S.T.A.L.K.E.R. free on GameTap

By Robert Purchese Published 19 May, 2009

As is Deus Ex, Psychonauts.

Games-on-demand service GameTap is offering S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Descent: Freespace, Deus Ex, Hitman: Blood Money and Psychonauts for free.

Just sign-up for the free GameTap client over on the website to begin. Our chums over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun note that the GameTap version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. cannot be modified, which takes away an enormous part of the atmospheric PC shooter. Nevertheless, the free game can always be used as a demo.

RPS also points out that this may be a limited-time offer, so you'd better be nippy.

Head over to our S.T.A.L.K.E.R. review to see what we thought to years' ago. Remember, those mods make quite a difference.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (42) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mcbi4kh2 #1 3 years ago

    Bought it for £10 on Saturday.

    /facepalm

  • Goodfella #2 3 years ago

    Well thanks for wasting my time, Vista 64 bit isn't supported, apparently.

  • bezuk #3 3 years ago

    EG really must point out in the article body or even in the headline that 64-bit OSes are not supported - that's a massive chunk of the PC gaming population.

  • Darren #4 3 years ago

    Tut, I'm a Vista 64-bit user too... was really looking forward to downloading Psychonauts and Hitman: Blood Money too. :(

  • NOSAVIOUR #5 3 years ago

    And nothings ever free... I dont want to subscribe for $5 a month.

  • Goodfella #6 3 years ago

    You don't have to. There is a free option.

  • Fyzzu #7 3 years ago

    Although this didn't actually work for me. God knows why but I everything was downloading at an amazing 0.0kb/s.

  • Nithron #8 3 years ago

    You can pick this up for like a tenner everywhere now anyway... or less. Absolutely brilliant game.

    Shame the sequel.. prequel... expansion... whatever, was unplayably buggy and had a DRM install limit.

  • lambtron #9 3 years ago

    "No issues here, and why bother with a 64bit system when the real world benefits are limited to little more than "mine has 64bits and yours has 32" type arguments, very few games make much use of it either. "

    Err, no.

  • Widge #10 3 years ago

    Well, I'd use 64bit as I'd be able to see all 4GB of my ram for Ableton usage....

  • mikeck #11 3 years ago

    Just bought on Steam on Sunday night...d'oh.

    I really don't know what the fuss is about all this talk of getting mods, I've played the game for about six hours now so far have not ran into a single problem, do the mods really add that much to the game?

  • UncleLou #12 3 years ago

    No issues here, and why bother with a 64bit system when the real world benefits are limited to little more than "mine has 64bits and yours has 32"

    Unless you want to use 4GB Ram or more, without your graphics card memory cutting down the main memory your system can use.
    Edited by 1 at 19/05/09 @ 10:44

  • Darren #13 3 years ago

    @EverAfter - My new Core i7 PC has 6 GB of system memory and I have a 1 GB graphics card. Had I been running a 32-bit operating system I'd have only been able to use a maximum of 3 GB of that memory (probably less as other hardware also uses RAM) as they can only address 4 GB and my graphics card would have used 1 GB of that. Basically if you want to overcome that memory limitation then you have to upgrade to a 64-bit operating system. My PC is super fast thanks to the abundance of memory and even quicker with the 64-bit version of Windows 7 RC. :)

  • Wastelander #14 3 years ago

    Mods add loads to the game.
    After playing the various and numerous mods you won't go back to vanilla.

  • ZuluHero #15 3 years ago

    Why can't you download the game and own it? Why do i have to play through Gametap?

  • Ged42 #16 3 years ago

    Doh! I just payed £2.50 for Stalker down the charity shop lol

  • stoopidgreg #17 3 years ago

    what mods would people recommend? i may install it again

  • Domovoi #18 3 years ago

    Since when is GameTap available outside of the US and Canada?

  • PearOfAnguish #19 3 years ago

    £2.50? That's a bargain.
    You would only want to use this as a demo anyway, the game is so much better with mods.

  • JonFE #20 3 years ago

    @squarejawhero, do you happen to know whether the Steam version of Stalker supports this Complete 2009 mod? I'd love to try that out...

  • TessaTickle #21 3 years ago

    The second STALKER had a script engine bug that basically shut down the game experience for me about 50% in. The final boss battle showed the big baddy standing motionless close to a walkway pillar looking the other way and letting me blast him with the game's BFG. Pants.

  • TessaTickle #22 3 years ago

    Oh yeah and the GameTap version can NOT be modded so there goes the last chance of attracting me to it.

    Really, really too bad though ... STALKER *does* have its own unique atmosphere which attracts me very much but once bitten twice shy (see previous post for why).

  • Spectral #23 3 years ago

    Does anyone know once you've signed up and downloaded how long they remain playable for free for? Kind of tempted by Deus Ex since I've never played it( I know, I know). But not sure when I'll get round to it. If this can expire I may just pick it up on steam for £5.99.

  • PearOfAnguish #24 3 years ago

    Spectral, the line-up does change from time to time but since this has only just gone live I'd imagine DX will be available for quite a while.

