  There is one series, "A Day in the Extra Life" that is quite entertaining.  It's based upon the commercials you see on tv, with the extra men in the bottom of the screen talking to each other while they wait for their turn.  I thought it was funny, your mileage will vary.  The other stuff is just crap.  Most are commercials for stuff in the mediaplex (we will get to that later), helpful "tips" and various random filler.  My guess is this was just thrown in so you won't see the funny stuff over and over. 

Regardless, you don't have to sit there and wath those either. Once a download begins, you can minimize the pop-up window and it becomes a tiny icon at the bottom of the gui that shows the perentage and time remaining.  You can have up to three things downloading at a time and you will get a noticable, yet un-annoying chime when a download completes and the icon will turn green.  You use the arrow keys to get down to those icons and select them.  While you are waiting for a download to complete, you can try other some of the various special features in the gametap interface, or best of all, minimize the entire app and use your compter as normal.  I think I'd give the service a 0 out of 5 if it didn't offer this feature. 


Extra Features: 

Gametap appears to be copying the xbox live business plan and offers slightly more than just games.  At the bottom of the guide is a mediaplex icon.  The mediaplex, as you would guess, contains videos.  The vids appear to be weekly series and randomly rotate, but I'll have more info on that in the following weeks.  As of now there are 5 "shows" to choose from.  Now for a quick mini review of each.

     Challenge:  A rip-off of g4's "Players" sans the famous people. Two random idiots face-off in three rounds of games to settle some real-world grudge.  They try to make it funny, but it isn't.  Also it just so happens that the only games every featured on the show are in the gametap library. 

     GJ Casting Call:  Think MTVJ contest but you don't care.  They even get a MTVJ to host the show.  Apparently they are looking for hosts to do other shows for the service, which is good because right now they all suck.  More shows are needed. 

     Survival Guide:  A rip-off of g4's "Cheat" sans the psuedo attractive girl.    I haven't viewed this one, so I'll come back to it later.  My guess though... lame gameplay tips and the tips just happen to only be for games that are in the gametap library. 

     Trailer:  What do you think genius?  Actually this one isn't so bad because you know what to expect.  A random trailer from one of the gametap games is played.  This can be an ad gt made, the original tv ad, or perhaps the game's own intro sequence.  Gives you an idea of what the game is about, so it's quite useful. 

     Hyper 5:  A rip-off of g4's "Filter"  (Seeing a pattern here?)  The top 5 "somethings" related to video games are listed.  This would be good except that the only nominees are games in the gametap library.  Not only that, but if a "winner" is a character that is featured in a number of games, only the games in the gametap library are mentioned.  Basically it boils down to a glorified ad. 

Now more are on the way (including a Space Ghost feature?) but right now, the mediaplex is mediacrap. 

Emulation:

The games (expect for pc games) are emulated.  They run well and the emulation is perfect.  You don't have to deal with settings either, the service does all of that.  Gametap uses it's own custom emulators to run the games.  Unlike many emulators the default keys for the games in gametap make sense.  V, C and X are used for the buttons, as opposed to ctrl and alt, which make no sense in this day and age since the "windows" key is between those two keys on nearly every modern keyboard and ctrl+alt+button = hotkey (listen up mame devs!)  Pc games are the exception.  They appear to be downloaded as a custom disc-image and virtually mounted.  This is fine except that it exits the gametap gui once the game is launched and the original cdrom autolaunch screen is shown on the windows desktop.  This means you have to deal with ugly old windows, and you have to break out a mouse (even if the game itself doesn't need one) to navigate.  The controls are NOT remappable in the gametap interface, since they are pc games (duh) and you can remap in-game. 

Systems Supported:

Arcade, Atari2600, C64, Intellivision, Sega MS, Sega Genesis, Sega 32x, Dreamcast, Dos and PC.

Before you ask, yes they have a working DC emu!  Don't get two excited though, as currently it only has three games, Mr Driller (which you can play in zinc), hydro thunder, and some game I've never heard of.  IF and I say IF they get a better library the dc emu alone would be reason enough to try teh service atm, though it's more of a novelty. 

Please note that dos games are emulated.  The library atm is rather modest for dos games, but they are almost all classics and if you are running xp, you probably can't play these games anymore.  Ironically I was most impressed by this section and the pc games.

Game Library:

This is a mixed bag and rather than listing every game, let me just explain how this works.  Gametap has to buy the liscense to the game to host it. 

