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Merry Christmas - Baldur's Gate (PS1) not so unreleased!
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Carnivol
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 2:10 am    Post subject: Merry Christmas - Baldur's Gate (PS1) not so unreleased! Reply with quote

I've always had this strange affection for 90s console ports of PC games, so it's with great excitement I now make this post and can with a great feeling of awesomeness say that finally one of the many unsung heroes of the PlayStation has finally left its nest and can now come out and play!


It's Baldur's Gate (SLUS-01037) for PS1 (Hey! Now we know what game was supposed to fill in that empty slot in the catalog, I guess?). The release seems to've missed the timeframe of hitting a 10th anniversary by a year(?), or any other worthwhile anniversary for that matter... Either way, Santa's a great guy for putting this one out!


Anyway, enough talk! I figured I'd just open this thread with saying that you may find the torrent for downloading this piece of awesome history over on drx' Hidden Palace. Great download speed, by the way! So... anywho... I guess, to me at least, this is the biggest release so far this year! Thanks!


Since we're already here; let's look at some quick snaps I've taken!

Runecraft, the now defunct Leeds (UK) based studio that made this game a reality.


BlackIsle were the co-publishers/producers/whatever of the original, I believe (along with Interplay)


TSR! I thought Wizards of the Coast ate up these guys long before this game was even made...


A random Nietzche quote!


Ah, goodie! Now loading!


And we're on the main menu

(getting here can be quite the challenge if you're playing in an emulator and have a memory card w/saves on it!)

One of the many options screens the game has!

(FYI: for being a console port, it sure as hell features plenty of random ass on/off switches for stuff)

Starting new game... LOADING!


Every hero needs a name! Mine just happened to have cruel parents!


Not the worst roll ever! Also, my guy looks kinda old...


... for supposedly being 20 years!

(PS: I love how the voice over for the name Faerun is obviously edited in in the opening narrative)

Sony PlayStation Proudly Presents...

... a NOW LOADING PRODUCTION!

Ah! Here we are! Hidden nicely within walls of text!

(You can actually decrease the size of the text window... thank lord!)

Inventory:

Check!

World Map:

Check!

Journal:

Check!

Douche meets Shank!


They must immediately do battle! (After Douche has updated his journal, of course. Priorities!)


I'm actually so hardcore that I instantly went to the options and turned on the full battle text!

(Battles actually go surprisingly smooth + feature the PAUSE/TACTICAL mode... With all the loading found elsewhere in the game, you'd think you'd almost have to endure every single roll... fortunately, the wonders of computing handles that stuff smoothly...)

Smelled like the stables... exactly what a real douche would say!


This fugly little thing appears when you hit a certain button...


It's also kinda funny to see how it contains a BioWare logo video on the disc, but it does not seem to appear in-game (nor does the Bioware logo appear on the game's title screen). Almost everyone else seems to've snuck in their logos, though. Good for them!


For those of you who're so lazy you don't even care to scroll up again; go here to grab the game!
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TheRedEye
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 4:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Right on. I remember when PlayStationMuseum.com said that this game was worth "$10,000+" as some random arbitrary number, causing someone who had a copy to try to sell it for that much (also saying he was 100% sure it was the only copy in the world).
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Carnivol
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 8:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ah. Yeah. Many ghost stories surrounding that one. I even heard some stuff about the owner of the PlayStation Museum approaching someone who once had it, asking... no, more like supposedly "demanding" to have it for free. Then he apparently get all angry when he couldn't have it for free. Don't directly quote me on the accuracy of that story. That's only the story I've been told while digging around... Also, as far as I know, there are at least 3 builds of this one "around" (with this being the latest/most up-to-date one)
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fishboil



Joined: 25 Dec 2009
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 2:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Carnivol wrote:
Ah. Yeah. Many ghost stories surrounding that one. I even heard some stuff about the owner of the PlayStation Museum approaching someone who once had it, asking... no, more like supposedly "demanding" to have it for free. Then he apparently get all angry when he couldn't have it for free.


