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Tuesday 12 December 2017

BLACK DAHLIA


The infamous unsolved murder of the aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, dubbed the Black Dahlia, has become one of Hollywood's biggest true-life stories. Over forty years after the tragic death, Take 2 has taken the mystery and mixed it with mythology to create an epic FMV adventure.

Made by the same team as Ripper, Black Dahlia was released at the tail end of the FMV craze in 1998. People were beginning to get savvy to their apparent lack of quality in both the film production and gameplay. Black Dahlia is one of the better efforts, but after a strong start, it quickly lapses into laziness in both its story and puzzles.

You play as Jim Pearson, a new recruit to the Office of the Coordinator of Information (the COI) in Cleveland. It's 1941 and, with the world at war, paranoia surrounding the Nazi spy next door is high. It's your job to root them out. But this is also the time when the real-life Cleveland Torso Killer was terrorising the city. The two cases intertwine with the Thule Society, a German occult group founded after World War I, and events quickly escalate into fantastical Indiana Jones territory.

The puzzles often devolve into the jigsaw variety. Don't complete the diamond puzzle (right) until you 
need it. There's a bug that will render the game unwinnable if you do.

The gameplay is traditional for a first-person point-and-click adventure. Locations can be searched in full 360 degrees with hotpots zooming you in on points of interest. There isn't much in the way of exploration beyond individual rooms, so in that respect, the game feels quite claustrophobic and contained. It's a testament to the storytelling that the game still feels epic and on a grand scale.

You do have some familiar tools to aid you through the adventure which are accessed by right-clicking or pressing ESC. First, there's your inventory which allows you to look at items in finer detail. You may find additional clues or items if you inspect them more closely, but to use them you simply need to click on the icon while in the correct location. The map is your quick travel and is necessary to get out of some areas where the door is inaccessible. Photos of the locations will be added or removed depending on what you've accomplished. The last tool - outside of the standard game functions - is a notepad which is completely controlled by the user. Only certain clues will automatically show up and it's not entirely clear which ones won't. In any case, you'll need to pay attention no matter what. Or you can jot down any kind of vulgarity you want.

The puzzles are often well designed, at least to begin with. They are completely diegetic to the plot in the first half too, with items hidden in other items and passwords trapped behind codes. You'll need some basic cryptology skills is some cases too, making the in-game free-typed notepad - or a real-world paper one on standby - a must. These can be incredibly fun to figure out, even if scrolling through phonebooks and Nazi watch lists seem daunting. Remember, if you have heard of a name within the game before, chances are it's important.

Unfortunately, these clever puzzles devolve into the standard sliding puzzles and jigsaws with more frequency as the game goes on. It gets to the point where it's no longer amusing. It's as if the designer's creativity ran out halfway through. The same could be said for the story too. Those with any knowledge of the Black Dahlia case will know that Elizabeth Short was murdered in 1947, six years after the events of the beginning of the game. This is because the Black Dahlia of the title is not about the tragic death of an actress, but a mystical gemstone used in occult rituals. There is a time jump later and we do have a role in the famous case, but much like the Cleveland Torso Murders, it's little more than window dressing.

Some puzzles will ask you to call on your maths skills or decode hidden messages. Some will even 
require a bit of research making you a true investigator.

The game spans eight CDs - to my knowledge, the single largest game at that time - and each CD is packed full of video. Considering the reputation for FMV games, the acting and production quality is pretty damn good, though the declaration that it stars Dennis Hopper is a bit misleading. His role is that of your disgraced predecessor and has a very minor impact on the overall story. It will be several CDs before you get to meet him too no doubt disappointing several gamers at the time. That being said, the unknown actors we'll be seeing more of do a great job.

I was incredibly engrossed with the first half of Black Dahlia, making a mental note that this could be a forgotten masterpiece of interactive fiction, but as I kept playing, that line of thinking gradually disappeared. Instead, we have a decent adventure with top-notch production values and an entertaining B-Movie plot. The moniker of Forgotten Masterpiece may be out, but Hidden Gem is certainly applicable. Well worth your time.


