Originally developed by Cryo, who were purchased by Microids in 2008, MegaRace was one of the games that ushered in the age of the CD Rom. I remember working at a CompUSA around the time the game first came out, and I wouldn't let anyone leave the store with a shiny new CD drive without a copy of MegaRace. It was the 7th Guest of futuristic racing. Don't remember the game? Well now you can pick up it and MegaRace 2 in a bundle via GOG.com for only $5.99.

Other Microids titles heading to the service include Haegemonia: Legion of Iron with the Solon Heritage expansion and Obscure. Both relatively fine titles, but MegaRace is where the excitement lies here. I bet it's held up horribly over the years.

Come January 22nd, a large chunk of the free content on GameTap is being rolled back into the premium membership, which means that non-paying members of the site have a couple of days to finish what they were doing or pony up some cash for a Gold membership.

There will still be 40 games available for free play, as well as weekly teasers - games that are free to play for a limited time - but for the most part, if you want to get the goods you're going to have to pay. Check out the link below for a full list of what's being pulled.

Free Games Returning to the Gold Vault [GameTap Blog via Blue's News]

Those games provide gratification without requiring an overwhelming or annoying amount of effort on the part of the gamer: they’re fun, accessible, and they have worlds or settings that provide enjoyment on a simple level.

I may be more familiar with the world of The Third Age, and it may produce a bit of nostalgia, but I’m equally amused, enchanted, and engrossed by Fable II’s stereotype-ridden Albion. Maybe I’m making the case for less intelligent, less original games, but I think there’s a place for such games, especially when “epic” and “deep” are often code words for ponderous, overproduced, and underwritten.

So here’s to less ambitious, more accessible games, made with care and passion. To be sure, this is a dangerous path to go down. It’s the kind of thinking that might lead us to more Deus Ex: Invisible Wars, or another Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

There's something to be said for polished competence and gradual tinkering with familiar mechanics and structures; I agree with Cross that it seems somewhat wrong to adore "a game that’s really just super-competent plagiarism," but there's certainly plenty to celebrate about the familiar when it's done really, really well — 'super-competent plagiarism' or no.

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/11/column_diamond_in_the_rough_if.php [GameSetWatch]

They've got a pretty nice selection of titles, generally falling between the $5.99 and 9.99 price range, though they seriously need to get hopping on adding in some adventure games to the mix. The Fallout series is nice and all, but I crave pointing and clicking. Bring me Dark Seed and BloodNet and we'll talk.

The latest is the "Missile Command Docudrama" although its message is, surprisingly, kind of serious. Tof from Retro Sabotage explained to me in an e-mail: "We wanted an "anti-sabotage" to celebrate the 20th release, and it's kind of a mirror to Mockumentary (though we got mails of people who somehow believed in that one)."

In the past I know we've linked to some of their other clever redos of classic arcade games. The Xevious Autopsy in particular is worth a look, and I think it's new since RetroSabotage last got a mention here.

Missile Command Docudrama [Retro Sabotage]

• As a toddler, gorging on a can of aerosol whipping cream and throwing up.
• As a young man, my girlfriend posing for "Genthouse" Magazine (for the record, I was cool with it. We married.)
• Playing in an old-timer's baseball game as a senior citizen, going back for a long fly ball, collapsing to the ground and dying peacefully as my friends gathered.

Well, here's a site where you can play Alter Ego online. It's been up since 2005, so probably some of you have stumbled onto this before. I scoured Kotaku to make sure we haven't featured it yet. It was truly a beautiful and well written game, created by Dr. Peter Favaro, and worth a look anyway. If you played it when you were younger, looking forward to life as an adult, now you can play it when you're older, to relive simpler days.

Alter Ego [theblackforge.net]

Even the most gouged CD is repairable. Hold it up to the light. If you can see light actually prickling through in luminous quills, you can safely throw it out. Otherwise, it can generally be sanded and polished to playability again.

Needless to say, my Last Express discs were thrown out years ago. A pity, since it's one of the most unique adventure games I've ever played: it's a rotoscoped murder mystery set on a 20's era train, which plays out in real-time. Your knowledge of the mystery is only by managing to be in the right place at the right time. The game's excellently dynamic; missing events will not necessarily impede your progress.

I've always wanted to replay it, but never quite got around to eBaying a copy. But now I don't have to: comes word from Game Set Watch that GameTap has secured the rights to distribute The Last Express over their broadband service.

Better yet, if you sign up for GameTap's free trial, it looks like you can play the game for free for two weeks. As good a reason as any I can think of to sign-up. Florian Eckhardt

GameTap Grabs Classic Cyan Title & The Last Express [Game Set Watch]

Gentlemen, this is your punishment for cramming my Kotaku box with approximately 600 comment requests in the past half-day, outstripping even the pleadings from exotic royalty, the promises of prodigious semenal output, and the offers for very reasonably-priced t-shirt manufacture.

