There was a time when PC game rips were hugely popular. They were hits among the gaming community especially during the late 1990s, when scene groups such as CLASS, BACKLASH, MYTH, etc were active (they guys obviously released a lot of ripped games). A rip is basically a stripped down version of a PC game with reduced file size. This reduced size is usually achieved by re encoding/removing in game movies (or FMV), removing music, removing extra languages or by simply using a better compression algorithm. The smaller size facilitated easier online storage and saved bandwidth, both of which were valuable resources back then. However, as internet speeds improved and transferring large files over the web became relatively easier, the demand for game rips gradually decreased. But does that mean the art of ripping games is a thing of the past? Well, not really. Although not as popular, game rips are still around. If you still seek to download them, this post is about a private torrent tracker that focuses solely on this type of releases.
Although not as hugely popular as groups such as RELOADED, Razor1911, SKIDROW or ViTALiTY, scene groups who still release rips still do exist (i.e. UNLEASHED). However when it comes to these releases, non scene groups are nowadays more active than the scene. Their releases are usually made available over file sharing networks such as private trackers or DDL forums instead of topsites.
However, you won’t find a lot of game rips on General/0Day scene trackers or surprisingly, even on dedicated games trackers. But here’s a private tracker that’s dedicated to tracking game rips. TPTB (short for ‘The Powers That Be’) tracks a lot of unique and exclusive releases that you won’t easily find anywhere else. TPTB runs on TS Special Edition 7.0 codebase and has been around for several years. The site currently tracks close to 500 torrents, vast majority of which are games.
As you can see from the screenshot above, TBTB’s game rips collection even includes titles released just a few days ago. Most of these are uploaded by the site’s internal groups (hence the ‘TPTB’ tag in torrent title) and are exclusive to the tracker. If you want to know what’s ripped from a game, you can usually find that information in a torrent’s description page. Most of the rips I have come across so far were done in a way that did not cause any serious harm to a game’s playability – in most cases only unnecessary info (such as extra languages from MULTI5 and MULTI8 releases) was removed. In short, these guys are pros and they know how to reduce the size of a game without screwing it up. While the content is great, one downside of this tracker are the download speeds – they are average at best and there are some torrents without enough seeder activity to keep them going.
Although a little shy on the publicity front, signups for TBTP are currently open. If you are interested in downloading PC game rips, you might find this tracker to be useful.
Site Name: TPTB (http://teamtptb.com)
Signup URL: http://teamtptb.com/signup.php
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