Please give Phantasmagoria 1 & 2 a try.
FMV isn't an embarrassing foot note in the history of gaming.
FMV isn't an embarrassing foot note in the history of gaming.
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- Thread starter Chuck Norris
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Phantas 1 is a terrible game and a terrbile movie and an embarrassing footnote within the embarrassing footnote that is FMV outside of the Tex Murphy series.
Phantas 2 is not a bad movie, but still a terrible game.
That said even Phantas 1 is miles better than Harvester, also on the sale.
Waxworks is the game that I would recommend from that list (SS2 is a little obvious and I suspect everyone here has played it anyway). Black Cat did a fantastic LP of the game.
Phantas 2 is not a bad movie, but still a terrible game.
That said even Phantas 1 is miles better than Harvester, also on the sale.
Waxworks is the game that I would recommend from that list (SS2 is a little obvious and I suspect everyone here has played it anyway). Black Cat did a fantastic LP of the game.
And Gabriel Knight 2. Granted, I would have prefered for it to not be done in FMV, but it is mostly competent despite a few cheap moments—I found Peter Lucas interesting. And though it doesn't bother me that much, I'd say GK2 succeeds despite the FMV, which isn't much of an endorsement for the genre.
pippin
Guest
You were always a kidder Steve http://mugshots.com/US-Counties/Texas/Dallas-County-TX/Kurt-Stephen-Kistler.8684252.html
Astral Rag
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Yeah, I admit I don't give GK2 enough credit, but I still wonder if it's so loved because it was a good (even great, perhaps even the best) "interactive movie" rather than a genuinely good game. As you said it succeeds despite the FMV, but this would imply it would've probably been better if they'd gone with a more typical adventure game. The thing with Tex, especially with TPD but even with Tesla Effect, is that the FMV never felt like it was bringing the games down, or that either would've been better off being a more typical adventure game like Martiam Memorandum.
I absolutely hated GK2 because of the lack of subtitles and inability to fast forward the ridiculously slow-ass dialogues. FFS I'm not playing a video game to watch Dave Mustaine talk and flail his arms around.
I think that what helps Tex Murphy is that it walks a fine line between serious and cheesy noir private investigator atmosphere, and the FMV reinforces it by alternating between camp and more serious when needed.
Anyway, at the same time GK2 was ambitious in some parts, like the opera scene. Some of Grace's investigation sequences feel more alive too thanks to the FMV, where the info dumps would be annoying in typical 2D fashion. And then some parts that would have been fine in a classic 2D style looks ridiculous in life-action movies. It's not like it is completely detrimental, but it could have been done better, or none at all. In the end, I would say that GK2 ended up decent, even with some charm at some parts, and given the average level of the FMV games that's not so bad.
I think there's a fan-made subtitle patch out there somewhere, though I never tried it.
Gragt's Xpadder configurations for X-Wing and TIE-Fighter!
This is for those of you who prefer the classic DOS versions of the Star Wars flight sims to the Windows remakes. I use the CD versions that are sadly not present on GOG, but it should work for the Floppy versions. I would still urge you to procure these for the improvements over the Floppy versions, and hopefully they will be added on GOG at some point.
I haven't used a flightstick in years, though I should still have my old one somewhere back in Belgium—I'm not even sure it would work on Win7 x64 at this point—but I got an X360 pad. After some trials in DOSBox, I managed to have it work correctly, and it is even possible to remap the button thanks to the DOSBox mapper, but the lack of sensitivity or deadzones options is crippling. This DOSBox build allows you to set deadzones, amongst other things, but I still find it limited. After all the game was designed around flightsticks, not gamepads.
I ended up disabling the joystick/pad entirely in DOSBox and turned to Xpadder instead to remap the sticks and buttons with more flexibility. Since some of you may find it useful, I decided to share it here. The controls between the two games are very similar but TIE-Fighter adds a few useful extra buttons and I updated my configurations accordingly. If you do not have Xpadder since it is a commercial software, you can obviously use a free alternative if you prefer. And you may use another pad than the X360 one, as long as it has enough buttons—I wish I had a few more available. You do not have to follow this to the letter and may adapt it to your liking, but I think it is a good starting base. It's not as good as a flightstick, but it works surprisingly well for these kinds of games!
X-Wing
Left stick: mouse (nose and bank control). The default deadzone is 25% and it works ok for most people, but depending on your pad you may try to go as little as 15%. Test to check if you get any drift during the game. I set the sensitivity on both axes to the maximum (255).
