GOG.com Throws Open its Doors to the Public

— -- I just got a note from CD Projekt letting me know that the company's "retro" digital distribution project GOG.com, has finally opened its nostalgic gates to the masses. Yearn for the days when space sims lacked physics? RPGs defaulted to "mouselook off"? When hit points were actually called hit points? You'll probably want to give these guys a look and a bookmark, then.

What's GOG.com all about then? Nothing to do with either the Hebrew Bible or the guy who sent Superman into retirement in Mark Waid and Alex Ross's Kingdom Come, GOG.com or "Good Old Games" is in fact a blissfully DRM-free hangout for old-school PC games you just can't find anymore without trawling Ebay or Amazon (and probably paying exorbitant prices to boot). Best of all, the games are priced between $6 and $10 and guaranteed to work on "modern operating systems," meaning of course both XP and Vista.

Just what counts as a "good old game" in GOG's eyes? Try: Sacred Gold, Jagged Alliance, Disciples Gold, Fallout, Fallout 2, FreeSpace 2, and lots more -- CD Projekt has plans to offer "more than 50 games from the 90s and 2000s, all optimized to work on modern PCs and packed with bonus content" in the coming weeks.

"Also, the games are inexpensive," writes CD Project, "leading to a minimal impact on international credit markets; GOG.com is doing its part to crush the current economic recession."

Now do yours, and check it out. I recently replayed the original Fallout using GOG.com and aside from the mild headache induced from squinting at the screen trying to distinguish between inert rad scorpions and piles of shadowed boulders at an interpolated 800 x 600 lines, it's a pretty copacetic deal. Cheap, fast, and even in cases where the original might have had copy protection mechanics, 100% DRM-free.