Psi-Oploads

We're hurtling into a bright new future for PC games - we all know that. What we don't know is exactly what future. The plastic disc is an artefact of yesterday without doubt, but will it be replaced by online retail or by free, ad-supported games?

Well, probably a bit of both, but I am enjoying seeing the latter experiment with what and doesn't work. In this instance, it's Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, a mediocre but occasionally good FPS like an FPS but with more shoulder from 2004 by the same team as John Woo's Stranglehold, a mediocre but occasionally good FPS like an FPS but with more shoulder from 2007.

Fileplanet are providing all 2Gb of it for free, with the proviso that you'll have to endure some ads. It's a remarkably strange game to do this for - I can't believe there are many folk out there thinking 'ooh, I always wanted to play a clunky port of a so-so Playstation 2 game'. That said, the mere mention of the magic word 'free' has doubtless sent gamers over to Fileplanet's childishly slow servers (120k/s here, so I'm not going to be playing it any time soon) in their droves, so I suspect the advertisers will be ever so happy.

Worth noting this is a game that suffered a lawsuit late last year, one William L. Crawford III claiming that game ripped off his 1998 movie screenplay of the same name. And the same final bosses, apparently. Oops. Perhaps either that's all gone away now, or this is a last-ditch attempt to make some money from the game before the lawsuit bleeds Midway dry.