I was cleaning out some boxes (I just moved) and found my old Xbox 360. If either Wookie or Darkjedibob want it, either of you can have it, just cover the shipping. It worked fine last time I used it. If you're interested let me know and I'll test it and make sure it works before I send it.

Thank you for the offer. If it's something that's in your way, now that you already moved it!, I may take it if you can't find somebody that wants one more than I'd like to have a spare one. Is it the original style or the newer slim style version with the odd angles?

So I went over three hours in HL2 last night. I don't know if it's because of the negative opinions Brian and Jon offered but it really seems like a chore to play. To be honest, I don't even feel like I know what the goal is. Then I thought that the transporter failed and I'm probably trying to get to that place. The color palette is so bland and other than a new baddie popping up, most recently the people with the frozen turkeys on their heads, their pretty bland too. The game isn't totally unfun but not really drawing me in either.

Honestly I kind of agree. HL2 feels pretty boring now. I personally think the first is more fun to replay.

I never played the first. I don't recall exactly why but it was probably that my computer at the time was marginal for that game and/or it was one of those games where it felt like they kept adding to it and I was going to wait for a complete release. I have seen that it is still on Steam. I wonder if they have things ironed out so it plays fine on modern PCs.

I did want to acknowledge that while I state the color palette is bland it also fits the setting. I've been to plenty of real life places where the color palette was bland.

HL1 was ported to Source as a HL2 preorder bonus. I recommend playing that version of the game. It works fine on all modern computers and even ones with good operating systems like Linux.

The original Half-Life engine works fine on my pc. Windows 10 64 bit.

The source version is fine too, but you can't pull off the same bugs.

Cool, I didn't know about this one but it's obviously not been a secret. Partially because I've never been interested in Steam which pretty much kept me from looking at most stuff from Valve. Anyway, funny that you brought up "good operating systems". First, it doesn't seem clear that it works fine in Windows 10 but I'm not in a hurry to buy it so I'll see if it goes on sale at some point. But what you opened the door for me to comment on is I was installing Duke Nukem 3D in Dosbox the other night. Why? It's just the sort of irrelevant, dumb stuff I allow myself to get sidetracked with. Anyway, I have the retail release and then the plutonium pack and I had tried to install the plutonium pack before and it always failed. Well, of course it did this time as well. Some quick research told me that because of the way dosbox installs the game it changes some dates on the files. The update looks at the dates and fails to patch when the see that they are "wrong". I ended up having to install Cygwin to use some Linux commands to change the dates on the files. First for me. Anyway, that was interesting as well because I was just earlier wondering what sort of Linux computer project I could plan that my boy and I could accomplish that would be inexpensive and useful. If anyone has any ideas feel free to offer them up.

I'd rather read Garfield than do anything related to Half-Life.

... then again http://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=3419

https://www.gog.com/game/indiana_jones_and_the_infernal_machine



Now those particles just scream "JK"

https://www.gog.com/game/soldier_of_fortune_platinum_edition

Crikey, I've been waiting for SoF on GOG.com for quite a long time now.

Now, if only Oni happened to see a release once again...

Oh poop, I can't run SoF at my monitor's native res of 2560x1440, seems like 1600x1200 is the cap.

Maybe I need to mess with the .CFGs at some point.

I had the demo of SoF II a long time ago. Is the full game worth it?

You get to shoot a guy in the head and it explodes in slow motion.

I never cared for SoF II... granted that I didn't even play it that much. But SoF 1 was pretty good from what I remember.

(Namely since SoF 1 has bunch of levels in the "urban (American) city setting" that I've always been fond of (Duke3D, Deus Ex, Max Payne, even GTA III etc.))

FGR likes killing Americans.. hmm

SoF 1 was pretty good. SoF 2 was completely forgettable. I know I played it, but I don't remember anything about it.

I omitted from my spreadsheet, for no good reason, some compilation discs I have and Oni is on one of them. I think I played around with it a tiny bit about 16+ years ago. I just threw it in and it installed fine on Windows 10 but crashes after the intro video. I visited this site and installed Oni AE and it appears to run fine. If you've got or can find a physical release you might be fine without a GOG version. What do you like about the game? I'm trying to work my way, little by little, through this large collection of games so maybe I'll put it on the short list.

Hmm. I had the SoF2 demo as a kid and it had a sneaking thing on a ship i thought was fun. Speaking of, anyone know of any good sneaking games besides MGS games or the first Splinter Cell?

