GameTap is kicking ass lately. Heroes V Gold was added last week, Trine this week, and Trackmania is coming next week. There are about two dozen existing games being made 64-bit compatible, and just look at that list of new games being encoded. I’ll say it again: GameTap is the best value in gaming.

Is joke thievery illegal yet? Do I need to get a lawyer?

I suppose this means that Trackmania 2 will also be developed for consoles. Perhaps in time for Summer of Arcade 2010? That went well for RedLynx with Trials HD.

Watching this, I feel like Saw’s concept is a better fit for games and should have been applied to them in the first place. This doesn’t look bad — I wouldn’t be opposed to playing it in a year or so when it’s $10.

Bummer.

Another bummer.

This is not a bummer. Reinstated backwards compatibility coupled with its new $299 price would prompt me to buy a Playstation 3. I’m not just saying that; I missed most of the PS2′s golden age, and although I’ve gone back and played Final Fantasy XII, some Ratchet and Clank games, and the odd RPG, I still have a lot of games that I would love to play anti-aliased and upscaled.

The original Apple II game Prince of Persia (play it for free), created by Jordan Mechner using an industry-first rotoscope technique, was not only a critical success at the time but is today considered a landmark in the history of games. So in 2001, when Ubisoft approached Jordan to help produce a re-imagined Prince of Persia using modern 3D graphics and storytelling, expectations were naturally high. Therefore it’s a testament to the quality of the game that when it was released in 2003 it didn’t disappoint, instead winning several awards and eventually selling over 10 million copies on multiple platforms.

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A game can turn out to be a failure for any number of reasons. Maybe a game is like Beyond Good & Evil where it gets lost in the shuffle of bigger releases for years before being properly appreciated. Maybe you’re a developer who’s too close to his game to recognize fundamental flaws in certain aspects of its design, as was reportedly the case with Lair. Or maybe you’re like today’s cheap game, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and you just got a bad rap.

Originally released by Ubisoft in October of 2006 and developed by Arkane Studios, Dark Messiah didn’t have the luxury of blaming its less-than-stellar reception on other, more hyped games coming out along side it. 2006 wasn’t bad for games, but I don’t think Splinter Cell: Double Agent or Marvel Ultimate Alliance were what kept people from playing Dark Messiah at the end of October. No, Dark Messiah’s failing was primarily due to little more than a buggy launch that earned it a bad reputation. Alas, even the demo was plagued by bugs, so the game was leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths before it was even released. Despite what must have been a very frustrating launch for Ubisoft, DMMM has since been patched up quite nicely as well as had some hefty price reductions.
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