In order for that to happen one or all of three things have to occur.  Firstly the liscense needs to be cheap.  This usually means that the game is either old (atari 2600, intellivision, c64), obscure, or by a defunct company. 

Second the company has to be willing to sell.  This won't happen if the franchise is still hot or the company in question is a rival to the service (nintendo).  For the most part this also means that any games still ported to similar services, tv games and otehr gadgets won't be featured anytime soon.  So don't expect to se street fighter 2 or mortal kombat on the lineup anytime soon and if you are a big nintedo fan, walk away now. 

Lastly the company has to be able to sell.  Some oddball, games, like Killer instinct were made by both nintendo and rare.  Rare is now owned by M$ so that's never gonna happen.  Also sometimes a company (and it's game library) just folds, and it isn't even possible to get a liscense as they are in limbo. 

Now for a quick overview of the game types:

You'll have a good selection of classic arcade games, including many you've actually heard of!  Also some you wouldn't expect to see, like pong and red baron.  There are also a ton of action and adventure games and a decent amount of sim games.  Racing games and rpgs also have a decent library. The genres that seem to be really lacking though are fighting games and fps.  Now fps I can see, aside from doom hexen and wolf3d, there aren't any classic fps out there.  With that being said, they don't have ANY so keep that in mind.    Fighters are another issue...  they lump fighters in with beat em ups (which I hate) to make it look fuller.  What you actually have are a bunch of beat-em ups and a lone fighter game.  That game is virtua fighter 2.  Before you wet your pant's, it is the crappy 2d genesis port of VF2.  Even the beat em ups aren't that hot.  They have the beats of rage series, but for the reasons I mentioned above, any popular, non-sega series is very absent.  This means no tmnt, not simpsons, no final fight, ect.....  But the most dissapointing thing about the library is the lack of any nintendo games.  I understand why there aren't any, considering the revolution with come with a similar service, but let's face it, form 1985 on nintendo ruled the console market like no other company in video game history.  Leaving them out is like leaving out the pacman series in a namco arcade classics collection.

On the bright side some very good games are included.  Expect to see a lot of sonic and golden axe and even newer pc games like the splinter cell series and the tomb raider series.  There are also plenty of modern flight sims and pinblal sims.  As a whole, the selection is wide enough to keep you interested, with enough "long play" games like splinter cell to make the service worth it.   


Annoyances:

The biggest annoyance is that every time you start up the service you have to enter your username and password.  I has a remember password option, but you still have to type in your user name.  This means unless you write a ahk script, you ahv to pull out a keyboard and mouse to sign in.   Speaking of which........  You can't remap the navigation keys.  The arrows are pretty standard and escape exits but the whole return for select thing is an issue.  Also the fact that you are really supposed to use a mouse in some areas makes for rather akward naviagtion with the arrow keys.  The fact that you occasionally have to use the tab key makes things even worse.  Now the return key issue can be solved with a ahk script I think, but the tab thing is more complex.  Also, unlike a napster service, all the games in the cache are encrypted.  This means you can't play them outside of gametap, which seems like a viable option to us mamers. 

Hacking possibilities:

I want to point out that I'm not posting this data so people can figure out how to illegally get the roms out of the service, this is only for the sake of giving the user more options. 

The games themselves are physically on your harddrive.  This means that in theory, someone could figure out the encryption method and get these to play in other emulators.  This would especially be nice for the pc games. 


The interface, as I said, tends to have some windows tendancies.  The interface's skins, however, are stored in xml files on your harddrive.  So again, just in theory, someone could reskin the interface to make it more cab friendly. 

The videos, including the intro video are also cached.  These are unencrypted, so a person could replace them with your own videos.  This would make for a slightly more custom look in a mame cab situation. 



Final Thoughts:

I reserve judgement until I use the service more, but right now I'mabout half and half.  The lack of titles is disappointing, but the titles they do have are very fun.  The dc emu excites me, but the lack of any games for it takes that excitment away.  Ironically I'm most impressed by the pc games.  Those titles are much newer, making the cost of the service worth it and the dos titles they hav are great.   The atari 2600, c64 and intellivision titles are nothing more than a novelty, considering I can go to walmart and buy a tv games with the same titles for under 30 bucks it seems silly to pay 14.95 a month to "rent" them.  If you are a sega fan, the console emus will be worth it considering they are actually legal, and console emus are a pain in the butt to deal with anyway.  Personally though, I'm a hardcore nintendo fan, so many of these titles have zero nostalgia factor for me.


More news as it develops