Another Rant Tangentially Connected With The Science Of Retro Gaming

Although this one’s more about gaming in general. Anyway, recently I decided to treat myself to a ROCK AND ROLL MANAGEMENT SIMULATOR!! Which was surprisingly good, although accurately simulated being part of a band that was rubbish and didn’t really know what it wanted from life. Even if you cheat to give yourself a grillion dollars, the band members soon grow realistically tired of their shallow fame, and unrealistically you can’t get them strung out on crack so as to keep them in line. THREE AND SEVEN EIGHTHS STARS OUT OF FIVE FOR YOU ROCK AND ROLL MANAGEMENT SIMULATION.

Anyway, the important part of this dull story is that I downloaded the thing from an online source in one easy gulp. Which was surprisingly great as it meant I didn’t even have to move. I’ve been trying to do this again with other games, since I really want another copy of Freedom Force (which is a retro game now I guess, it’s like old and stuff) and I don’t want to have to go onto eBay.

Essentially, what I want to do is torrent something, but legally, via the medium of paying for it.

That’s possible, right? It’s got to be.

I’ve googled and googled and googled this, but the only options I can find are sites full of endlessly horrible shareware games, or sites that are just hollow facades for Amazon and connect you through if you say that you want the game now. Hey, Mister Man, what if I don’t want to leave a giant carbon footprint on the planet by having everything shipped to me physically in boxes? What if I want the essential information that the game is composed of to be beamed to me through an internet connection I’m already using? What then? Is that too hardcore for your shallow sensibilities, MR CORPORATION? HMMMM??

Are we really not yet at the stage where I can get a copy of, say, The Sims 2 beamed directly onto my hard drive down a giant cable? I realise Nintendo are doing something like this with a giant Wii Library or some such, but I figured the PC would get there first, what with all those futurists running around Microsoft reading Douglas Coupland novels. Is the console the wave of the future after all? Has the PC upgraded itself into economic oblivion with a special missing-the-obvious card that you need to replace every time you buy a game?

The only explanation I can think of is that this kind of download-friendly game purchasing is all around us, but I’m just too stupid to find it. My google fu is feeble and I am fit only to be beaten around the head and face with electronic sticks by my internet superiors. Please help me by telling me about sites that offer this sort of service! But watch out or I’ll think you’re a spambot and delete you.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head to one of those godawful shareware sites I mentioned earlier, as Ultra Peril Snake awaits.