Right stick up: numpad+ (increases throttle)
Right stick down: numpad- (decreases throttle)
Right stick left: Y (selects previous target)
Right stick right: T (selects next target)
The best way to configure the right stick is to set it up as a 4-Way stick instead of the default 8-Way, and set a high deadzone value (75%), so you do not risk sending two keys at once.
D-pad up: X (toggles through weapons firing configurations)
D-pad down: S (toggles shields configurations)
D-pad left: F9 (adjusts laser recharge setting)
D-pad right: F10 (adjusts shields recharge setting)
A: Spacebar (targets incoming missile)
B: Shift-A (Wingman, attact target)
X: mouse button 2 (tap to target the target in sight / hold and move the left stick to the left or right to roll your spacecraft)
Y: R (select nearest enemy starfighter)
Left shoulder button: W (toggles through weapons systems)
Right shoulder button: mouse button 1 (fires weapon)
Select: F (engages S Foil wing postion on the X-wing and the B-wing)
Start: I (toggles between CMD Identification mode and Targetting mode)
Left stick click: Shift-C (Wingman, cover me)
Right stick click: Backspace (set throttle to full power)
Left trigger: Shift-F9 (transfers energy from your shields to lasers)
Right trigger: Shift-F10 (transfers energy from your lasers to shields)
Tie-Fighter
Left stick: mouse (nose and bank control). The default deadzone is 25% and it works ok for most people, but depending on your pad you may try to go as little as 15%. Test to check if you get any drift during the game. I set the sensitivity on both axes to the maximum (255).
Right stick up: numpad+ (increases throttle)
Right stick down: numpad- (decreases throttle)
Right stick left: Y (selects previous available target)
Right stick right: T (selects next available target)
The best way to configure the right stick is to set it up as a 4-Way stick instead of the default 8-Way, and set a high deadzone value (75%), so you do not risk sending two keys at once.
D-pad up: X (cycles through weapons firing configurations)
D-pad down: S (cycles shields configurations settings, if available)
D-pad left: F9 (adjusts laser recharge setting)
D-pad right: F10 (adjusts shields recharge setting, if available)
A: Spacebar (confirms critical orders)
B: E (selects the nearest enemy attacking your craft)
X: mouse button 2 (tap to target the target in sight / hold and move the left stick left or right to roll your spacecraft / hold and move the left stick up or down to increase or decrease throttle)
Y: R (select nearest enemy starfighter)
Left shoulder button: W (toggles through weapons systems)
Right shoulder button: mouse button 1 (fires weapon & warheads)
Select: F8 (adjusts beam weapon recharge setting, if available)
Start: B (toggles beam weapon on/off, if available)
Left stick click: Enter (sets throttle to current speed of your target)
Right stick click: Backspace (set throttle to full power)
Left trigger: Shift-F9 (directs energy from your shields to laser/ion cannons)
Right trigger: Shift-F10 (directs energy from your laser/ion cannons to shields)
That covers most of the functions. Of course you will need to rely on your keyboard for some of them, like wingmen orders, menu access, or target memorisation, but the critical stuff should be at your fingertips most of the time. I wish I had some more buttons to assign the selection of a target's components in TIE-Fighter, but it is used mainly for capital ships and so I don't need it 90% of the time—I could free the right stick's up and down, seeing as mouse 2 + up and down can control the throttle, but it is slower than having the throttle control is assigned to its own buttons and I like to be able to adjust it quickly in a dogfight.
This is for those of you who prefer the classic DOS versions of the Star Wars flight sims to the Windows remakes. I use the CD versions that are sadly not present on GOG, but it should work for the Floppy versions. I would still urge you to procure these for the improvements over the Floppy versions, and hopefully they will be added on GOG at some point.
I haven't used a flightstick in years, though I should still have my old one somewhere back in Belgium—I'm not even sure it would work on Win7 x64 at this point—but I got an X360 pad. After some trials in DOSBox, I managed to have it work correctly, and it is even possible to remap the button thanks to the DOSBox mapper, but the lack of sensitivity or deadzones options is crippling. This DOSBox build allows you to set deadzones, amongst other things, but I still find it limited. After all the game was designed around flightsticks, not gamepads.
I ended up disabling the joystick/pad entirely in DOSBox and turned to Xpadder instead to remap the sticks and buttons with more flexibility. Since some of you may find it useful, I decided to share it here. The controls between the two games are very similar but TIE-Fighter adds a few useful extra buttons and I updated my configurations accordingly. If you do not have Xpadder since it is a commercial software, you can obviously use a free alternative if you prefer. And you may use another pad than the X360 one, as long as it has enough buttons—I wish I had a few more available. You do not have to follow this to the letter and may adapt it to your liking, but I think it is a good starting base. It's not as good as a flightstick, but it works surprisingly well for these kinds of games!
