The Limited Run Games’ release of Monkey Island Anthology

It arrived today and I spent hours with it already and as you all know I am using Windows 11. (But all I mention in this blog post is also valid for Windows 10 as well)

It is a good limited release, but it isn’t very good or even outstanding. Here is what I shared with their support department today:

May I be honest about it? From the physical standpoint, the product is awesome, from the software release side I am on the fence about it. On one hand I was pleasantly surprised to see 3.5″ and 5.25″ disk images of the PC releases and Mac and Amiga and even stream dumps of the data so people can re-create the original media. However if that was thought of, why not an ISO image of the PC releases containing CD Audio? It could have been either multi-data-type ISO images or even enclosing AND inlcuding them as physical versions in the DVD/CD box. What about Atari, Mega CD and FM Towns releases?

and Monkey Island 4 (AKA Escape From Monkey Island”) is an awful buggy release. Monkey Island 3 was at least packaged with ScummVM, but not even using the last version but the Runtime Environment from 2017!
Upon research I understood you just put the GOG releases on them, but Monkey Island 4’s GOG Release has a few major flaws:
No support of 16:9 widescreen and only at 640×480, and any secondary monitors have to be disabled
Also the game easily crashes in the middle a couple of times.
Why not bundling it yourself with the latest ScummVM? It supports the game as seen here: https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Escape_from_Monkey_Island

I would fix it myself as I could but as the releases you put there are Install Shield bundles, I don’t have have hand on the original game data to put into ScummVM to play it in correct aspect ratios without the crashes and overlapping music in the game credit menu.

There as potential and good intent but lacking of execution at some places. Which is very unfortunate. Especially for an Anthology. I guess it is too late for that now, the only possible way to fix the problems would be offering downloads containing the following:

-Providing the game versions of missing computer and console platforms
-Offering ISO Images of the PC CD versions containig CD Audio
-Offering ISO Images of Monkey Island 4 AND/OR bundling them with ScummVM

While I perhaps can excuse some of that for missing licenses, it boggles my mind you just re-released the GOG version of Monkey Island 4 instead of using original game data and bundle them with ScummVM for a more stable, visually correct and more bug free experience as a release.

You surely had enough time to iron out those road blockers.

It is probably too late and doubt Limit Run Games will provide an Update as a download for missing conent/releases and fixed to work on current PC systems better, but I anyway didn’t want to hold back that you had the chance to make this Anthology outstanding and you missed it unfortunately.
And all those things I mentioned do not require any code bug fixing or anything, just re-bundling and using the original release data,

More details on Monkey Island 4 running in ScumVM can be found here:
https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Escape_from_Monkey_Island

Thanks and sorry for the rant.

Running Driver: San Francisco in Windows 11

recent builds of Windows 10 broke compatibility with Driver: San Francisco. However latest app compatibility updates to Windows 11 and the Nvidia Game Ready drivers finally make it compatible! It also will work with latest Ubisoft Connect, however online function is broken and it will be put to your face right on startup, as I just wanted it to play in Story mode, I am fine with that!

There is a recent manual how to make it work using an old version when it was still named “UPlay”, however I personally wouldn’t risk to break it completely:

There is also a petition to bring the game back to the stores!

More about its story in this youtube video:

Running Dirt 2 in Windows 11

Here is an extensive guide on how I got it to run in Windows 11:

I bought my copy of Dirt 2 from gaming dragons.
It came with the latest version of GFWL (Games For Windows Live) (such are mentioned here as well).
However, once the profile of the player has been created within the game (do not try to change player names, or it will crash on instant!), in future cases of running the game, it will crash on trying to load the profile.

Once you have installed the gamingdragons version, and follow “step 3” of the readme as in the post mentioned that I linked above.

Additionally, set dirt2.exe to run as administrator.

It may still occasionally crash, on loading the profile once in a while, but not that much anymore, that it renders the game unplayable.

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