There's also a browser extension to do this on firefox iirc, allowing non-accounts to view restricted videos..

leileilol wrote:

There's also a browser extension to do this on firefox iirc, allowing non-accounts to view restricted videos..

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/no-age-limit/
Works for me 😀 Thanks for the tip.

Looking at the source of the addon it simply redresses the video with a "embedded version". If the video owner disallows embedding the addon will not work.

EDIT: Here's a example of what I meant (youtube-dl piping to VLC Media Player)

Ancient DOS Games Filler #69 - End of 2017 Update is online!

There was actually a lot of things which cropped up over the past couple months, so I wanted to address them all before we get back into the swing of regular ADG episodes next Saturday, thus this "quick" video which I thought was only going to be about 3 or 4 minutes long and yet it's more like 12... XP

Time to get a proper to start to 2018 as Ancient DOS Games Episode 226 - Test Drive is online! :D

This one surprised me. Last I played this was MANY years ago in that filler video where I looked at my old Tandy 1000 SX computer, and the game played really freaking badly. When I booted this up in DOSBox I had two goals: 1. Figure out if it's even remotely playable with the keyboard, and 2. Try to get it playing better.

Sure enough, you can really manipulate the input mapping to make this game WAY more playable than ever before, so this is something I go into greater detail with later in the episode! :)

...but it can still be beaten in under 15 minutes and has very little in the way of variety. :P

Ancient DOS Games Filler #70 - DOSBox Keymapper is online!

...yeah... I kinda got sick right after the first ADG episode of the year went live... >_>;

I was mostly recovered about halfway through the week but that wasn't enough time to put together the episode I had planned, so instead I decided to throw a quick filler video together to talk about the DOSBox Keymapper in more detail, since I mention it routinely for adjusting controls and making controls work better in games, but I remembered how incredibly intimidated I was by it when I first tried to use it many years ago and thought it would be good to go over the basics and give practical examples of what it can do! :)

I tried to use the keymapper to remap joystick actions for Wing Commander 1. Ended up unsatisfied for reasons I can't remember, so I switched to joy2key and was much happier.

HunterZ wrote:

I tried to use the keymapper to remap joystick actions for Wing Commander 1. Ended up unsatisfied for reasons I can't remember, so I switched to joy2key and was much happier.

Joy2Key can do more than DOSBox's keymapper for sure, but then it's another program to worry about when playing a game. Really depends on which works better for what you're trying to do. :B

Ancient DOS Games Episode 227 - Secret Agent is online!

This is another example of a game I don't personally like, but where I recognize that there are people who could surely enjoy it since it's not all bad. Heck, many of the game's issues can be overcome with practice, worked around, or just simply ignored... but that didn't make it any more enjoyable for me.

In fact, the reason this is up half a day later than usual is because I was unsatisfied with how negative my original script for this turned out and I realized that the game wasn't bad enough to deserve that kind of treatment, so I redid the script, revoiced it, and I'm a lot more satisfied with the result, as I point out several positive aspects and even make notes on how to deal with some of the bugs and issues in order to make the game more enjoyable.

...still doesn't make the level design any better though. I swear I got trapped, unable to proceed or backtrack, at least five separate times trying to play through this thing and it took awhile to figure out that trick for dealing with one-block-tall gaps. :P

Ancient DOS Games Episode 228 - Double Dragon is online!

This game is clearly unfinished. Some of the graphics are missing, most notably an EGA title screen, despite there being plenty of disk space left, the controls are somewhat unresponsive when you're trying to do things quickly, and it's hard to get the game to play at a decent speed, often going too fast or too slow, although this works out a little better using the Tandy mode over the EGA mode.

Double Dragon is a franchise which has had a bit of a rocky time since its arcade beginnings so I'm not totally surprised this game ended up the way it did. :P

Ancient DOS Games Episode 229 - Hoosier City is online!

I went into this game thinking it was going to be some kind of hidden gem. I mean, a Zelda-styled game I never heard of? Clearly the internet's been hiding this thing from me! D:

...well... turns out there were very good reasons why I'd never heard of it, the biggest one being that I think BATTLETOADS might actually be EASIER than this game... >_>;

mockingbird wrote:

Thanks Kris for Operation Neptune. […]
Show full quote

Thanks Kris for Operation Neptune.

You've inspired me to give math a try again. I downloaded and installed Dosbox (Daum SVN), but the pipefish monsters come up and down very fast from the ground, and I have cycles set to auto. If I decrease the cycles to where the speed of the pipe worms are acceptable, the overall game speed is extremely slow.

I uploaded a video to Youtube demonstrating the excessive speed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXIX8oWU3Vw

Any advice, aside from downloading the old Dosbox?

Thanks

Didn't want to make a new thread for this but knowing that there are those who like to play Operation Neptune (as I do), I also suspect that many of them who may be inclined to play it on genuine DOS instead of Dosbox, might run into a very common problem I had, with no obvious solution.

When you try to run the game you may find the splash/intro screen just frozen with no animation and you are unable to do anything. At this point your only option is to reset the computer. The reason the game hangs like this is because it doesn't like it when the midi port is set to 330. Unfortunately this is fairly common. It also has no sound blaster compatibility (only Adlib) so you have to use a command line switch to specifically use Adlib support. Failure to do both of these things will result in the splash screen hanging, no audio, or the game crashing on start after the first few screens. If you have a batch file in your game folder the best thing to do is simply modify it to:
1) initialize your mixer so that the midi is set to port 300
2) launch on.exe with the switch -sa (so "on.exe -sa")
If you do this, the game should run normally with sound.

