I love these kinds of games, so I’ll be all over it if it ever comes here.
Me too. I’ve been following Precursors for a while, and I’m a total sucker for this kind of absurdly ambitious game. Provided that it will actually run on my machine, I’m totally in.
Are they still planning on a 360 release?
Arise, thread! Apparently this is out on GamersGate and Rock, Paper, Shotgun has posted their thoughts…and they actually seemed to like it.
I’d totally buy this if I was employed. Sigh. Anyone else wanna give this a try?
That’s … exactly what I was going to write. :P
Out of my head, ye bastard!
This one sounds like a winner…once modders finish having their obsessive way with it. It’s like STALKER, that way.
Looks interesting, but I’m not willing to spend $30 on something that sounds like it has a lot of issues.
Downloading…
Yay, thanks Alistair! Can’t wait to read your thoughts. :) Good luck and enjoy!
Wow, it does suck, I didn’t even see that thread in the results.
This is just a mod of the Russian version, right? That may be causing some of the issues. Will there be a true U.S. (or English) release?
This is the 1.0 version of the Russian release with halfass translated text and some speech. I hear it’s basically on the level of the latest english translation patch but at least that one is fully patched to the most recent build of the game.
Just as a heads up the english version is not the community translation patch as the RPS article claims and I’m hearing they packed in a warez release cracked exe for a copy protected version of the game (the russian release) that isn’t on the disc.
Wait, who did what? Gamersgate used a cracked .exe for their online retail release?
This is what turns me off the most. I can put up with primitive graphics, but I really love good audio. System Shock 2, for example, even un-modded, feels like a AAA game to me because of the awesomely perfect audio. Good audio can go a long way to make something feel polished and immersive. Bad audio can have the reverse effect.
I’ll wait to hear more impressions from you guys, but I probably will skip this game.
One question: Can you use a joystick in the space sim portions?
It’s worth emphasizing that those are problems with the Gamersgate release. The original Russian game with (halfassed, Babelfishy) fan translation mod does not exhibit similar issues. The trouble is obtaining it.
From the Nfohump forum:
The localization or re-release process for these titles have been highly problematic however which is unfortunate.
(Though in turn it means GameFactor Interactive or what they were called - Russobit or some thing as well? - won’t see much money from their hasty decisions and sup-par effort though the developers Deep-Shadows could probably need some income as they’re apparently in some financial problems so they’ve been very quiet and this delayed these localizations initially.)According to Trivium’s NFO file they even use their cracks (Even attempted to use SecuROM over it which is why Xenus 2 is broken.) and the way the audio was handled only leaves a few lines with voice (in-game cutscenes and CG intro video.) with the rest being silence though everything is subtitled but it removes some of the atmosphere and some of the strings are incorrect so you’ll see numbers and odd translations though the actual translation is quite decent though I prefer the more accurate and direct restored lines that the modded dialogue project brings back, also fixes some bugs and works around other issues.
Unfortunately both English versions are also 1.0 instead of 1.1 or what the latest patch for either is (Xenus 2 as far as I’m aware had a 1.0.1 hotfix and a larger 1.1 update afterwards with Precursors only getting a 1.1 patch, this also seems according to the Deep-Shadows Russian website.)
This is a bit problematic since Xenus 2 (Or White Gold: War in Paradise as it’s also called) can be a bit buggy and the patch addresses a number of issues.
(Restored dialogue uses 1.0.0 of the Resource.qrc file so some minor issues are still present like the holo sight / collimator for the AK-74 is very uncommon and some localization and quest statuses could be better but works.) Precursors manages much better but also had a number of fixes in it’s first/only update, though both are much improved over Xenus / Boiling Point: Road to Hell.Overall I opted to return to the Russian disc images of the game and the keygens now available with full patch functionality and modded translations.
(English official translation / resource.qrc file works as well if you prefer that.)Only drawback is that it’s not possible to add subtitles to the in-game cutscene but the readme for that translation mod has most of those covered though not all are fully detailed.
I can verify that at least Xenus 2 has some nutty audio issues but you can somewhat fix that by doing this
Anyone with the audio issue, download Silent Hill patch v11 and extract into your Xenus 2 folder.
I’m surprised how much I’m enjoying this. The audio problems described by RPS are easily fixed, if you have the sound files from the $8 Yuplay.ru version. I was thinking it was a bit broken until I copied those over, now it feels completely stable. Zero crashes for example. It is quite demanding, but the worlds are big and pretty, and combat seems fine to me.
I’m on a swamp/forest planet with giant trees. It seems pretty resaonable that the bird-people speak Russian and I have a mission far away. I’ve bought a kind of two legged dinosaur to ride here, so I cover the distance to this mission in not too much time… but my mount is killed in the firefight. Now I have to get back through the forest on foot with ammo running low. The scale of the game is such that this is a bit of a challenge… Alien creatures, large & small, dot the landscape, some hostile, some not. Night falls. It looks very nice… I have a few side missions to track down revolutionaries in forest camps and patrols from their off-planet allies in the Democratic Union. So as I head through the forest I take on some of these, circling encampments, sniping, hiding, struggling to preserve the vital armour-piercing rounds… trying not to waste them against enemies with shields. It’s a lot of fun, and quite tough. I also discover there are vehicles in various places in the forest - yay! But get my buggy stuck in a swamp. Boo!
It takes a few day and night cycles (these are rather nice) and a number of quickloads (these too) before making it back to ‘civilisation’.
Very much recommended if you can:
a) put up with the quest dialogs being a bit odd… sort of light-hearted, distant and somewhat garbled. It’s like the NPCs have handed out these quests 100s of times already and they’re not going to try too hard any more. In fact really they’re just filling in for their cousin who’s a real pro NPC.
b) go to the effort of getting the sound files from the Russian version. It’s one download, costs $8, and you must think in Russian.
c) have a decent PC. My C2D E6600/3GB/5850/SSD experiences variable framerate at the highest settings at 19x12. I tried it on my i5 8GB laptop with Nvidia’s 420M and it was s-l-o-w…
z) ATI users will need to download another file to fix a quirk they get with flickering lighting.