I own Virtual Snooker in the big box as well, I'm surprised it got a US release tbh since Snooker is virtually unheard of here.

thepirategamerboy12 wrote on 2024-02-14, 14:57:

I own Virtual Snooker in the big box as well, I'm surprised it got a US release tbh since Snooker is virtually unheard of here.

I think that's one of the reasons the game got slightly lower ratings than Virtual Pool, even though it's essentially exactly the same engine. More fans of 8-ball/9-ball than of snooker in the US.

BTW, Virtual Pool 2 big box releases had different designs in the US versus EU/UK. That game had no snooker option, and there was no Virtual Snooker 2. The lineups were finally united in Virtual Pool 3 which has a snooker mode alongside the more common pool games.

Indiana Jones and the Emperors Tomb

The story of the decline of the big box has been told a few times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhZkmAscdw0
https://rome.ro/bigbox

although even today, there is still some life in it. During the late 90ies Big Boxes became increasingly often replaced by – at first quite nice and elaborate smaller boxes – but later just simple DVD clamshell packings. This, however, did not happen everywhere at the same time and it is thus often not clear if a Big Box variant of a specific game exists at all and finding such an elusive title is always nice. For example, the Emperors Tomb is a Lucas Arts title form 2003. At the same year Lucas Arts also published “Knights of the Old Republic” To this day, I have never seen a Big Box variant – nor am I sure if one exists (If someone has one – “please show and tell”!). Many “late” big boxes are really done with minimum effort, but this one is an exception. We get a registration card, EA flyer and even the classic “Jones” notebook.

The game itself is a nice action adventure in which the famous archeologist attempts to raid the tomb of the first Chinese Emperor – like …Tomb raider! Just as in the previous title, The Infernal Machine, these games play very similarly to the original Tomb Raider but they are also done very nicely – so if you like the genre they are highly recommended. One of the novel things in this title was the inclusion of the environment into the brawls. Shovels, chairs fists – it feels a lot like in the movies. And if you can’t get enough there is even more coming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e17p2IVDUU

(Although - if I could have a say what to do with the franchise next, I would suggest lending the Thimbleweed engine to Hal Barwood and kindly ask if he could send the Archeologist out once more finding the Lost Final Indiana Jones Point and Click Adventure)

Small box but with a special significance (to me).

Got this today in a bundle of other small box games. TBH This was the main one I waited.

Silent Hill 2 Directors Cut PC is a hard to get game in general, and generally considered the best way to play it on modern hardware (using the Enhanced Edition that some fans have made) but this wasn't the only reason.

I was Lead Programmer (and also did the production role) on this, over 20 years ago.

I have the US big box copy given to me (in storage) but I wanted a UK/EU version, so finally got one and nostalgia overload!

Just looking at the list of GPUs we supported and how hard our little team of 4 worked to get it to on a range of PCs in basically 6 months , raises a smile 😁

Deano wrote on 2024-03-02, 11:21:

Small box but with a special significance (to me). […]
Show full quote

Small box but with a special significance (to me).

Got this today in a bundle of other small box games. TBH This was the main one I waited.

Silent Hill 2 Directors Cut PC is a hard to get game in general, and generally considered the best way to play it on modern hardware (using the Enhanced Edition that some fans have made) but this wasn't the only reason.

I was Lead Programmer (and also did the production role) on this, over 20 years ago.

I have the US big box copy given to me (in storage) but I wanted a UK/EU version, so finally got one and nostalgia overload!

Just looking at the list of GPUs we supported and how hard our little team of 4 worked to get it to on a range of PCs in basically 6 months , raises a smile 😁

Now this, is an impressive story. Thanks for sharing!

Deano wrote on 2024-03-02, 11:21:

Small box but with a special significance (to me). […]
Show full quote

Small box but with a special significance (to me).

Got this today in a bundle of other small box games. TBH This was the main one I waited.

Silent Hill 2 Directors Cut PC is a hard to get game in general, and generally considered the best way to play it on modern hardware (using the Enhanced Edition that some fans have made) but this wasn't the only reason.

I was Lead Programmer (and also did the production role) on this, over 20 years ago.

I have the US big box copy given to me (in storage) but I wanted a UK/EU version, so finally got one and nostalgia overload!

Just looking at the list of GPUs we supported and how hard our little team of 4 worked to get it to on a range of PCs in basically 6 months , raises a smile 😁

Hey, thanks for sharing! Mind sharing more from that experience? Did you essentially port the XBOX version of the game to the PC? Was the source code easily readable, were comments in English etc?
Any particular anecdotes? I imagine supporting fixed function hardware must have been a tough thing to pull off!

We had source code and art from both PS2 and XBox version. The XBox version was the main version we worked with. Rumour has it Konami has lost the original source code now, I may have it on backup in storage. I've been asked about it but the storage is in another country so not had a chance to look yet.

Source code had all comments in Japanese, we had a Japanese to English translator software that Oscar used to write a tool convert the all the comments to English in place. However this was 2000ish translation and it didn't do a great job. I knew a bit of Japenense so would sometimes manually translate parts where the auto-translate didn't help.

We ended up with 3 seperate vertex render paths, Software TnL, Fixed function TnL and Vertex shaders 1.0.
The XBox pixel shaders were bigger than PS1.1 so we had to redo them and try and get them into the PC restrictions.
The bones and morphs also didn't fit in the PC constant space. We had a reversed bone index system that was done on the CPU that removed the space limit.
Render target weren't available and/or unreliable so we couldn't blur the shadows. This has led to a myth that the PC used stencil shadow but the console didn't, the shadow algo is exactly the same we just couldn't blur it.

We had to detect forced driver AA as it broke some of the rendering.

More fun ones:
I setup a NES with Mario in our area and we would play it when compiling etc. As no saves we left it on, with a sign "Don't turn off", one night the cleaner did and we were devastated to find out 3/4 complete Mario progress was lost 😀
I also had a Playstation inflatable basket ball thing setup (base was filled with water, the rest of air) with its own inflatable ball, after a whilst we realized that clearly it wasn't meant to stay up long as the water filled base was starting to turn into a Cthulhu like creature 😀

That's a lot more than expected, thanks for sharing!

I've read about some other ports to PC from the late 90s/early 00s such as Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid and the devs there faced the same issue with code comments in Japanese and having to work off rough translations which is why I asked. I've only really had experience with the original PS2 version which I love dearly, but as far as I can tell you guys did a great job considering the state of PC gaming at the time and the issues arising from porting a Japanese title from cutting edge consoles!

LGR just uploaded the quintessential DUNE I Boxart and Game review (and no, I dont think the age of retro gaming channels has reached its end yet) I like this game a lot especially because it very nicely blends adventure elements with strategy gameplay which is rare. In addition, just like the old movies, the game also maintains the scifi-baroque mix.
What I also like (separate hobby) are paper mechanic books. So I consider that Sandworm Box one of the most awesome releases ever. As I dont have it, from now on I can at least admire it every now and then...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JvP3d3QB-4k&pp=ygUDbGdy