To download the game, follow the link below. This exclusive installer uses PCem running Windows '95. Press Ctrl-Alt-PgDown to toggle fullscreen. Press Ctrl-End or middle mouse button to release the mouse. Tested on Windows 10.
  20.05.2018 - Version 2 -  Now uses PCEm to emulate Windows '95.
                                          Added autorun and custom background within Windows '95.
                                          Fixed an installer compile error which prevents multi CDs being recognised.
                                          Patched game to official version 1.10. This adds the following:
                                                A workaround for the gem/rune puzzle bug (type 'reset' within the puzzle's screen to reset it).
                                                Subtitle support. Within Windows '95 edit C:\BDAHLIA\BD.ini and set Subtitles to 1.

IMPORTANT - Remember to shut down the emulated version of Windows before exiting PCem. This could potentially result in errors, lost saves and corrupt data. Close the program only when it is safe to do so.

File Size: 4.77 Gb.  Install Size: 5.25 Gb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

Download


Black Dahlia is © Take 2 Interactive
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me


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55 comments:

  1. Personally, I think that even such a pompous adjective like "amazing" falls short when bearing in mind the tech-historical significance of your heroic deed, making the long derelict Black Dahlia executable on billions and billons of halfway modern PCs outside a pre-Year-2000 Windows OS environment for the first time ever! Daredevil Biff, this more than incredible achievement must have stretched your mental robustness up to the max, hasn't it? Well, I, for one, I still can't believe what my very own eyes are catching sight of here, thanks to all the sweat and tears you've suspectedly shed to get that somehow FMV swan song running finally! WOW!!!

    In regard to Black Dahlia's controversial quality of its story, it would also be interesting to hear how exactly you would rate the first half, second half and its overall composition in percent and/or stars, since your views on games mean a lot to me in general.

    Bye for now,
    Thomas

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Thomas. I made the decision not to give a game a number in my reviews, mainly because it will show my bias towards the adventure genre and doesn't express the critical nuances of the text. I can give a pint-n-clicker top marks while still noting its flaws (even major ones). If it has a great animation style and/or strong story elements even more so.

      Just for you though, I'd give Black Dahlia 4/5 with a point either side for the 1st and 2nd half (though keep in mind my genre bias). The first half is all set up and intrigue with very little in the way of set pieces, but the second half is the opposite. It becomes very violent and gory and a bit over the top. It almost feels like a different game to be honest, although I wouldn't classify it as a bad one. That being said, I can understand why some won't like those early code-breaking puzzles which I really enjoyed.

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    2. I agree with your decision that you don't want to provide your game reviews with particular ratings in numbers, as I think as well that they wouldn't do sufficiently justice to your extensive treatises. Besides, it is obvious to me, too, that many of those products, which always carry a certain amount of fun value for fans, are a little bit hard to rate from an objective point of view these days (not to mention they were oftenly tough to grade in the past already).

      Thank you, anyways, Biff, for the exception you made with the herein featured Black Dahlia, because I was surprised to hear that you explicitedly described the 2nd half as a bit disappointing in comparison to its great beginning. So I wanted to know about that issue as precisely as possible, without taking too much of your time. :-)

      I just hope I still possess the needed patience for solving all those infamous code-breaking puzzles, which always felt to me like cracking hard nuts without having a nutcracker at hand, haha.

      Bye for now,
      Thomas

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  2. Very impressive that you got this working! I think your version will be making the rounds in the retro PC gaming community! Maybe GoG will look at your accomplishments and try to do the same things! Thank you!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! I think the Microsoft/Win95 issue is problem for them though.

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  3. There are two issues that I noticed along the way and of which I think are worth to discuss.

    First of all, by editing the "bd.ini" file within your installation while having the goal in mind to activate English subtitles (entry is "Subtitles = 1"), nothing happened at all. So, my vague assumption would be that this is a Black Dahlia version from where the subs had been completely removed. Any objections, Biff? ;-)

    Second, there's a patch available to get rid of the video sequences' scanlines. So if you think that this patch could be something to make the FMV look more pretty, I guess it would be a fine reason for an update at a later moment in time.

