It's Here: Wing Commander IV GameTap

As promised, the GameTap service has added Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom to their amazing library of classic and modern video games! The game is the original PC CD-ROM version and it requires a hefty one-time 1.5 gigabyte download and a 4.1 gigabyte slice of your hard drive... a shock to those who remember when the game's thirty megabyte demo took days of waiting and a lot of floppy disks. As with the original Wing Commander, the service has done right by the game by offering a bit of 'bonus materials' (pictured below), an online control guide and even scans of the game's manual (PDF) -- even though it's just an excerpt from the novelization!

GameTap is a pay service which allows players access to over 900 games (emulated to run on modern systems where necessary), including the original Wing Commander and the first six Ultima titles. An advertising-supported 'Lite' player also exists allowing players access to a rotation of games for free (as of this time WCIV is not available in this format). Subscriptions are available for as low as $6.95 a month... and a trial membership can be purchased for only 99 cents for the first month! It's a good bet more Wing Commander titles are on the way... the future of legal classic gaming looks bright.