ZDoom

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

As the title suggests, this game has finally been made available commercially for the first time ever since the original CD release. It appears to be a version running under DOSBox and, according to a reviewer, it doesn't even include the fix to strafing that AFAIK was part of a patch for the game made in the DOS era. It also mentions something about dynamic lights which I don't think were in the original release?

Overall, I'm not sure if any files at all have been changed, but, has anyone tried getting the gog version to run on Raze yet? I'm afraid I cannot currently spare the money.

What I find most curious about this release is that the publishers are quite different, almost none of the original are listed apart from Lobotomy, and it mentions a Throwback Entertainment instead.

I've checked their website and Twitter yesterday, and there is no mention of Powerslave anywhere. Additionally, didn't NDS secure the rights to the IP some time ago, back when Kaiser teaser a future remaster? How did Throwback manage to get some of them?

As for the features, no, there were no dynamic lights in the DOS version. The SEGA Saturn and PSX versions had those, as they were more advanced. The writer must have gotten confused.

I am playing currently with raze.
I did not try the dos version, so i dont now if raze is true to the original. It plays smooth and every thing seems to work. I had no issues since i started playing.

The only potential issue would have been if the data file had been changed. But if it works it is the original one. Does it show "Powerslave" as title or "Exhumed"?

Graf Zahl wrote:The only potential issue would have been if the data file had been changed. But if it works it is the original one. Does it show "Powerslave" as title or "Exhumed"?

It shows Exhumed - it's the Europe/BMG Interactive release, surprisingly, not the US/PlayMates Interactive one. It also defaults to high-res mode, even though this runs agonizingly slowly in the included DOSBox. Raze does pick it up straight-away as soon as I've copied the install folder into Raze's, though it's worth nothing that the BOOK.MOV file is not in the game folder, but rather, is on the included GAME.GOG CD image, so the intro cutscene won't play unless you extract it from there. The music folder may also need some attention, as music was not playing for me.

This is one really puzzling thing about these GOG DOSBox releases. They all try to emulate a CD setup which requires quite a bit of work to get the data extracted for port use. The music is probably stored as CD audio on the CD image as well and needs to be extracted with a proper tool.

I had to do the same thing for both RR games to get the music - it also was only on the image as CD Audio tracks.

wildweasel wrote:It shows Exhumed - it's the Europe/BMG Interactive release, surprisingly, not the US/PlayMates Interactive one.

I have to say that I find it very strange that they would sell the game as PowerSlave if they're actually selling the European version, heh. It's funny in that there was the whole recent issue with Iron Maiden and Ion Maiden/Ion Fury, whereas the reason this game's name was changed at all was - again - because of Iron Maiden. So I think it makes sense to go for the European version to avoid a possible headache, but then they're still using both names...? Just very bizarre.

The music is already extracted for GOG's PowerSlave release.

Graf Zahl wrote:This is one really puzzling thing about these GOG DOSBox releases. They all try to emulate a CD setup which requires quite a bit of work to get the data extracted for port use. The music is probably stored as CD audio on the CD image as well and needs to be extracted with a proper tool.

Surprisingly, it's already extracted; the GAME.GOG/GAME.INS files (which are renamed BIN/CUE sheets) specify all the included music separately:

Spoiler: Cue sheet

---

Code: Select all

FILE "game.gog" BINARY
  TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track02.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track03.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track04.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 04 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track05.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 05 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track06.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 06 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track07.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 07 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track08.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 08 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track09.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 09 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track10.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 10 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track11.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 11 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track12.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 12 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track13.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 13 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track14.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 14 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track15.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 15 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track16.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 16 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track17.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 17 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track18.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 18 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "music\Track19.ogg" MP3
  TRACK 19 AUDIO
      INDEX 01 00:00:00

OK. I think it makes sense then to add support for the name "TRACKxx.OGG" and do it for all games.

I would love if the publishers fixed the ammo balance and sequence breaking issues I encountered. Nevertheless I'm happy to hear the news.

Betsy Nummerleg wrote:I would love if the publishers fixed the ammo balance and sequence breaking issues I encountered. Nevertheless I'm happy to hear the news.

Most of the time, these re-releases don't change anything about the base game data.

Since this is just a DOSBox-wrapped DOS game the actual effort put into this release is close to zero. One cannot seriously expect anything except the unaltered original game here.

On the plus side, because this game is infamous for having multiple versions of it floating around the internet (including beta versions that some people thought were the final product), this may be a nice opportunity to have a "definitive" source on where to get it. PCExhumed can now finally slash "This game isn't available commercially anywhere on the internet apart from used copies" off their readme.

Honestly I am not very sure how long this will stay up, there's just something fishy about it, such as the inaccurate description and wrong version advertised, in addition to this new publisher having nothing about this release on their website or Twitter.