I want you to stare deeply into the distended anus of the early nineties, come face to sphincter with the darling child-yous who probably looked up to these men, and I want it to hurt.

This is, as far as I or Nicholas Fricke over at Siliconera know, the only episode of GamePro TV currently available online. And it sounds like he spent a long time looking.

Watch how about halfway through, the surfer boy loses most of his accent. I guess he got tired. I know how he feels. Thanks for the tip, FurikiiEliza gauger

Read the entire harrowing tale here. [Siliconera]

1up has compiled a list of game features that, at the time of their releases, influenced the entire industry and all the games that came afterwards. Features that have become staples, in-jokes or both. The only things suspiciously absent are the ubiquitous crates and 'sploding barrels of FPS fame.

On "character customization":

Nothing draws you into a videogame like designing your own character — literally. You can give the onscreen hero your own hairstyle, your own facial features, your own skin tone, and even your own weight! Well, maybe you don't want him resembling you quite THAT closely.

HA HA GAMERS ARE FAT.

Each feature has a screenshot, rundown of the history and specifics of the device, when it was first used, and when it was last used. The latter can be a bit weird; isn't the whole point that every game, at least those in the indicated genre, uses these things now?

An example would be the claim that boss fights were "last used" in God of War and Metroid Prime? How about... nearly every game currently available? Yeah, that sounds good, let's go with that. Eliza Gauger

Playing with Power [1up]

Stop-motion impressario PES lets loose with food and Frogger in this classic-gaming stop-motion carnival of deeeeelight.

I'm video-whoring today because I'm exhausted from driving to Utah and back this weekend. I was trying to intercept Crecente before he got out of the country, and I knew he had a layover in Salt Lake City. I found him in one of the sleazy airport bars, swilling watery Utah beer and trying to pick up a stewardess who'd been finely aged in recycled cabin air, like fancy cheese in a French cave.

'What is it, Gauger?" he snarled as he caught sight of me. "I'm on vacation, you little twerp."

I told him to untwist his official Day of the Tentacle boxer-briefs and settle down, I wasn't there to steal his frag. "You forgot something," I said, slipping the seemingly empty phials under the lip of the bar to his sweating hand. "You forgot your mission."

He should be well on his way by now. Just between you and me, faithful readers, I'd stock up on surgical masks, Spaghettios and bottled water while there's still time. Eliza Gauger

By Kyle Orland

In my younger days, I remember selling my entire collection of NES games to a local consignment shop so I could buy some new SNES game. Recently, I bought back that entire NES collection piece by piece in a powerful fit of nostalgia. The experience made me re-examine the way the used game market affects how we gamers personally value our used games.

The economic impact of the used game market is apparent. Seventy percent of gamers play used games, according to a Ziff Davis survey, and retailers make up to 40 percent profit margins on their sale, according to CNN/Money (compared to 10 percent or less for new games). The popularity of trading games only increases during the holidays, as any customer caught in a line behind someone trading in a crate full of PS2 games this season can tell you.

But for the player the effects of selling a game are psychological as well as economic. When players have a monetary incentive to quickly beat and return a game, that's what they tend to do. In effect, the game becomes a commodity that has an ever-decreasing after-market value as soon as it's purchased. Once the market value is worth more than the perceived play value, the disc goes off to the Great Gamestop in the Sky. That copy of Madden 2006 won't be worth too much in 2006, after all.

Call me an out-of-date Nintendo apologist, but I tend to appreciate quality over quantity. When I buy a game, I want an experience that I'll be eager to relive, even if it's just on some idle nostalgia-filled evening with no good new releases. I want a well-crafted work of art that will become a part of my permanent collection, not just a disc that will be quickly consumed and belched back into the marketplace.

I'm not saying we should prevent people from trading in games. I believe a customer should be able to get the fair market value for their used game. Personally, I've sold back many a clunker that I couldn't envision ever wanting to play again.

But I urge those of you considering trading in your memories for the promise of the latest and greatest to first decide what you want to get out of the games you buy. Are you an art collector, looking for the most rewarding experience, or a commodity dealer, looking to maximize the monetary value of your pastime? Decide carefully, or in ten years you might find yourself re-purchasing your entire PS2 collection in a fit of nostalgia.

So I've had the Xbox 360 for a couple of weeks now. It's a great machine. I played through Kameo and loved it. A gorgeous game. And I'm playing a lot of Project Gotham Racing 3 — another stunner with excellent Xbox Live integration.

But you know what I've spent the most time playing? Joust, Gauntlet and Smash TV, all of which I downloaded through Live. The wife also is playing an unhealthy amount of Bejeweled 2.

Yet another example that gameplay wins over technology every time.