A fist full of Windows games this week with a couple of new GameTap indies to try out. Now you can all try the legend that is… Daikatana

Daikatana
2000 | Action | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 319.6MB
There’s a huge group of people that missed out on trying Daikatana, with the games legendary status, it’s something you should experience. It also doubles as a great competition to see who can stand to play the game for the longest

Infernal
2007 | Action | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 856.8MB
Wow, Infernal is just a few months old and really looks great, it has some totally excessive bloom effects and some pretty sharp graphics that perform very well. Sadly the graphics outshine the rest of the game by a great deal, the art department spent some time on this one, but the gameplay just feels a little flat and dull. Infernal definitely fell short of it’s potential

Blast Miner
2007 | Puzzle | Windows | Cryptic Sea | 19.7MB
Blast Miner looks like a Tetris game, but then you notice the physics, then things start exploding! This is a fun distraction but it seems rather mindless with the main arcade mode. Try out the puzzle option and see what you think

Morning Wrath
2005 | Role-Playing | Windows | Ethereal Darkness | 111.5MB
A brave effort at crating a top down RPG, as much as I can see the effort that went into the game I can’t really recommend it unless this is really your bag

Startopia
2001 | Simulation | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 211.5MB
Startopia is the only other game this week, besides Daikatana that I’d  even heard of this week.  This is definitely the ace  of the releases here, with some quirky characters and decent gameplay. It’s not without its faults by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a good time.

After the break is the listing of the new and current free ad supported Gametap games.

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Thief: Deadly Shadows
2004 | Action | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 823.7MB
The thief series has been leading the stealth action genre for some time, the whole series reached it’s pinnacle with the latest version “Thief: Deadly Shadows”. The same great missions and style of the previous two games, it’s a pity the series never continued beyond this.

Hospital Tycoon
2006 | Strategy | Windows | Codemasters | 134.3MB
Every remember Theme hospital? It was a rather fun god game produced by Bullfrog back in the late ninety’s, now, nearly ten years later, Codemasters have a shot at the same thing. This is a very obvious clone of the original, but upgraded with 3D graphics, sadly the whole charm of Theme Hospital is lost here, the sounds get frustrating beyond belief and the gameplay is horribly repetitive. New patient enters, send them to get examined, if it’s a new disease send them to research, build new test rooms, build new treatment room, cure disease. This repeats over and over without any kind of variety, which is a real shame as I did enjoy the old Hospital game.

Delta Force Task Force Dagger
2002 | Action | Windows | NovaLogic | 185.5MB

Delta Force Xtreme
2005 | Action | Windows | NovaLogic | 310.1MB
The Delta Force series was hugely popular around the beginning of the series, with it’s ability to render huge areas on machines that could usually not achieve large draw distances. The series isn’t as popular as it was, but it is fun to play these two games and see how far the series came graphically in just 3 short years. My biggest gripe with the delta force series was always the extreme accuracy of the weapons, basically, if you can see it, you can hit it, no matter what gun you are equipped with. This made multiplayer matches very focused on camping, and matches could take a frustratingly long time. Besides a couple of gripes though, both these games are well worth your time

Praetorians
2003 | Strategy | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 366.3MB
I didn’t get a lot of time with this, it’s a lot like Age of Empires and seems like a great game of it’s kind

Championship Wrestling
1987 | Sports | Commodore 64 | Ironstone | 225.8KB + Mac
Wow, I remember playing WWF Wrestlemania back on the C64 the loading times were well beyond what anyone could tolerate today. Playing Championship Wrestling is a painful reminder of ‘classic’ wrestling. It’s worth trying out for a look into the past, but not for any kind of in depth fun.

Garou: Mark of the Wolves™
1999 | Fighting | Neo-Geo | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 38.1MB + Mac
I had never tried Garou before, I’m a hard set fan of the Street Fighter series but ended up enjoying this a lot more than I expected, maybe my second best 2d fighter.

Beach Life
2002 | Simulation | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 343.1MB
Sadly I couldn’t get this to run on Vista, no short review here.

The King of Fighters 2003
2003 | Fighting | Neo-Geo | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 40.2MB + Mac
I’m getting quite burnt out on fighting games with this summer throw-down even, this seems like a fine fighter, but they are all seeming to blend together.

Atlantis Evolution
2004 | Adventure | Windows | Dreamcatcher | 2.3GB
Atlantis has a very classic style to it which will remind you of games such as Zork but with some very creative backgrounds. Fans of this type of game may get quite a kick from it, but there’s a little too much random clicking for my taste

Jaws™ Unleashed
2006 | Action | Windows | Majesco | 741.8MB
Jaws was slated with terrible reviews across the board, I find the premise rather interesting and the first few minutes of the tutorial made me feel like I could bleed a little joy from this game. However it becomes quickly apparent that the horrific controls won’t be something you quickly get used to. The controls and the whole feeling of the game was so bad that I couldn’t progress further to find what other flaws Jaws was hiding

Enemy Engaged 2
2007 | Action | Windows | Strategy First | 768.5MB
This sadly doesn’t live up to it’s potential, the campaigns are a lot of fun and varied, but the game just feels broken at it’s core with bad terrain and AI.

Fatal Fury 3
1995 | Fighting | Neo-Geo | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 19.1MB

Real Bout Fatal Fury 2
1998 | Fighting | Neo-Geo | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 30.2MB

Hitman: Blood Money
2006 | Action | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 2,159.8MB

Athena
1986 | Action | Arcade | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 143.3KB

Imperial Glory
2005 | Strategy | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 1,175.8MB

A couple of stunners stick out in this week’s Gametap list

Fatal Fury
1991 | Fighting | Neo-Geo | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 4MB

Fatal Fury Special®
1993 | Fighting | Neo-Geo | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 11MB

Real Bout Fatal Fury
1995 | Fighting | Neo-Geo | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 23.6MB

A great lineup if you are a fan of the Fatal Fury series, Gametap went pretty overboard with the release of 3 games, but I’m sure fans will just eat it up.

Betrayal at Krondor ™
1994 | Role-Playing | DOS | Sierra Entertainment | 48.7MB

The overview of Betrayal at Krondor makes the game sound very tempting with the promise of a dynamic choice driven story

Hitman: Contracts
2004 | Action | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 270.5MB

Hitman is a fantastic game, if you missed it before it makes a great addition to all the other Hitman games already on Gametap.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 ™
2001 | Action | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 299.4MB

Gametap continues its rather disturbing fascination with vampire games here, but they are all just so darn good

As usual the games listed as “Windows” can’t be played on a Mac, the rather old (but highly rated) Betrayal at Krondor will play on a Mac despite being a DOS game.

People who know me will know I recently got into Gametap, since then I’ve had a whole lot of fun checking out their catalog. Every Thursday they release a new set of games into their client, here’s this weeks releases

BloodRayne 2
2005 | Action  | Windows | Majesco | 917.2MB

Total Overdose
2005 | Action  | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 714.9MB

Super Street Fighter II Turbo
1996 | Fighting  | Arcade | Capcom | 12.4MB

Street Fighter Alpha II
1994 | Fighting  | Arcade | Capcom | 14MB

Both Street Figher games are Mac compatible, this looks to be a pretty solid lineup with 4 games well worth playing.