Anyone remember this buggy but fun game, set in the warhammer 40k universe? I just dusted it off and have been TRYING to get some gaming in with it, but I am unable to finish even one mission due to crash-to-desktop bugs. It looks like the main CTD bug I am running into is an AI issue - it only happens on enemy turns, always happens at the same time (after one enemy character moves, and presumably just before another does).
Anyone who remembers this oldie have any suggestions?
I remember it all right, and I consider myself a fan of it. It’s my favorite Warhammer 40,000 game behind the 3DO version of Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels. I don’t remember it being buggy or crash-prone, though, but it’s possible I’ve just forgotten about the bad stuff.
Have you tried looking for patches or anything?
One of the few games I ever had to take back due to bugginess. I waited on SSI to fix it up and took it back instead after a few days. Man did that make me sad. (The return window was a bit more liberal back then.)
The Avault and GamesDomain patches have evaporated, but as Kasavin said, I would track one down via google or something. Someone has to have one squirreled away somewhere.
You can get the patch here:
http://chtserv.dlh.net/cgi-bin/patdl.cgi?lang=eng&sys=pc&file=cgate12.zip&ref=
But this post doesn’t sound promising:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=“chaos+gate”+xp+patch&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=027401c317f0%2482614af0%243301280a%40phx.gbl&rnum=4
I didn’t finish it, but I don’t remember any crash problems with the game. I played a number of the campaign missions.
I still have my copy. It’s one of those games I want to go back to someday.
Never crashed on me once, and I’ve played it from day one. In fact, this is the first I’ve ever heard there were crashing problems with it. My very favorite 40K game, next to Liberation Day.
Turn down the video acceleration,it sometimes helped with that game.
Pretty good game, I hope you can get it working. The same developer (Random Games) made Wages of War (before Chaos Gate) and Squad Leader (after Chaos Gate), both of which were truly crappy. Even though they used a version of the same engine with Chaos Gate, it worked, partly because no one expects a realistic combat model from a sci-fi game, and partly because the general clunkiness was somehow better suited to guys tromping around in power armor.
I tried a vanilla install, and running with both the 1.1 and 1.2 patches… same issues. I will try turning down my video acceleration though…
I must have spent 2-3 hours trying to get this working last night. Then I got pissed because I couldn’t get X-com running at all. Finally, to get my turn-based tactical fix I ended up throwing Final Fantasy Tactics in the PS2. I still want to get chaos gate running though. I like the overwatch system they have.
:) Wages of War was another of the few games I have returned. Not due to bugs, but due to high levels of suckage.
Random also had the license to due a conversion of the Talisman board game. They were in search of funding which, I guess, thankfully, they never found. I would have bought it the day it was released and it would have been a huge dissapointment.
Wow, that sounds remarkably close to what I went through. I gave up. You should soldier on, however.
Oddly, I had no bug problems the 3 or 4 times I played through the campaign. I loved this game.
It’s all well and good that no one has had problems with this game when they last played it, but was that under a Win9X OS? Who here has had it successfully run under WinXP?
It’s XP that I’m having problems under. I don’t remember major issues running it under 9x. The game’s manual states it will not run under NT, which kind of puts it into a grey area as far as XP is concerned.
The disabling of video acceleration seemed to help at first - I got a bit further, but now I’m stuck at a point where it crashes on the AI turn no matter what I do, and I haven’t been making extra save games so I would have to start over (I’m 3 missions in)
Disabling of sound acceleration also fixed a problem with stuttering music and sounds.
Argh… I’m real close to finding an old hard drive and putting 95 or 98 on it. I have the OS cd’s for those but no idea where I would have the cd keys for them (and I definitely don’t plan to repurchase them, heh)
Tried Windows 98 emulation mode yet?
Um, yeah, Jason…I’m, um, afraid I’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you on that one. I enjoyed WoW. I finished the whole game and never regretted it.
JA/JA2 (WoW’s competition), on the other hand, are right up there with Deus Ex in the “games I’ve tried to play a hundred times because I figure I must be missing something but invariably end up deleting after an hour” category.
Just my opinion of course, 'puppy. I’m glad to hear someone got something out of that game.
Understood. I probably should have thrown in a smiley to augment my bad Lumberg impression. :)
I’m interested in hearing how to get this one running under XP because I too have a copy and would like to get back to it someday.
Also, I played Wages of War, and I don’t remember it being terrible. I am biased though, because I love squad games. I do remember Wages of War being very clunky in terms of interface and maybe stability too. But I remember some of the missions were really tense and it was real satisfying to wipe out the bad guy at the end. That said, if I had to choose between it and Jagged Alliance, I’d stick with JA in a heartbeat.
Never did play Squad Leader…sounds like I didn’t miss anything.
Never really cared for Chaos Gate (or SoW for that matter). Way buggy.
If you are looking for good Warhammer/40K gaming experiences (and man, are they limited), may I suggest the following (if you can find them)…
Warhammer: Dark Omen (precursor to Shogun and MTW, done by the same studio Creative Assembly). Really fun and still quite good looking.
Warhammer Final Liberation. Turn based Epic scale Warhammer 40K and pretty fun with a dynamic campaign/metagame to boot. Get the patch…
SSI’s Warhammer 40K: Rites of War; same style of gameplay as CG, but MUCH better. Based on the Panzer General engine.
And unfortunately, I think that’s about it.
Cheers,
-S
I really liked final liberation. Not only were the battles great fun, with titans, space marines, paladins, baneblades and shadowswords slugging it out, but the tactical management was well done. And as a nice icing, you got footage from the failed WH40K movie project. Whoever they had playing as the commissar(sp) did a great job, I thought.