    Bye for now,
    Thomas

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    Replies
    1. I'll keep that in mind for a future update. I know there was an official patch whichI didn't use either. The installer was kinda rushed (there's no game-specific Win95 wallpaper or autorun) so I didn't research much beyond what I had. My main focus was for it to play and that CD swapping wasn't an issue (it's been eliminated). IIRC there was a full HD installation patch for WinXP which I looked into many years ago. Something put me off it which I think may have been a video program that conflicted with what was already installed.

      The game uses an ISO rip from my own original copy so I'm unsure about subtitles. As far as I'm aware the option doesn't exist (perhaps it's only in non-English versions?)

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    2. Thanks for the detailed answer(s), Biff! These scanlines I mentioned are actually something that isn't too hard to live with. Despite the fact of their existence, the videos still look good enough to enjoy them. Prove me wrong, but I think they're more subtle than those of an unpatched Gabriel Knight 2, the holy grail of FMV gaming.

      In regard to the Black Dahlia subtitle issue, there's a Youtube Longplay available with activated in-game subs, presented in all their shining glory. But yeah, it really seems to depend on the territory where the particular game version was released back in its heyday. Well, as a non-native English speaker and "German Kraut", my head will surley smolder like a chimney here and there, haha, but I guess I'll be able to compensate it. :-)

      Apart from that, thank you again so much for making this release possible, one that is probably among the most difficult candidates you ever had to face for getting them to work properly!

      Bye for now,
      Thomas

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    3. Hello Thomas,

      Install the latest official patch from http://www.patches-scrolls.de/patch/600/7/20457 and then enable the subtitles. They are working for me.

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    4. Hi there, Mihailo,

      I'm sorry that I didn't notice your post any earlier. In fact, it wasn't until Biff showed up with his brandnew article about the latest Updates (among other interesting news) to find my way back to this thread with your message already waiting for me. Thanks a lot for that. Surely, I will enjoy your given subtitle patch to the fullest through Biff's latest Black Dahlia Build. :-)

      Have a good one!

      Bye for now,
      Thomas

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  4. Amazing job Mate. First Dark Earth after so many years and now this. But i have a huge problem, After shootout in the warehouse the game keeps asking me for cd #3 . I don;t know what to do :(
    Thanks in advance.

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  5. Go to the Black Dahlia folder on your C drive. Create a folder called CD. The move all of the isos to the CD folder. Should fine run now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for solving the issue in my absence (Feb/March was very busy for me). I've made a note of the issue for when I do a revision.

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    2. Lunchbox, sorry for such a late answer but You are absolutely right. It worked. You have no idea how happy i am :D . Finally, after 20 years im gonna finish this amazing and difficult game.
      And once again Biffman 101, what are You doing here with those old games is remarkable, You brought tears of joy and nostalgia to my eyes. Thank You for that.

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    3. how do i use box? i downloaded discworld noir as well it ran in win 95 and was too slow even though i have a 3.4ghz. i seen dos and soem files but i dotn know how to make them go into the doc immulator casn you please help me : (

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  6. nice work man...thanks...but i have a problem...the game runs extremely slow...in frames...and so does the sound....

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    Replies
    1. Hello. This is because your PC isn't beefy enough to emulate Windows '95, or at least the more demanding games. If you press Ctrl-Alt-PgDown to exit fullscreen you can see the speed percentage in the title bar.

      There is a work around mentioned in the FAQ where you can reduce the emulated CPU to a Pentium 90 (the minimum requirements). It's currently set at a bit above the recommended P166.

      http://collectionchamber.blogspot.co.uk/p/faq.html

      Delete
  7. I am having an unusual problem with the sound. The game is running at %100 speed, but their is an echo after every word they say. And what I mean by echo is every word they say is repeated twice. Is their a way to fix this? It is really annoying lol.

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    Replies
    1. Hello! This is an issue with PCEm emulating P166 or higher on lower end machines. From what I gather you'll need 3GHz for it to run smoothly. PCEm is a fairly new emulator that's quite resource intensive but is also more accurate if you have the rig to run it.

      Have you tried the suggestions made in the FAQ?

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    2. The new version of PCEmu helped me (v16 - 19th April 2020). Just copy the files to the game directory. Settings in the Sound emulator itself ==> Buffer lenght ==> 200ms and the processor at 166MHz. And it works without echoes and double word phrases. Regards, Mario.