Ancient DOS Games Episode 230 - Roboman is online!

So... yeah... turns out the copy I have of Lode Runner: The Legend Returns is Windows-only. Admittedly, the box for the game has a tiny little tab which indicates DOS or Windows, but I don't have the box, just the jewel case and CD, and neither say ANYTHING about what OS you need, made even more bizarre by this Windows-only version advertising a DOS-only game on the fold-out cover! >_>

In any case, I switched gears to another more obscure puzzle platformer given these difficulties. Although obscure, its creator, one Brian Goble, is fairly well known, and beyond that the game itself, while being fairly average, utilizes a particular crux which helps keep the player's attention just a little better than it otherwise would... whether the player realizes it's happening or not! :o

Ancient DOS Games Episode 231 - Albion is online!

I'm semi-surprised at how this turned out. I went into this expecting a game I'd barely understand and would hate playing. As expected, I barely understood it... but much to my surprise I did NOT hate playing it!

I think if I had dozens more hours to sink into this I could probably figure it out well enough to get all the way through, but even giving myself a little extra time than usual with these videos I still wasn't able to figure out all of its nuances, so... I settled instead for primarily discussing the story and technical aspects. :B

Ancient DOS Games Episode 232 - Planet Strike is online!
(Please note that this is a mature rated episode.)

This is probably one of the shortest ADG episodes ever, but I think I packed a solid amount of info in it all things considered. Since Planet Strike is the direct sequel to Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, using an almost identical engine with almost identical gameplay, the immediate thought is that there wouldn't be enough different to warrant a full video, but the differences DO make it the better game, and I've had a boxed copy since before I started ADG years ago, so I felt it was worth a quick look! :)

Gemini000 wrote:

Ancient DOS Games Episode 231 - Albion is online!

I'm semi-surprised at how this turned out. I went into this expecting a game I'd barely understand and would hate playing. As expected, I barely understood it... but much to my surprise I did NOT hate playing it!

I think if I had dozens more hours to sink into this I could probably figure it out well enough to get all the way through, but even giving myself a little extra time than usual with these videos I still wasn't able to figure out all of its nuances, so... I settled instead for primarily discussing the story and technical aspects. :B

I am an RPG nut and this was a game I really looked forward to playing. But after about 10 hrs or so, I had to retire. For me, the 1st person interface was very poorly implemented. I could not navigate without constantly walking into walls or overshooting corners and turning completely around. The "you are there" effect that Ultima Underworld did so well was not working in this game. It frustrated me so much (especially considering how well Ultima Underworld did this a few years prior) that it was a deal-breaker. In addition, the lack of good keyboard controls for movement made for mouse index finger fatigue which I could've worked through if not for the interface issues. I absolutely loved the turn-based combat, story, and isometric interfaces, but I just could not get past the 1st person interface.

Ancient DOS Games Filler #71 - Wacky Wheels HD: QA Report is online!

So... Some of you probably noticed this is a day late. My original plan was to just tear into this game because of the impression it left me with. It felt like some cheap cash-in, put together through outsourcing, with zero personal care put into it at all, but as I dug deeper I discovered that was actually completely wrong, this IS a passion project, but one which hasn't had a lot of work put into it, due to the developer stretching themselves way too thin, and on top of that, they're not really getting the best feedback either to work from.

Thus, I re-did the entire video to instead be a sort of QA Report, listing the bugs I uncovered and recommendations I have towards making the game better, rather than ragging on it. I've sent an eMail to the developer to let him know this video exists as well. With a little luck, it'll lead to a much better WWHD experience down the road, because right now... don't play it. Just... don't. >_<

Ancient DOS Games Episode 233: Disney's "Fun With Letters/Numbers" Games is online!

And so begins another Edutainment Month! :D

Given that these two "games", Donald's Alphabet Chase and Mickey's Runaway Zoo, were intended for extremely young children, it's no wonder they're as simple as they are, but it lends itself to talking about how early educational stuff works, as it may seem trivial for an adult, but every tiny little thing needs to be scrutinized when you're talking about early learning because it's very easy to miss the mark or teach something that's incorrect on some level. These particular games both slightly miss the mark at being perfect, though they're well enough that a parent can help fill in the gaps which are present in the educational content here.

Ancient DOS Games Episode 234 - Kid's Zoo: A Baby Animal Adventure is online!

...and my memory failed me because this program isn't anywhere near as good as I remembered it being! >_>;

I guess when you're a kid it's easy to lose sight of how good or bad something is because sometimes you don't have a lot to compare to. Seeing FMV and photos of animals seems fun and engaging, until you start to realize the FMV clips are barely 10 seconds long and the photos repeat numerous times throughout the program, and then you realize the games have the same answers every time just shuffled in order and... yeah... this gets really boring, really fast. :P

...unless you're REALLY into ladybugs...

Huh, I completely forgot I have some of these "educational" games from Knowledge Adventure.

I got them as part of a bundle at a local swap meet in 2001. And while edutainment titles are not my thing, I never got rid of these; I suppose is because they remind me of a time when DOS games/software on CD-ROM were becoming a common sight around my neck of the woods.

And yes, there is an option for a "Packard Bell Sound Card" in the sound setup.

What an odd name for the WSS driver 😊 . Ah well, it works fine with SB16 in DOSBox.