Large support from the industry..
Of course, a service such as this doesn’t come for free, and you can argue that paying for patches that you’d normally get for free is a bit of a sticking point. But you’re not actually paying for the patches, you’re paying for the service. A subscription to GameShadow costs just £10 a year, which will then cover any and all games on your system. So for under 20p a week, you can now stop fretting about patch releases and stop checking forums and gamesites for the latest patch updates. Even better, games that come with GameShadow as part of the bundle are supported by the GameShadow service for free for life, so you can give it a go with no outlay whatsoever, which, you have to admit, is rather cool.
So what’s in the future for GameShadow, after all, now they’ve got the patching thing cracked, what’s next? Tony and Nicholas reckon that the first big hurdle is to get past gamers perceptions that GameShadow is doing more than just keeping their patches up to date. One of the big problems they’ve had is in convincing gamers that the system scan GameShadow does is purely to find out what games you have and what version they are. But once they can get past that understandable worry, the GameShadow guys have got some big things planned.
The new version of the GameShadow client, which will be out in late November, will add more features to the software to offer a more complete service. At the minute you can access demos, movies, mods and free expansion packs through the GameShadow but the new client will be able to tailor this to specific games you own. Working in a similar way to Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Marketplace for the Xbox 360, GameShadow will pull the content specific to your games and let you know when something new is ready to download. Of course, all of this is customisable, so you could just let it pull down patches and nothing else, or go the whole hog and pull down anything and everything to do with any game you have on your system.
So what do publishers think of GameShadow? That can most likely be gauged by who has signed up to their Extended Play program (where GameShadow comes with the game and you get free support for it indefinitely). So far the list is small but growing rapidly with games from publishers like Eidos, Ubisoft, Sega, and Digital Jesters bundling GameShadow with their games and that list is growing all the time.
And don’t worry if your game isn’t from one of those publishers, with 1,365 titles supported by GameShadow themselves and another 2,700 or so patches and stuff held on their servers, it’s a pretty safe bet GameShadow have got what you need, it just means the support for those games not on the Extended Play program will only be available if you subscribe.
Perhaps even more importantly, GameShadow doesn’t just look after your patches, but also your system too by checking for new graphics drivers and new versions of Direct X, letting you keep your system running at peak performance and being the first to have the newest features or performance gains from the latest driver releases. HEXUS.gaming can exclusively reveal that none other than ATI, those graphics giants, are now bundling the GameShadow client with all their new cards, so there’s got to be something good about it.
With games being released and patched on an almost daily basis, Black and White 2 being a fine example, it looks like GameShadow have got a good thing here for the gamer. It’s especially useful if you have loads of games that you dip into and then play something else for a while before dipping in again, there’s nothing more annoying than wanting an online sesh with your mates and then spending 20 minutes finding the patch they’re all on only to fluff it up and have to re-install the entire thing… With a bit of luck, GameShadow will make those patching nightmares a thing of the past.
And rather superbly, the free version supports all the games on their Extended Play program as well as giving you five FREE patch downloads for any other game on your system, so you can try before you buy! So what are you waiting for? Why not visit www.gameshadow.com/downloads to get your hands on it and give it a whirl?
