Dungeon Keeper 2, Wing Commander 1 & 2 now available at GoG

QuantumPion

Diamond Member
Jun 27, 2005
6,010
1
76
Woot! Some of my favorites. I remember when we bought our first sound blaster to play Wing Commander on our 286. And spending a significant amount of time trying to free up enough EMS memory to enable the better graphics features. Good times! As for DK2, I always liked it better than DK1. Dk1 might have had some better gameplay aspects but the low resolution made it kind of lame.
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
80,287
17,081
136
I had serious issues with DK2 on XP and Win 7. Keeps crashing.

Also, DK1 had better gameplay. I didnt like a lot of concepts in DK2 like only certain creatures could do certain jobs. If you ran out of wizards you totally lost the ability to research.
 

Keeper

Senior member
Mar 9, 2005
905
0
71
YIKES Anyone know how this will play on XP? I LOVED these games..... LOVED them. Whats next? Privateer? (insert drool here)
 

ikachu

Senior member
Jan 19, 2011
274
2
81
Hmm I remember having to use the 'turbo' button to slow down my 486sx 33 in order for Wing Commander 1 to be playable.... hopefully that is fixed :)
 

NoWhereM

Senior member
Oct 15, 2007
543
0
0
I made one purchase from GOG when they were first getting started, I bought the Redneck Rampage collection. I was really looking forward to finally being able to play the game at a resolution higher than 640x480. That never happened because the game wasn't properly configured with DOSbox. Over the years I've checked GOG's forums to see if they ever bothered to address the problem, as of the last time I checked they hadn't.

Now I'm just sitting back and waiting to see if the game ever makes it's way to Steam. I purchased X-Com UFO Defense when it came out on Steam. They not only made it work they fixed the timing, the game would play too fast on newer computers, and added widescreen support. It plays on my computers as well, and actually better due to higher resolutions etc., than the day it came out.

Hopefully someday Dungeon Keeper, Redneck Rampage, and all the other classics will make their way to Steam and get the same treatment so I can just purchase them, install, and enjoy.
 

Ross Ridge

Senior member
Dec 21, 2009
830
0
0
Now I'm just sitting back and waiting to see if the game ever makes it's way to Steam. I purchased X-Com UFO Defense when it came out on Steam. They not only made it work they fixed the timing, the game would play too fast on newer computers, and added widescreen support. It plays on my computers as well, and actually better due to higher resolutions etc., than the day it came out.

Hopefully someday Dungeon Keeper, Redneck Rampage, and all the other classics will make their way to Steam and get the same treatment so I can just purchase them, install, and enjoy.

You're kidding yourself if you think Valve does anything to improve the games other publishers put on Steam. It's completely up to the publishers to package their games for Steam. The improvements you mentioned for X-Com are result of the game being ported to Windows long before it was made available on Steam.

If, and that's a big if, Dungeon Keeper or Redneck Rampage are brought to Steam there's no chance they'll be improved over the MS-DOS versions. No one, not Valve, not their respective publishers are going to spend the money to do so. At least GoG.com was willing to go to the trouble of packaging the games with DOSBox.
 

Maximilian

Lifer
Feb 8, 2004
12,604
15
81
I spent a significant amount of time trying to get dk2 to run on windows 7 x64, i have come to the conclusion that it will not run on an ATI card, ran fine on my old 8600GT with vista so i have to assume nvidia cards might work better. Works great on intel integrated on my netbook which is what i ended up playing it on.

Software acceleration does not work at all with ATI, hardware acceleration works but there is no fix for the tooltip crash bug which will eventually crash the game anyways even if you ignore the tooltip at the bottom. None of the patches helped :(
 

Newbian

Lifer
Aug 24, 2008
24,779
882
126
I had serious issues with DK2 on XP and Win 7. Keeps crashing.

Also, DK1 had better gameplay. I didnt like a lot of concepts in DK2 like only certain creatures could do certain jobs. If you ran out of wizards you totally lost the ability to research.

I have the actual cd version of DK2 and no issues with it crashing in xp when I fire it up on that computer so could be a issue with the version this site uses.

Also there are multiple creatures that research and nothing is stopping you from getting more wizards, just make some room for them by tossing unwanted creatures out or making sure you keep the wizards alive by not fighting with them or make sure your guys drag their bodies back to your base to bring back to life.

DK2 kicked dk1's ass big time, plus the voice telling you to go to sleep when your computer clock is showing it's late is win.
 

TheSlamma

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
7,625
5
81
This is pretty cool... so do they bottle the game up with an emulator so it plays on current day stuff?
 

blackened23

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2011
8,548
2
0
Reminds of the older days when EA weren't complete capitalists and possibly cared about quality games
 

ikachu

Senior member
Jan 19, 2011
274
2
81
That Star Trek thread made me want to play 25th anniversary and Judgement Rights again (adventure games). Wonder if they'll ever be available on GoG...
 

Born2bwire

Diamond Member
Oct 28, 2005
9,840
6
71
I made one purchase from GOG when they were first getting started, I bought the Redneck Rampage collection. I was really looking forward to finally being able to play the game at a resolution higher than 640x480. That never happened because the game wasn't properly configured with DOSbox. Over the years I've checked GOG's forums to see if they ever bothered to address the problem, as of the last time I checked they hadn't.