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  8. Try the Dosbox version. I believe it is included. PCem is inherently slow.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hello. How do you start the DosBox version of Black Dahlia?

    Thank you,

    Trey

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    Replies
    1. In the "BDA" folder you downloaded there are two executables. One called "Install-BDA.exe" which is Version 1 and uses DosBox, and another called "Install-BDA_v2.exe" which is version 2 and uses PCem. Version 1 has a little install problem which can be fixed as follows. Install version 1. Go to the desktop Black Dahlia icon. Right click and select "open file location" which will open your installed Balck Dahlia folder. In that folder, create a new folder and name it "CD". Now move all of the files with the ".iso" extention to your newly created "CD" folder. Go back to the desktop and start the game with the Black Dahlia shortcut. I didn't have any slowdown problems with version 1 on my computer.

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  10. Hi. The game ran well til the Natural History Museum clip. I mean after the detective finds the note back to his office. The Natural History Museum sequence starts but right after showing its steps it stucks there. Any suggestions? I am running windows 10. Thanks for any help.

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  11. Cancel the comment before LOL. I rebooted everything. My windows 10. And now the emulator and game work fine. Sorry for bothering you for nothig. But it's better this way. LOL.

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  12. Strangely, my sound is "strange" : i can hear TWICE the speech and the music ... like an echo, if you need a n "image" of this problem.
    i don't really know what to do....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sound issues like this are dues to the game not running at 100% speed (you can check your speed by exiting fullscreen Ctrl-Alt-PgDwn - it's displayed in the title bar). PCEm requires very decent rig to run smoothly - moreso if it's trying to run a Pentium 166 or higher like Black Dahlia.

      There is more info about this in the FAQ.

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    2. The new version of PCEmu helped me (v16 - 19th April 2020). Just copy the files to the game directory. Settings in the Sound emulator itself ==> Buffer lenght ==> 200ms and the processor at 166MHz. And it works without echoes and double word phrases. Regards, Mario.

      Delete
    3. Brilliant! I wasn't aware of a new version.

      Delete
    4. When I changed my computer to another, this setting helped me: Intel Pentium 133 and buffer lenght to 200 ms, it works perfectly - without double sound. Greetings.

      Delete
  13. I can finally play this game, after having bought it years ago and never got past the installation. I found today the original box with all of the CDs. Thank you!

    I love how the old games came with the big boxes, with huge manuals. It made you feel you actually purchased something tangible. Not really the same nowadays with mostly digital downloads and 0 manuals.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I miss manuals full stop. Sadly, my copy of Black Dahlia doesn't have the manual. Then again, I paid £1 for it in the early 2000s when GameStation were getting rid of their big box stuff so I can't complain.

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  14. Hi!! Somebody can upload this game to another host? I have problem to download 4 gb from mega. Thanks a lot in advance! (Sorry for my bad english).

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  15. This is fantastic! Well it was until until I crashed Windows 95 and now PCEm wont load. Where are the save games kept so I can rescue them and add them into a reinstall? Many thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The saves are stored within the virtual hard drive, so I'm afraid they might be gone. If the emulated Windows '95 doesn't shutdown properly, this is a possibility. You might be able to salvage something by opening the .vhd files using a third party program, but I can't guarantee anything.

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  16. Another old favourite. Had two copies of this, and the most luck I had was over 10 years ago on Vista, although I didn't come close to completing it. Sadly I cant get this version to work properly. Have either echos on the voices or the cut scenes get way too choppy and stuttery. Tried a variety of settings that have been suggested, and it seems like it runs best emulating as a P75, which unfortunately is below the original recommended settings. My laptop has a 2.3GHz processor, and I think that's the main problem in getting PCem performing better. Its a shame because I've long wanted to have a good run at this game.

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    1. Hello! PCEm is a little un-optimised. I do know that the latest version from a few months ago runs better. You can simply copy and paste that version into the install folder and overwrite everything to update it. Perhaps that will help.

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    2. Thanks! Yeah I have tried version 17 but its still struggling. Hopefully there is another update in the pipeline because they seem to update PCem quite regularly. Really is agonizingly close to being playable! I'm sure I'll be playing it one day!

