With all the jobs, jabs and other japes happening now that lockdown is easing up, I've unfortunately let the Collection Chamber slip behind these last few months. I will try my best to keep to a schedule, but like a herd of horny re-animated dinosaurs, life tends to find ways to ruin plans. Still, I've prepared five gems for May's montly five. First up is a forgotten cinematic platformer called Bermuda Syndrome (1995 BMG Interactive Entertainment) that deserves more love. It has dinosaurs in it for Hammond's sake! Defcon 5 (1995 Millennium Interactive) will give you some sci-fi shooting in an underappreciated first-person shooter. Then there's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001 Electronic Arts), not either of those slightly naff movie adaptations on consoles, but the far superior Windows action adventure. You can test your noggin by destroying aliens in the rather fun puzzle game S.C.OUT (1992 Atreid Concept - Kalisto). To save the best for last, Star Trek: Bridge Commander (2002 Activision & Paramount Pictures) puts you in the decison-making shoes of a rookie Starfleet Captain. It's almost a precursor to the recent VR game Star Trek: Bridge Crew.
Anyway, I hope that makes up for tha lack of content this past month. Watch the video below to see all of them in action, including those that were supposed to be in last month's video. Enjoy!
WATCH THE VIDEO
Click on the images below to head on over to the game page.
I have a load of Star Trek games on the backburner. I haven't quite cracked Hidden Evil and I haven't given Klingon Academy a try yet. I'm sure someday they'll make it out.
Managed to Install Hidden Evil recently on my own system using my original CD. Wrote these installation instructions afterwards for my own documentation. Perhaps they can help you:
- Install Game together with Quicktime 4 (via setup\setup.exe) - Replace Mss32.dll (to fix audio cracking) (Replace with version from "Star Trek DS9 The Fallen") - Remove "read-only" flag from "HiddenEvil.exe" - Apply No-CD Crack - Install dgVoodoo2 (32 bit ddl's) - Configure dgVoodoo2
Have not extensively test played the game yet though.
I'm in for the hand-drawn and stunningly beautiful cinematic platformer Bermuda Syndrome, that's as sure as eggs is eggs. Dinosaur eggs, to be exact, haha.
Well, thanks anyway, Biff, but have you actually ever thought of generally using DOSBox Daum instead of the regular DOSBox 0.74? According to my information (and yours, too, I strongly suspect), the Daum version is the one that offers the option to save your game progress at any time by making use of save/load states via a Hotkey of your choice. An extremely comfortable way, if you ask me, for playing games that are hard to beat by nature and which inherently skimp on saving opportunities such as the upcoming(?) Novastorm. :-)
For DOS games, yes. I was something of a purist, but you may have seen the more recent ones use this unofficial build. Save states can be iffy on Windows emulated games (like Bermuda Syndrome) so I don't bother with it for that unless a change in compatibility demands it. Bermuda Syndrome lets you save anywhere anyway.
Yes, I understand your puristic approach to emulating old DOS and Windows games in order to get as close as possible to the real thing from back then and such. And yeah, it also hadn't escaped me that you make great use of the appreciated DOSBox Daum whenever you work with it, like, for instance, getting rid of scanlines which appear in some FMV games with the help of a special shader that improves the overall picture quality quite nicely.
Never tried save states myself on games which need an ancient Windows environment powered by DOSBox, so I'll take your statement as a handle-with-care advice for the future. To hear that you can save anytime and anywhere in Bermuda Syndrome are interesting news, too, which will definitely come in handy once I dive into its dangerous jungle world whilst dealing with rugged rocks, raging reptiles and a ravishing royalty. So there's no reason at all to use DOSBox Daum for Bermuda Syndrome, indeed.
I'm very much a PC so I won't support the Mac here I'm afraid. I won't rule out using a Mac emulator though, so us Windows users can have a go. Haven't looked too deeply into it though.
Will Klingon Academy and Hidden Evil be eventually uploaded?
ReplyDeleteI have a load of Star Trek games on the backburner. I haven't quite cracked Hidden Evil and I haven't given Klingon Academy a try yet. I'm sure someday they'll make it out.
DeleteManaged to Install Hidden Evil recently on my own system using my original CD. Wrote these installation instructions afterwards for my own documentation. Perhaps they can help you:
Delete- Install Game together with Quicktime 4 (via setup\setup.exe)
- Replace Mss32.dll (to fix audio cracking) (Replace with version from "Star Trek DS9 The Fallen")
- Remove "read-only" flag from "HiddenEvil.exe"
- Apply No-CD Crack
- Install dgVoodoo2 (32 bit ddl's)
- Configure dgVoodoo2
Have not extensively test played the game yet though.
I'm in for the hand-drawn and stunningly beautiful cinematic platformer Bermuda Syndrome, that's as sure as eggs is eggs. Dinosaur eggs, to be exact, haha.
ReplyDeleteWell, thanks anyway, Biff, but have you actually ever thought of generally using DOSBox Daum instead of the regular DOSBox 0.74? According to my information (and yours, too, I strongly suspect), the Daum version is the one that offers the option to save your game progress at any time by making use of save/load states via a Hotkey of your choice. An extremely comfortable way, if you ask me, for playing games that are hard to beat by nature and which inherently skimp on saving opportunities such as the upcoming(?) Novastorm. :-)
Bye for now,
Thomas
For DOS games, yes. I was something of a purist, but you may have seen the more recent ones use this unofficial build. Save states can be iffy on Windows emulated games (like Bermuda Syndrome) so I don't bother with it for that unless a change in compatibility demands it. Bermuda Syndrome lets you save anywhere anyway.
DeleteYes, I understand your puristic approach to emulating old DOS and Windows games in order to get as close as possible to the real thing from back then and such. And yeah, it also hadn't escaped
Deleteme that you make great use of the appreciated DOSBox Daum whenever you work with it, like, for instance, getting rid of scanlines which appear in some FMV games with the help of a special shader that improves the overall picture quality quite nicely.
Never tried save states myself on games which need an ancient Windows environment powered by
DOSBox, so I'll take your statement as a handle-with-care advice for the future. To hear that you can save anytime and anywhere in Bermuda Syndrome are interesting news, too, which will definitely come in handy once I dive into its dangerous jungle world whilst dealing with rugged rocks, raging reptiles and a ravishing royalty. So there's no reason at all to use DOSBox Daum for Bermuda Syndrome, indeed.
Bye for now,
Thomas
are you going to upload classic mac games too?
ReplyDeleteI'm very much a PC so I won't support the Mac here I'm afraid. I won't rule out using a Mac emulator though, so us Windows users can have a go. Haven't looked too deeply into it though.
Deleteplease do! im craving for some pathways into darkness :)
DeleteThx Biffman a lot. 1000xTHX
ReplyDelete