Now I'm just sitting back and waiting to see if the game ever makes it's way to Steam. I purchased X-Com UFO Defense when it came out on Steam. They not only made it work they fixed the timing, the game would play too fast on newer computers, and added widescreen support. It plays on my computers as well, and actually better due to higher resolutions etc., than the day it came out.

Hopefully someday Dungeon Keeper, Redneck Rampage, and all the other classics will make their way to Steam and get the same treatment so I can just purchase them, install, and enjoy.

That may not be their fault. For example, you are limited in resolution if you buy the Timeshock pinball game. That is a limitation of DOSBox itself. However, there is a modified version of DOSBox that can handle the higher resolutions. It's called DOSBox Mega Build: http://home.arcor.de/h-a-l-9000/

Using this I was finally able to get the full resolution for Timeshock. But as far as Steam, that is all up to the publisher of the game, not Steam. There are minor problems with other games that you can get off of Steam that are due to the publisher's decision. For example, Broken Sword 2 does not include the music files (nor does Quake 2). And the Lucasarts adventure games use ScummVM and have a smaller selection of soundcard emulations to choose from (I think you can only really choose MT-32 but I grew up using the Soundblaster 16 so I miss the OPL-2 emulation that I think you can get with DOSBox).

Moral of the story: Always check the forums before you buy any classic game whether on Steam, GOG, or whatever to find out what limitations you are getting into. Sometimes there are workarounds available (like for Quake 2 and Broken Sword 2 and others) but sometimes there aren't any. Caveat emptor.
 

NoWhereM

Senior member
Oct 15, 2007
543
0
0
That may not be their fault. For example, you are limited in resolution if you buy the Timeshock pinball game. That is a limitation of DOSBox itself. However, there is a modified version of DOSBox that can handle the higher resolutions. It's called DOSBox Mega Build: http://home.arcor.de/h-a-l-9000/

I might look into that. I've got over a hundred old DOS games I used to play on an old laptop but it stopped working quite a while ago. It would be nice to get them installed and working on my main computer.
 

QuantumPion

Diamond Member
Jun 27, 2005
6,010
1
76
I made one purchase from GOG when they were first getting started, I bought the Redneck Rampage collection. I was really looking forward to finally being able to play the game at a resolution higher than 640x480. That never happened because the game wasn't properly configured with DOSbox. Over the years I've checked GOG's forums to see if they ever bothered to address the problem, as of the last time I checked they hadn't.

Now I'm just sitting back and waiting to see if the game ever makes it's way to Steam. I purchased X-Com UFO Defense when it came out on Steam. They not only made it work they fixed the timing, the game would play too fast on newer computers, and added widescreen support. It plays on my computers as well, and actually better due to higher resolutions etc., than the day it came out.

Hopefully someday Dungeon Keeper, Redneck Rampage, and all the other classics will make their way to Steam and get the same treatment so I can just purchase them, install, and enjoy.

You realize that:

a) you can change doxbox configuration settings to change resolution yourself and
b) x:com on steam uses doxbox too, there is no "windows version". steam does the exact same thing as gog does: gives you a the game, dosbox, and a batch file to run it.
 

Born2bwire

Diamond Member
Oct 28, 2005
9,840
6
71
I might look into that. I've got over a hundred old DOS games I used to play on an old laptop but it stopped working quite a while ago. It would be nice to get them installed and working on my main computer.

I seem to recall the problem is that DOSBox does not support some of the higher resolution VESA modes. This alternative build does but the problem is that it lags behind the current DOSBox build. But I doubt that really matters. I only use it for Timeshock and haven't had any problems. Hopefully with later builds of DOSBox they will add the higher resolution support.
 

Ross Ridge

Senior member
Dec 21, 2009
830
0
0
b) x:com on steam uses doxbox too, there is no "windows version". steam does the exact same thing as gog does: gives you a the game, dosbox, and a batch file to run it.

I have no idea of what's up on Steam, but there is a Windows port of X-Com.
 

Emultra

Golden Member
Jul 6, 2002
1,166
0
0
I bought DK2 and I'm playing it in Win7 64-bit. Compatibility mode -> Win2000 made it work for me. I found a way to play windowed (to prevent LCD scaling) but it won't hide the Windows mouse so I'm sticking to fullscreen.
 

NoWhereM

Senior member
Oct 15, 2007
543
0
0
You realize that:

a) you can change doxbox configuration settings to change resolution yourself and
b) x:com on steam uses doxbox too, there is no "windows version". steam does the exact same thing as gog does: gives you a the game, dosbox, and a batch file to run it.

a) yes, but I was thinking on Steam I just installed and played without having to make any adjustments.
b) yes, I was aware of that, but it installed and worked well and I was very happy about that.

I'm rather sad now, though. After talking about it I decided it would be fun to play some more X-Com last night. Unfortunately I've changed from a 24" computer monitor to a 37" LCD TV since I last played and now it doesn't look good at all. :( I guess maybe it's time to find another old Pentium II laptop in good working condition.