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  17. Can you please bring back link on 1st version with Windows 95 in Dosbox. PCem demands too fast processor to run properly. Windows9x+Dosbox is good solution for those who have low-end machines

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  18. You can get it here: https://www.zombs-lair.com/black-dahlia
    From "sites I like" links section near the top of the page.

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  19. Hello. How to remove movie scanlines?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sadly, those scanline are hardcoded within the original video files. Not much of an issue for an old-school monitor but for a modern flatscreen it's another matter. PCEm doesn't have plugins but DOSBox DAUM does have one that basically duplicates lines and blurs the whole image slightly to get rid of it. I find it's hit and miss as to whether is improves the visuals or not and it depents how much of the screen is dedicated to video.

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  20. Have you done The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996) ?
    It's a 4cd FMV game.
    Probably one that requires your skills in getting it to load up in a windows3.1 environment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just noticed the readme says :
      System Requirements

      Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 3.1

      Maybe it can be got working in win95
      which might be a tiny bit easier to get going on win10x64 .
      Not sure about these things :)

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    2. Possibly even win98 ?
      What using this app from Github ?:
      https://github.com/felixrieseberg/windows95/releases

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  21. Hi Biffman. Thank you very much for this incredible job with Black Dahlia. I have thought that it will not be possible to play this game properly in Windows 10. Thank you very much for making it possible in PCem !!! There is another FMV game of this era that gives us a lot of problems on modern computers, it is Tex Murphy - Overseer. I want to ask you a lot, if you can try to do the same job in PCem, so that it will be possible. Thank you very much in advance!

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  22. Hi Biffman. In case you remember playing "Tex Murphy - Overseer" on PCem. Thanks a lot!

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    1. Hello. As Overseer (and all other Tex Murphy games) is available to buy on GOG and Steam, I won't be hosting it here or spend the time to get it working through PCEm. If you have the ISOs, you could use the Black Dahlia package (or any other Win95 PCEm game) to run it by uninstalling that game within the Windows 95 environment and point PCEm over to the Overseer ISO.

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  23. Hello Biffman 101! I have bought Overseer from GOG but it really is not going well. I don't understand much about installing games. I'll try to how I can copy Overseer in Black Dahlia's PCem game. Thanks!

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  24. I am pretty sure Overseer will run like garbage using PCem, with sound issues and such. Also, 3Dfx drivers and ffdshow need to be installed in windows 95. Total pain, just better to play it natively. Did the installer that it came with work? If not, use the page below to get it working.

    https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Tex_Murphy:_Overseer

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  25. Hi Lunchbox!
    Thanks for the tips. I have installed the GOG version + dgVoodoo. The game works but has some other problems with the mouse and main menu graphics. I have read in a german forum:

    https://cgboard.raysworld.ch/showthread.php?tid=26574

    that this game works perfectly on PCem. But I don't have enough knowledge to make it myself to work well on Windows 10, by PCem. That's why I asked Biffman 101 for help, in case he can get it and leave us pre-installed.
    Greetings colleagues.

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  26. Hey thank you for all your hard work bringing these retro games to life on modern systems! Very well done. I am having a strange issue with Black Dahlia. I'm on Osx but got everything installed fine using winebottler. The game seems to start & run just fine, I even have it as a double clickable file on my desktop. My issue is with the mouse. The sensitivity seems to be okay but every time I drag the mouse toward the RIGHT it strays and jumps significantly more towards the right than I expected. Otherwise it would seem to be a perfect install but I'm hoping there may be some settings or tips you can help with to overcome this strange mouse behavior. thank you very much!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not familiar with OSX so am unsure of what it could be. It works fine on my Windows 10 PC. Pehaps upgrading PCEm to the latest version may help (the link's in the download blurb above). I believe you can copy it into the install folder and overwrite all files without issue (see the FAQ for more info).

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  27. Smooth game play with this installation. No problems so far. At one point; game warns about D:\p1b\vo102g.smk is missing.But this doesn't hinder game play, just shows warning on the screen and subtitle of this voice file's content. Great job Zomb!!!

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