Yesterday, Gametap opened up a new component in their online subscription-based gaming service, and it’s worth taking a look at. Gametap’s new service is a FREE (as in beer) ad-supported list of games that you can play through their client. All that’s required is that you register with their site, and you can begin playing games like Street Fighter 2, Metal Slug, and Tomb Raider: Legend for free. In addition, many of the games are upgraded from their original version, including features such as online play in Metal Slug

So what’s the catch? Well, to start with, you have to watch ads at certain points during the game (for example, when a new level is loading, or when the game is first downloading). The other big problem—and one that a lot of sites don’t seem to be mentioning yet—is that the list of free games available rotates on a week-by-week basis. So while you may be able to play Joust for free this week, all your progress might be for nothing next week when they switch over to a NEW list of ad-supported games. This may not be a huge deal for some of the more arcade-y, quick play games like Rampage or Bust a Move, but it’s going to be pretty lame when you get hooked on TR Legend and then can’t play it after a week. Frankly, this all sounds suspiciously like a ploy to get people hooked on their service enough so that they’ll end up becoming paid subscribers to the full library - I can’t see any true gamer being happy with the list of free games changing every week.