Gamertell

To help celebrate the Fourth of July 2008, DirecTV is offering a free preview weekend of its Game Lounge interactive channel for the long weekend (July 2 through 6, 2008, CH 110).

The channel allows you to play casual style games through DirecTV service (so you have to be a subscriber) using your remote. If you decide to buy the channel/service, it costs $5.95 per month and includes unlimited play of all available games. It also includes a leader board, token matches and free online trials (as well as online demos of most of the games). You can also order individual games for a day, a season or for one, six or twelve months at a time, depending on the game.

There are currently more than 40 games available on the Game Lounge, including Free Cell Deluxe, Avatar: Last Airbender, Barbie: Fashion, Jelly POP, Hot Wheels, Mad Libs, Backgammon, Prismz, Skip-Bo, CHAINZ, Monopoly and Pat Sajak’s Code Letters. There are several licensed titles in there and all are family-friendly.

You do need to make certain your receiver is compatible with the Game Lounge service. Here’s how to figure it out from DirecTV’s web site (happy free gaming!):

When you tune to channel 110, if your receiver supports Game Lounge, you will view the main page. If your receiver will support Game Lounge in the future, you will see the ‘Coming Soon’ message when you tune to channel 110. If your receiver does not support Game Lounge, you will not see channel 110 in your guide. Older receivers, including TIVO based units, will never support Game Lounge.

As of 11/07, Game Lounge will support all current and fielded interactive enabled receivers. The list of supported receivers at this time will be:

Standard:
D10 (models 100/200/300)
D11 (models 100/300/500/800)
D12 (model 300)

Standard PLUS DVR:
R15 (models 100/300/500)

HD Standard:
H20 (models 100/600)
H21 (model 200)

HD DVR:
HR20 (models 100/100s/700)
HR21 (model 700)

Read [DirecTV]

Site [Game Lounge] Read [FreePreviewTV]