Are ad supported free games the future ?

Martin — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 07:25:27 +0000

Would you play ad supported games if they were free ? I think the main question that has be to answered before you can give me an answer is the way the ads are displayed. Are they only shown during startup or ingame as well ? This is unfortunately a question that I can’t answer right now but I can post links to some ad supported games by Ubisoft – full versions of course.

Ubisoft decided to make some of their recent games available for free in an ad supported version which can be downloaded exclusively from Fileplanet. The games that can be downloaded are: Rayman Raving Rabbids, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Far Cry and are available for US-Residents only.

You will also need a Fileplanet account to be able to download those games. Those are surely some hassles and I would personally not go through them to play those games but I know that some will do that.

The major difficulty that I have with this releases is that there are zero information regarding the type of advertisement provided by Ubisoft or Filefront.

I did found more information on Darren Gladstone’s blog where he confirms that the ads are only displayed during load and sage operations. That means no ads during gameplay, for now.

All games have a size of one Gigabyte+ which means that it takes some time if you download it from Fileplanet, one of the many download sites that I absolutely do not like and do not intend to use.

Some users reported that you only need a US Ubisoft account to make them work even if you currently live in another country.

Tags: ad supported games, far cry, prince of persia, rayman-raving-rabbids, ubisoft

Nintendo Wii Launch Games

Martin — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 08:12:46 +0000

The Nintendo Wii will come out in the United States November 19th, 2006, in Japan on December 2nd, 2006 and in Europe on December 8th, 2006. The Nintendo Wii features a unique method of controlling the action on screen which could revolutionize the way games are played on video game systems. It concentrates on this aspect instead of pure horsepower like the ps3 and xbox 360.

Wikipedia lists 26 games that will be available on launch day in Northern America, some are the usual multi-platform titles but many make good use of the new controlling scheme. Still, only a few rely on the scheme exclusively. A big advantage of Nintendo’s Wii is the price – the basic system including the Wii Sports game costs only $249.99, this is less than half the price of a premium playstation 3 system which does not ship with a game.

Games for the Wii seem to have a lower price as well, most stay close to $50 while PS3 titles are closer to mid-end $50. The Wii still features all those popular games, like Mario, Zelda and Metroid that made Nintendo the biggest player in the video game market which is great for Nintendo fans. It also offers the unique opportunity for different kind of games that have not been possible with normal controllers.

Let us start with the games, I included at least one link to reviews or previews to give you the ability to read more about a specific title that could be of interest to you.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (ign preview)
Barnyard (ign preview)
Call of Duty 3 (ign review: 7.7)
Cars (gamespot review)
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 (ign preview)
Excite Truck (ign preview)
GT Pro Series (ign preview)
Happy Feet (gamespot review)
Madden NFL 07 (ign preview)
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (ign preview)
Metal Slug Anthology (gamespot preview)
Monster 4×4 World Circuit (gamespot review)
Need for Speed: Carbon (ign preview)
Open Season (gamespot preview)
Rapala Tournament Fishing (gamespot preview)
Rayman Raving Rabbids (ign preview)
Red Steel (ign preview)
SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab (ign preview)
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz (ign review: 8.4)
The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy (gamespot preview)
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (lawrence: 9.9)
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent (gamespot preview)
Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam (ign preview)
Trauma Center: Second Opinion (ign review: 8.0)
Wii Sports (ign review: 7.5, lawrence: 8.9)
World Series of Poker (gamespot preview)

Everyone has of course his own game types that he likes to play, some like Sport games, some racing, some roleplaying games. It is a matter of taste and the Wii should deliver something for everyone. Let us take a look at the most interesting games of some of the most popular categories:

Wii Party Games: Wii Sports included, Rayman Raving Rabbids, probably Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. Watch out for Wii Play which is a launch title in Europe.
Wii Games you can’t do anything wrong with: Zelda
Unique to the Wii and worth a look: Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Red Steel

Everything else is up to you. If you have not played all those typical games that come out for all systems (Splinter Cell, all EA games, Call of Duty 3 aso you might want to check them out as well.)

I will buy a Wii and use it for games that you can play with friends plus games that use the unique controller for the Wii in a great way. I will not buy conversions, I will not buy all those games that you can buy for every system that comes out. Wii is unique and that is what I want as well, unique games.

Tags: Entertainment, Games, nintendo, nintendo-wii, nintendo-wii-launch-games, rayman-raving-rabbids, red-steel, super-monkey-ball, trauma-center, video-games, videogames, wii-launch, wii-launch-games, wii-sports, zelda

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Are ad supported free games the future ?

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