Good Old Games?

[jbltecnicspro]

Hey folks, it's been for-ev-er since I've posted here last!  I was wondering if anyone's used Good Old Games?  I just bought Heroes of Might and Magic 2 Gold because it's on sale, and I'm a bit disappointed.  First, though they advertise that their programmers have made the games Windows XP/Vista/7 compatible, the game in fact just came with DOS Box and a few wrap-arounds.  Ugh... Add insult to injury, the downloadable sound track has some tracks that don't work (with Windows Media and iTunes).  I mean... it beats shelling out $50 for the disc alone, but this seems pretty lame/cheap. 

I'm going to email their support team and see what happens.  Honestly, I don't know why they included the DOS version of the game, as the Windows version runs just fine on Windows XP - all it needs is "wing32.dll" to run.  Also, I had to configure DOS Box to work properly as it kept crashing.  What do you all think?  Have any of you used this service? 

[Mau1wurf1977]

GOG is great for legally obtaining old games.

However it isn't good value. Many much newer games are cheap on steam or other online sites whereas many GOG games are up to 20+ years old.

It would be nice if publishers would compile all their vintage games into a pack and just sell them direct. At least I would prefer that.

And most games I really would like to purchase aren't being sold :-(

[MusicallyInspired]

In my experience, the DOS ports of Windows games are always better. Even with King's Quest VI and its fancy hi-res dialogue portraits in the Windows version. I love GoG. Great deals, great content, and no DRM! Who cares if it's DOSBox? Works just fine. All that means is you can take all the same files and throw them on an old computer, which is a bonus for me!

[Marten]

I'm certain that the experience with Good ol' Games and Steam is going to vary a bit from game to game even when "direct comparisons" are available.

In late 2009 and early 2010, some of Cyan's games came to Good ol' Games.  DRM-free.  But, Windows-only and no Mac.  The games are reported to work well on Windows XP, Vista, and 7.

In late summer 2010, some of the same games came to Steam, and were soon offered as a set (Cyan Complete Pack) that could be purchased for one low price - but Riven wouldn't run on Windows XP.  And, there were numerous problems with the packages originally rolled out on Steam.  The Myst Online discussion thread quickly grew with complaints and attempts to diagnose solutions to various problems, and blame was tossed about as to who might be responsible.  [It is worth noting that Riven on Steam was later fixed to work with XP.]  Still, the games were available on both Mac and PC.

So - all I'm saying is, the above represents the experience that a group of people had with a particular set of games.

And, I expect that the experience you have with any game will be mostly a consequence of the amount of care that the current license holder/publisher puts into providing a package to GoG and/or Steam.  I'm not sure how much work GoG and Steam put into prepping titles for their services, but I'm certain their resources and patience aren't infinite and they can only work with what they are given.