Yeah I always get angry when I have to pay in a shop for products or everything else.
But yeah altough his pricing of the game is bullshit it at least costed 1000 becaue the secret donator told that it was four digit summ.

Let's see who will be next game which will be leaked and what he calls as ''the only working copy in the world''

By the way can you play this to the end? And at least how much percents there are until complete game?
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Carnivol
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 3:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As far as I know, this is the entire game, and it should be playable from start to end. Just a few random hiccups/crashes here and there and the occasional typo (save often, I guess). Typos seems to be common in the new text. One of the most glaring ones being how it says "Baldurs Gate" instead of "Baldur's Gate" in a lot of messages. Nitpicky! :p


The completeness of the game seems to apply to pretty much every known build of this game, I believe. Playable all the way, just various levels of stability present in the engine and various levels of polish on the new text. The game mostly uses assets from the PC version - so the game itself is "complete" and only the framework/engine powering it needed any actual work to support it all and stuff. I know that at least one previous owner of a build of this game claims to've played through the entire game from start to end.
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Carnivol
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 1:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Minor double post (sue me!)

Just did some googling and found this on RPGfan.com.


Quote:
Baldur's Gate On Playstation
For those that aren't aware, Baldur's Gate is a PC RPG developed by Bioware that takes place in the Forgotten Realms corner of the D&D world. It was hailed as one of the best RPGs ever to hit the PC market for its mostly accurate simulation of the D&D rules, and rich, diverse gameplay.

Previously the only console to host the game was said to be the Dreamcast, with its upcoming version still under development. However, Interplay seems to now be developing a Playstation incarnation as well. What new features may be included in the translation is currently unknown, but at least Playstation owners who are interested in this title can now look forward to it hitting their system in the near future.

Baldur's Gate has a tentative release date for December.

Source: GameFan Online


Date Updated:
October 25th, 1999

Time Updated:
4:05 PM


^Kamui


October 25th 1999? Tentative release date December?

That's a whole year before this build was made. The fact that the game was in development at that time can also be confirmed by looking at the dates for some of the older, untouched, files, such as the logo screen FMVs and XA audio streams, which some of even date all the way back to even before the time of that post. (ignoring the Runecraft logo video, which is probably a recycled office asset.)

Going by other file dates, I guess it's not unreasonable to assume this thing might have started development during the summer of '99... (though, there's a .key file from 98, but it might just be leftover scrap from the PC version... Haven't checked.)
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neomerge



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PostPosted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 3:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That PlayStationMuseum guy was quite the character.
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pcGTW_Webmaster



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PostPosted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 11:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Carnivol wrote:
Going by other file dates, I guess it's not unreasonable to assume this thing might have started development during the summer of '99... (though, there's a .key file from 98, but it might just be leftover scrap from the PC version... Haven't checked.)

You can't go by the file dates, as those disc images are not untouched. They tampered with the data before releasing it, so there's no way to tell the exact date of that build.
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Carnivol
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 3:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

pcGTW_Webmaster wrote:
You can't go by the file dates, as those disc images are not untouched. They tampered with the data before releasing it, so there's no way to tell the exact date of that build.


Well, I know for a fact that the PlayStation Museum disc was from September 2000 and a certain other set of discs that's out there were from October 2000. So if this is the "latest" set; it's either the October set or something newer. And given when approximately development on the game was stopped... doesn't really give much of a timeframe, does it?
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fishboil



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 11:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Speaking of Curator or PSMuseum, why is he banned from these forums? May be a little offtopic but this beta kinda reminds me of him.

And why I am getting the feeling that he himself may have released this game? God know maybe for Christmas he got his free PSP at last.
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drx



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 12:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

fishboil wrote:
Speaking of Curator or PSMuseum, why is he banned from these forums? May be a little offtopic but this beta kinda reminds me of him.

And why I am getting the feeling that he himself may have released this game? God know maybe for Christmas he got his free PSP at last.


