Ever get tired of actually paying for video games? Wish you could play'em for free (no, not like that, you dirty pirate) in exchange for just watching a couple commercials (kinda like whenever you try to watch almost any video on the internet anymore)? Well, the folks at Gamersgate have just that in their new VOID service! It sounded pretty sweet, and I'm not one to pass up free video games, so I took some time to check it out.
Well, remember the old adage "If something seems too good to be true, it probably is"? Well, unfortunately it totally applies to VOID, but not for the reasons you might expect. Just reading about the concept alone throws up the red flags that in order to make money, there's going to be some pretty obnoxious and intrusive ads. Not so! The ads only play when you start up your VOID game and there's only two. That is surprisingly not the issue. Neither is the amount of games either, there's plenty.
[caption id="attachment_2597" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="Oh man, I can't wait to try Airport Control Simulator!"]
[/caption]The big negative that hit me right away as I was browsing through VOID's catalog was that I had never heard of most of these games in my entire life. I'm a video game writer and somebody who has been passionate about video games practically my entire life and nearly all the games they have are unrecognizable. Seriously, let me rattle off some titles for you: Vivisector: Beast Within, Cold Zero - The Last Stand, Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath, Cops 2170: The Power of Law. Remember the classic FPS Scorpion Disfigured? No you don't because now is the first time you've ever heard of it. Now this might be because Gamersgate is based out of Sweeden, and these are all weirdo euro-games that were never released here in the glorious home of screaming eagle freedom that is America. In the end this isn't necessarily a bad thing, exploring through a selection of new games you've never heard of can be quite fun. You just gotta go in knowing you aren't going to be playing Assassin's Creed or whatever through VOID.
[caption id="attachment_2598" align="aligncenter" width="122" caption="Seriously, WTF is this?"]
[/caption]So after perusing their catalog (and giggling at all the strange games I'd never heard of) I made my selection (Star Wolves if you're curious) and was explained VOID's "slot" system. You see, when you select the free game you want, it occupies a "slot" on your VOID account, and the game can't be switched out until a certain amount of time has passed. This is the point where I went, "Ah, here's the catch". Still though, I figured they would at least give you a couple slots that could be switched out every couple of days. I couldn't be more wrong. You only get one slot, and my copy of Star Wolves (which so far I'm not particularly impressed with) can't be exchanged for something else until June 13th. So here's the biggest catch of them all, you can, of course, buy additional slots for ten bucks.
With this "slots" system in place and the extended amount of time you're stuck with the same game, this isn't so much of a "play free games for watching ads" service as it is a "rent weird euro-games you've never heard of" service. All in all though, it works well, the ads are surprisingly unobtrusive (although I did get a weirdly out of date advertisement for World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expanison that came out a whopping two years ago) and, hey, it's free games! It's just not the smorgasbord of gaming delights it sounds like at first glance.
You can try VOID yourself here, at Gamersgate.
No comments:
Post a Comment