    You really should buy it though, it's a brilliant game and very cheap now.

  • mikeck #25 3 years ago

    Mods add loads to the game.
    After playing the various and numerous mods you won't go back to vanilla.

    Okay, now I'm really intrigued, I think the 'vanilla' version is great as it is, so if the mods really do add that much, it must make the game frigging awesome ;)

  • IneptPercy #26 3 years ago

    64bit also here, so its not going to go.

    As for the whats the point in 64bit thing, I am also on 4GB RAM with 1GB graphics and 64mb on the X-fi.

    Either way if I want to use all that 64bit is the way forward, unlike previous OS's there really is no reason not to go 64bit even if your not limited and come under the 4GB RAM.

    I was hoping that microsoft would just force 64bit with windows 7, maybe they will with windows 8.

  • shotgun44 #27 3 years ago

    Anyone know if I can sign up on my latop, download the games free and then download them again in a few weeks when I get back to my desktop with the shiny graphics card? I'd like to get hitman and psychonauts but they'll never run on this piece of crap!

  • shotgun44 #28 3 years ago

    Oh, I see how this works... nvm

  • Pulsar_t #29 3 years ago

    Project HDTP (for Deus Ex) is still taking forever to complete. Still, if you want to play one of the greatest games of all time I suggest waiting for the hidef texturing project to be finished!

  • PearOfAnguish #30 3 years ago

    You don't need to wait for the HDTP, the graphics don't matter.

  • Goodfella #31 3 years ago

    Well, I think they do because when I installed Deus Ex the other day (after finding my copy in the attic) my rose tinted specs couldn't hide the fact that it looked butt ugly. Great game but in this case the visuals hurt.

  • Eraysor #32 3 years ago

    Explain why you put Psychonauts third EG.

    This transgression will not go unpunished.

    XD< /span>
    Edited by 1 at 19/05/09 @ 12:46

  • Wastelander #33 3 years ago

    "Okay, now I'm really intrigued, I think the 'vanilla' version is great as it is, so if the mods really do add that much, it must make the game frigging awesome ;)"

    Vanilla is outstanding, and worth playing through first anyway.
    You need to check out Oblivion Lost (sticks a lot of the cut features back in, it's harder in some ways, but balanced out by better weapons and skills. Changes the dynamic of the game totally) and the new Stalker Complete 2009 mod though (massive graphical overhaul, looks like a new game)

    I LOVE Stalker. Only a fiver in Game and PC World as well.

  • Ged42 #34 3 years ago

    Though my £2.50 was wasted since I can't get the game to boot up (something about page files) which is annoying, I thought since my computer can handle Half-Life 2, it would be able to handle Stalker.

  • skillian #35 3 years ago

    @Ged42

    Sounds like you're low on memory. RAM is pretty cheap right now, but otherwise try rebooting your PC and closing down all unnecessary programs in the background.

  • Tomo #36 3 years ago

    Stalker is wayyyyyyyyyyy more of a system hog than HL2. It's also much better looking to boot.

  • 9of9 #37 3 years ago

    More interested in the free Psychonauts offer really than Stalker (seeing as I bought the game when it came out). But... yeah, no Vista-64 support -.- Rubbish.

  • TessaTickle #38 3 years ago

    Just for my curiosity, how many of the people who demand Vista/64 support believe that those games that do run on Vista 64 are really built for 64 bit runtime ? I'd not be surprised at all if Vista/64 could downgrade to 32 bit when faced with apps built for a 32 bit OS.

    If that guess is true then you could probably run anything you wanted on Vista/64 and the only ones losing out would be the gamers who are nitpicking themselves out of a potentially great experience.

  • bezuk #39 3 years ago

    As you say, 99% of games are not built as 64-bit executables (Crysis being one of the only ones I can think of) but run fine on Vista 64 through the WOW64 translation layer which is what allows 32-bit apps to run at all.

    The problems start when apps wish to use drivers - 32-bit drivers will not work at all and must be rewritten for 64-bit. My guess is that Gametap (and similarly restricted service Metaboli) uses a driver for the encryption service to stop you playing without subscribing (even in this free case).

    Outside of these services I can't think of a single game that doesn't work on Vista 64 but does on Vista 32 other than a couple of ones using old DRM systems which - once again - messed things up by using a driver to enforce the DRM.

  • ukdm #40 3 years ago

    It's only free until the 20th (tomorrow) according to their blog.
    [link url=http://gametapblog.com /free-game-of-the-week-double-your-pleasure-double-your-fun- edition/
    ]http://ga metapblog.com/free-game-of-the-...[/link]

  • andromeda #41 3 years ago

    no.1 and 2 in my fav games of all time ..

  • BobsUncle #42 3 years ago

    @IneptPercy

    Vista removed hardware support of Direct Sound, it's now all emulated in the CPU. So your shiny X-fi is basically just a mixer output unless your game is running OpenAL or using ASIO drivers.