It definitely was not him.
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Carnivol
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 2:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

fishboil wrote:
Speaking of Curator or PSMuseum, why is he banned from these forums?


I think neomerge's post answers that;
neomerge wrote:
That PlayStationMuseum guy was quite the character.



fishboil wrote:
May be a little offtopic but this beta kinda reminds me of him.

Elaborate?
Only things I actually associate with that guy is greed, short temper and the exploitation of other people's trust and aide... and, oh, right, the PlayStation Museum too, of course.

fishboil wrote:
And why I am getting the feeling that he himself may have released this game? God know maybe for Christmas he got his free PSP at last.

Comparing this to his Exclusive Videos and keeping his phony appraisals, personality, general misinformation and technical inabilities in mind... I'd say... yeah, drx is right - it's definitively not from him.
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KingMike



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

fishboil wrote:
Speaking of Curator or PSMuseum, why is he banned from these forums? May be a little offtopic but this beta kinda reminds me of him.

And why I am getting the feeling that he himself may have released this game? God know maybe for Christmas he got his free PSP at last.

After signing up, he bumped like a hundred topics with unnecessary replies, even after the admins asked him a couple times to stop doing that.
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tithin



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PostPosted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 6:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There was also the "Resident Evil 1.5" event, which embittered a few people, myself included.
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Dot50Cal



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PostPosted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 9:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice to see this finally get released Smile Huge thanks to the guy who did it!
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Carnivol
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 12:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Saw the GAF link you showed me, Dot50Cal. People shopliftin' my screens (without keeping my adventure quotes!) and complainin' 'bout them names! (I thought it'd be much more funny than subtly watermarking them)

My great desires and quest for e-fame... crushed into the ground by the harsh words of a single LEGO man! Crying or Very sad

Wonder if this game actually gets big interest, though. Seeing as how big the PC version's community is and stuff... would be kinda sweet if people tore this version apart and somehow made ports of the expansion + Shadows of Amn (or at least find a way to somehow make the game not so playable on a PSP once you hit a disc swap point... MMMmmm... portable Baldur's Gate in my pocket...)
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Ichiban Crush
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hell, once I get over my DragonAge burnout, I might have to try this. I'm playing a Elven character in DA that's almost like Douche, except... you know, female, and named "Poison Womb" (SomethingAwful reference)
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Carnivol
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 2:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Seems like someone posting in the comments section on Hidden Palace found some leftover testing cheat

Quote:

phoenixclaws (email) (Dec 26 2009)
I just ran into a debugger by accident while i was playing the game in pSX (the permanent game saving doesn't seem to function in ePSXe).

Warning: The item will reset to the first amulet in the item list so do this with something you can afford to mess around with.

Go to your inventory, click X while on an item and then hit your start key. Then use L1 and R1 to scale back and forth through the entire item list in the game. To Keep an item drop it with X and then hit the Start Key. Otherwise the item reverts back to AMU01. Neat little leftover debugging tool.


phoenixclaws (Dec 27 2009)
Quick note:
use the Circle and Square buttons to move through the list faster :P.



Learn something new every day, I suppose.
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stranno



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PostPosted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 8:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've made a little gameplay ( 1 / 2 ), i've not advanced at all coz i'm not familiarized with this game

I guess i will play on PSP one of this days, it looks cool

Thanks 4 the info Exclamation
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Carnivol
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I suspect you may be able to use a PC guide for the game to speed up things if you're stuck or just want to progress as fast as possible.

Also, playing on PSP might be a bit tricky in the long run. I'm not sure if it prompts you for saving data upon disc swap points (at least it doesn't if you boot Disc 2-3 -> start a new game -> Create a character) and the PSP emulator doesn't recognize the disc swap points properly (so only Reset to disc # works and not the Change Disc option)

"Hopefully," someone will find a way around that if it's the same during normal game progression... portable Baldur's Gate sure would be nice!
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