Gametap goes Indie @ Gaming Target

Written by Jason Cisarano on March 12, 2007

News: Games by the people, for the people

Gametap, which up to now has been your source for (legal) downloads of the hottest games of 1999, is getting into the independent games business. At the recent Independent Games Festival Awards, Gametap offered contracts to three awards nominees, including Roboblitz by Naked Sky Entertainment and Blast Miner by Cryptic Sea. The top contract, which included a $10k award, went to Everyday Shooter by Queasy Games.

Everyday Shooter is as much a game of ideas as of action. Each level is a different game with the stated purpose of Уexploring the power of abstract shootersФ by using abstract images and replacing the usual sounds of death and destruction with a gentler soundtrack of guitar harmonies. A quick look at the screenshots reveals a Darwinia-like 2D geometric beauty. It looks sort of like an old top-down arcade classic with better art direction. Although it didn't take home the grand prize, Everyday Shooter was one of the big winners of the night, winning both Design Innovation and Excellence in Audio in addition to the Gametap contract.

The other two winners, Blast Miner and Roboblitz, promise a somewhat less cerebral experience by focusing on physics-based action and destruction. Blast Miner combines Tetris and TNT for single and multiplayer gameplay. Roboblitz, which has been available for some time on Xbox Live Arcade, is built on Epic's Unreal 3 engine and tests players' reflexes and puzzle-solving skills.

Gametap currently offers over eight hundred games to subscribers willing to pay a monthly subscription fee ranging from $6.95 to $9.95. Games range from classic arcade fare like Rampage and Battlezone to more recent Windows releases such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Commandos 3: Destination Berlin. Retro gamers might be interested in Gametap as a convenient way to play classics from the Commodore 64, Atari 2600, Intellivision and other early platforms without worrying about emulators.

There is no word on exactly when the games will make their appearances on Gametap.