A shame I hadn’t gotten into it until now. Imagine walking into the door of a new store, and they say, “Welcome to our store! Here are some free games for you.” “Crappy games?” “Three games are Ultima games where one of which was that World of Ultima game you’ve been trying to hunt down (Martian Dreams). One is an indie game. Others are some point and click adventure games. And there is an arcade shmup there as well.”
I haven’t even bought anything yet GOG.com is giving me a better PC gaming experience than I have had in years. I think I tried Tyrian 2000 out a long time, didn’t get into it for whatever reason (maybe because I only did one run of arcade mode). So I played the game normally and WOW. What a fun game! I haven’t had this much fun with a shmup in a long time! And I was just using keyboard arrow keys in a clunky fashion. As a game, Tyrian 2000 is far more satisfying than most shmups out there. I can’t wait to dig into the rest of the ‘free games’.
I go through the entire list of GOG.com games and my wishlist is HUGE. So much good stuff. GOG.com causes old school gamers to orgasm with their selection. They truly did pick some amazing games. Folks, these are some of the best games EVER made and they are available for like 6 bucks. Crazy!
“What do you mean?” asks the innocent reader.
I mean games like Master of Magic. For 6 bucks!? Damn! What a bargain. You can get Master of Orion 1 and 2 together for 6 bucks. That is incredibly awesome. Instead of paying 30 bucks or more for all these self proclaimed ‘successors to Master of Orion’, why not just buy the actual game for a few bucks? Far more satisfying.
And of course GOG.com games have no DRM so you can make back ups, install on different computers, whatever you want with them. So much better than the Steam bullshit. I will never use Steam again.
There are some suggestions I have for GOG.com.
-When players fill out a review, ask them to say when was the first time they played the game. Every game on GOG.com gets 5 stars which I assume the nostalgia tilt is high. I don’t find the reviews useful at all to determine whether games that are fun *today*.
-Allow me to have more customization over my ‘menu’. While GOG.com is DRM free, there is no problem with their little ‘games on a bookshelf’ screen acting like a sort of menu for the gamer. Allow the gamer to create a favorites list where they can show only the games they want (hide the free games they don’t like or were gifted, etc.). Allow us to move the games around. Perhaps have different backgrounds or arrangements. Simple UI stuff. While we don’t have to go to GOG.com to start our games, it would be cool to have an option to do so. I LOVE game menus so much, I make them all the time for my pc gaming experience. I even made them for the Commodore 64.
-Have a referral program. These games are great but there are no companies marketing them. A Direct Line Marketing program would allow someone like myself (ahem) to be able to talk up a game, say how amazing and wonderful it is, and when they click on a link to buy it (which I provide), I get a small slice of the cut since I made the sale. This would solve all marketing obstacles as well as increase revenue to GOG.com.
-Where are the Commodore 64 games? Where is Paradroid? Or Uridium? I would pay for a Jumpman MegaPack.
Time to try out another of the ‘free games’ GOG.com gave me (I know ones like Tyrian 2000 and Ultima IV have been ‘free’ for quite some time but still…).
Above: This game should not be free. Seriously. It’s WAY too good. I’m actually upset that I never paid anything for it.