Honestly, are any sneaking games as good on the sneaking mechanics as the MGS games? Hmmph.

I know of another completely forgettable game from around the same time on the same engine and made by the same studio.

Rogue Spear, Ghost Recon

Demo had gore removed. Completely pointless.

They're old, but the Thief games are great. The newest one doesn't live up to the Thief name in general, but it's still a decent sneaky game. Also, the Dishonored games are ****ing rad. Both of them and all the DLCs are worth having. They're old enough now that you can get the Game of the Year edition or whatever that has all the DLC.

Well, the first two Splinter Cell sequels maybe and Chronicles of Riddick. Its not as good at stealth as SC or as good at shooting as a dedicated shooter but it's a decent mixture. I've not played either of my real Metal Gear Solid games yet. Full Spectrum Warrior maybe? Not a stealth game but you have to be careful about route selection and tactics to not get compromised. I've also not done Thief.

Happened across this today because their video about how they fit it into 40KB was suggested to me. Looks neat.

One of those games I wanted to play back in the day, but didn't have an adequate computer for it.

Anyway, I couldn't get my native res of 2560x1440 to work on SoF (GOG version) even with some .CFG file modifications. And, after a long while when no game did such a thing for me, being forced to run it at a non-native res resizes all the other program windows I have open at the time. Oy.

In fact, this resolution issue is terribly common with Quake (1-3) based games. Berserker@Quake2 can't get past 1920x1080 for me (yet quake2xp can), and now this.

Anyway #2, who's going to make a JED for that Indiana Jones game?

To answer your last question: the first person who is interested in sacrificing time to make it possible to create levels / mods that are forbidden by the EULA (IIRC).

Ah yes, that thing.

Then again, IIRC JK's EULA states that the EXE file can't be modified, but the Unofficial Patches (JK13 included) wouldn't exist otherwise.

Well, technically the Level doesn't modify them, but eh.

A EULA saying the exe can't be modified is pretty silly. Anyone who's knowledgeable about this: is that even enforceable?

I'm not sure I what you mean by silly. Terms of service for proprietary software that prohibit any and all kind of tampering with the intellectual property (ESPECIALLY if you redistribute) is the norm, not the exception. If you don't believe me just look into the back story of why git exists in the first place.

Also, just because you don't see any way you could be caught breaking IP rights, doesn't mean those rights can't be enforced in some other circumstance. For example: nobody knows or cares if I modify jk.exe to add malware, but that becomes a very different story if I start seeding my evil version of jk.exe on bit torrent.

At the end of the day though IP rights get enforced because a company is worried about its bottom line. I'm not sure JK or the Indy game factor much into that, to put it mildly (unless you get them worried about their brand, e.g. if you make Indy into a pedophile and make the modified version wildly popular on reddit / 4chan).

Besides, one of the most popular Star Wars mods ever made, Movie Battles II uses sounds directly ripped from JK (and other games) for the characters from those games.

(Just the tip of the iceberg with this kind of stuff *cough cough*)

Would be interesting if LEC/Disney/moneyobie ever went after them.

So if I hex edit a single byte, theorhetically I could be dragged to civil court and sued?

I have a hard time imagining any judge would award any amount of damages for violating the EULA.

You're welcome to try and find out

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the worst that could happen by modifying a program like JK yourself is that you get dragged to civil court. Just because it's in a contract doesn't make it enforceable, and the DMCA itself makes allowances for reverse engineering software.

According to the Marquette Review pdf above,



In fact, the DMCA explicitly mentions interoperability. So like, yeah, I think Lucasarts could, in theory, take you to civil court for modifying the JK exe. But they'd be laughed out of the court.

Another question: say you bought a JK box, and proceed to insert the CD and copy the exe without reading or agreeing to the EULA. Would the EULA even hold any weight? What's the precedence for that? I didn't have to agree to the EULA to get a copy of the exe on my system using legal, normal methods.

All I can tell from Google searches is that software EULAs are a massive cluster**** and there's no clear precedence for what's enforceable and how.

I also like these parts from the JK and Deus Ex EULAs respectively:





I've always interpreted those parts like "you know, in theory, Disney and Square could make a buck out of TODOA* and DXN if they, in the Land of FGR Dreams, chose to do so".

(Obvious emphasis on "Disney and Square could make a buck")

Technically LucasArts could make a buck off of my Gromas Mines remake (the one level I did that had any critical success!)

All hail LucasArts and the legal right to steal our work!

Who doesn't remember all of those Doom and Duke Nukem level compilations you could buy?