X-Wing
Left stick: mouse (nose and bank control). The default deadzone is 25% and it works ok for most people, but depending on your pad you may try to go as little as 15%. Test to check if you get any drift during the game. I set the sensitivity on both axes to the maximum (255).
Right stick up: numpad+ (increases throttle)
Right stick down: numpad- (decreases throttle)
Right stick left: Y (selects previous target)
Right stick right: T (selects next target)
The best way to configure the right stick is to set it up as a 4-Way stick instead of the default 8-Way, and set a high deadzone value (75%), so you do not risk sending two keys at once.
D-pad up: X (toggles through weapons firing configurations)
D-pad down: S (toggles shields configurations)
D-pad left: F9 (adjusts laser recharge setting)
D-pad right: F10 (adjusts shields recharge setting)
A: Spacebar (targets incoming missile)
B: Shift-A (Wingman, attact target)
X: mouse button 2 (tap to target the target in sight / hold and move the left stick to the left or right to roll your spacecraft)
Y: R (select nearest enemy starfighter)
Left shoulder button: W (toggles through weapons systems)
Right shoulder button: mouse button 1 (fires weapon)
Select: F (engages S Foil wing postion on the X-wing and the B-wing)
Start: I (toggles between CMD Identification mode and Targetting mode)
Left stick click: Shift-C (Wingman, cover me)
Right stick click: Backspace (set throttle to full power)
Left trigger: Shift-F9 (transfers energy from your shields to lasers)
Right trigger: Shift-F10 (transfers energy from your lasers to shields)
Tie-Fighter
Left stick: mouse (nose and bank control). The default deadzone is 25% and it works ok for most people, but depending on your pad you may try to go as little as 15%. Test to check if you get any drift during the game. I set the sensitivity on both axes to the maximum (255).
Right stick up: numpad+ (increases throttle)
Right stick down: numpad- (decreases throttle)
Right stick left: Y (selects previous available target)
Right stick right: T (selects next available target)
The best way to configure the right stick is to set it up as a 4-Way stick instead of the default 8-Way, and set a high deadzone value (75%), so you do not risk sending two keys at once.
D-pad up: X (cycles through weapons firing configurations)
D-pad down: S (cycles shields configurations settings, if available)
D-pad left: F9 (adjusts laser recharge setting)
D-pad right: F10 (adjusts shields recharge setting, if available)
A: Spacebar (confirms critical orders)
B: E (selects the nearest enemy attacking your craft)
X: mouse button 2 (tap to target the target in sight / hold and move the left stick left or right to roll your spacecraft / hold and move the left stick up or down to increase or decrease throttle)
Y: R (select nearest enemy starfighter)
Left shoulder button: W (toggles through weapons systems)
Right shoulder button: mouse button 1 (fires weapon & warheads)
Select: F8 (adjusts beam weapon recharge setting, if available)
Start: B (toggles beam weapon on/off, if available)
Left stick click: Enter (sets throttle to current speed of your target)
Right stick click: Backspace (set throttle to full power)
Left trigger: Shift-F9 (directs energy from your shields to laser/ion cannons)
Right trigger: Shift-F10 (directs energy from your laser/ion cannons to shields)
That covers most of the functions. Of course you will need to rely on your keyboard for some of them, like wingmen orders, menu access, or target memorisation, but the critical stuff should be at your fingertips most of the time. I wish I had some more buttons to assign the selection of a target's components in TIE-Fighter, but it is used mainly for capital ships and so I don't need it 90% of the time—I could free the right stick's up and down, seeing as mouse 2 + up and down can control the throttle, but it is slower than having the throttle control is assigned to its own buttons and I like to be able to adjust it quickly in a dogfight.
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Phantas 1 wouldn't be a good adventure game, nor would it be a good movie.
But combine the movie and game together and you get something... unique. It's more than the sum of its parts.
Oh, and Tex Murphy is overrated.
Edit: Worth playing, but overrated.
Edit: Worth playing, but overrated.
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ToME comes to GOG. See http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2014/11/news/tales-majeyal-now-gog
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- Jan 28, 2011
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- 97,443
French games sale: http://af.gog.com/promo/weekend_promo_french_launch_071114?as=1649904300
What, is this in honor of Armistice Day?
What, is this in honor of Armistice Day?
Last edited by a moderator:
Vive la France and no Little Big Adventure ? Seriously?
pippin
Guest
Aarklash can be good fun if you're looking for a rtwp conbat system that doesn't completely suck.
Let's see if my economy allows me to buy the Runaway games....
Let's see if my economy allows me to buy the Runaway games....
Grim Monk
Arcane
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- Nov 7, 2011
- Messages
- 1,217
Something that's been bothering me...
Last Ubisoft release:
Rayman Origins Jun 4, 2013
(1 year, 5 months.)
Last Activision release:
Spycraft: The Great Game Oct 2, 2012
(2 years, and 1 month)
Last EA release:
SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition May 29, 2014
(5 months.)
Cynical/pessimistic speculation:
Wonder if the AAA publishers stopped putting anything up on GOG cause they'd rather later release it only on Uplay/Origin.
Now that they've grasped the "Secret of DOSBox" why support a competitor...
EDIT: Fixed
my original 
date calculations.
Last Ubisoft release:
Rayman Origins Jun 4, 2013
(1 year, 5 months.)
Last Activision release:
Spycraft: The Great Game Oct 2, 2012
(2 years, and 1 month)
Last EA release:
SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition May 29, 2014
(5 months.)
Cynical/pessimistic speculation:
Wonder if the AAA publishers stopped putting anything up on GOG cause they'd rather later release it only on Uplay/Origin.
Now that they've grasped the "Secret of DOSBox" why support a competitor...
EDIT: Fixed
my original date calculations.
Last edited:
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- Jan 28, 2011
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- 97,443
They have bigger reasons not to put their new games on GOG. Like having to strip them of DRM (remember that?).
As for old games, I'm sure there are plenty more of them that Activision and Ubisoft still have in their archives, but they've already released to GOG the most famous ones, I think.
EA has been pretty good about continually adding games to GOG and I hope they keep on doing that.
As for old games, I'm sure there are plenty more of them that Activision and Ubisoft still have in their archives, but they've already released to GOG the most famous ones, I think.
EA has been pretty good about continually adding games to GOG and I hope they keep on doing that.
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Grim Monk
Arcane
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What I'm most concerned about is for those games to be released DRM-free.
I suspect AAA publishers don't like releasing ANYTHING DRM-free since it denies them control.
That also applies to third party retail, be it Steam or GOG.
Currently they are going after Steam by withholding new releases, and tying them exclusively to their own "company stores".
But its not a jump to see them apply the same principle to their back catalog, why share it with anybody else.
And odds are they won't be kind enough to simply provide installers, no it will be "client based" to retain control...
I suspect AAA publishers don't like releasing ANYTHING DRM-free since it denies them control.
That also applies to third party retail, be it Steam or GOG.
Currently they are going after Steam by withholding new releases, and tying them exclusively to their own "company stores".
But its not a jump to see them apply the same principle to their back catalog, why share it with anybody else.
And odds are they won't be kind enough to simply provide installers, no it will be "client based" to retain control...
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- Jan 28, 2011
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That would be ridiculously petty. The point is to earn maximum profit on new hyped games that are about to sell hundreds of thousands of copies on release.
(BTW, EA does actually sell their old games on Origin already: https://www.origin.com/en-ie/store/buy/ultima-7-origin/pc-download/base-game/complete-edition)
We're talking about GOG here, and why they haven't gotten a new Activision game in two years.
Grim Monk
Arcane
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- 1,217
Also Infinitron this French Language push might be "a shot across the bow" at DotEmu.
http://www.dotemu.com/en
They are French, a competitor in the Old Game and DRM-free retail fields.
And they still have all those Nordic Games titles that GOG was recently forced to remove.
http://www.dotemu.com/en/pc-games/company/nordic-games
http://www.dotemu.com/en
They are French, a competitor in the Old Game and DRM-free retail fields.
And they still have all those Nordic Games titles that GOG was recently forced to remove.
http://www.dotemu.com/en/pc-games/company/nordic-games
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- May 21, 2014
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- 205
Speaking of gog and Activision: I suspect the reason some of their old games are not released there (or any other digital platform) is that those games used IP's licensed from other companies, and Activision doesn't have the rights to publish them anymore. Two games I was looking forward to buying on gog, but never appeared: Mechwarrior 2 (FASA Battletech license) and Battlezone 1998 (the original 1980 arcade game it was based on was made by Atari).
This is only speculation on my part of course.
This is only speculation on my part of course.
pippin
Guest
Wasn't there a DLC policy involved as well? For instance, EA pulled DA2 from Steam because they didn't wanted to sell DLC there, or that's what I heard at least.
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