I think Greenman uses a client to download BUT when it downloads the installers it does so to a temp folder and if you watch that folder you can pause the download in the client after download but before it installs and copy those files to another folder to save them.

Gamersgate makes you download a small client first (around 250-500 kb). When you run that, it downloads the installer and other relevant files. In order to instal the game, you simply run the client file. Only the installation requires the client; the game itself does not require any client or anything to play.

That seems pretty acceptable.

GG is my second preferred DD store right after GOG. Although some games contain DRM (and sometimes it's not obvious what kind looking at the product page only), you can back all of them up. Each game comes with a separate installer (nothing like steam, you get setup.exe and directory with game installation files), and after installing you can just keep the installer and all files and burn them to DVD or anything and run them again anytime you want (in most, if not all, cases you can do it offline). Happy shopping

Don't forget that Gamersgate purchases reward you with Blue Coins :). Get enough of those and you can get a free game or two here. Perfect for game collectors like me :)

Took a screenshot of this screen for future reference.
This was a bit like school. Boring but I almost learned something. And I didn't get picked on so much. =)

Ok, I admit it. I like Daikatana, and bought it minutes after asking if it was DRM free! XD

It is DRM free, the only catch is that, like Thief: The Dark Project, GamersGate converts the "launch" file into "setup.exe" and back, usually too quickly to save it, and renaming launch to setup.exe won't work. Defeating this protection keeps you from having to call home, have an internet connection, and otherwise deal with GamersGate and have a form of DRM preventing you from keeping a DRM free installer.

I've made a batch file useful for this purpose. I've also bundled together various Daikatana related materials that may prove useful to anybody interested in getting the game. It includes map editors, maps, my DRM remover, files necessary to patch the GamersGate version to 1.2, the Daikatana demo, the fan-made Daikatana stand-alone deathmatch (doesn't require Daikatana to play), some custom textures, and more.

The lite version doesn't include the stand-alone deathmatch, the demo, and some textures.

Click here for the full package (336.48 MB)
Click here for the lite package (82.87 MB)


For anybody who just wants the DRM remover (it's just a simple four line batch file), either make a batch file with the following lines: or download the enclosed jpg and name it "drmremoval.bat". Put it in the "\GamersGate temporary files\588\" folder while Daikatana is downloading and run it. It'll save the setup.exe file as "1setup.exe" before GamersGate can convert it back into "launch". You can then back up the contents of the folder for a 100% DRM free copy of Daikatana. :)

Sounds nice...by maps do you mean SP by any chance? Just curious. Also those textures sound lovely.

To be honest, I just downloaded most of this stuff yesterday and haven't tried it all. I think it's mostly multiplayer. One of the maps is the slipgate hub from the original Quake. :D

Two of the textures I found are for Kingpin and Soldier of Fortune. The textures from Daikatana itself can be, and must be, extracted with one of the included tools to be used with the editor. This is very nicely documented in the IonRadiant editor's documentation.


Honestly, it's hard to understand the hate for Daikatana these days. Some of the weapons are silly, some are legitimately cool (there are proper rocket launchers you can jump with, and the shotgun in episode one, quirky as it is, provides very fun gliding and high-jumping mechanics. I love how similar Daikatana feels to Quake, being made in a modified engine during that era and all. It's like Quake's somewhat special adopted Japanese little brother. :P

Deathmatch can be a lot of fun, and every era has at least one form of mobility weapon (though episode four only has the ice gun, but you can use it much like episode one's shotgun).


The campaign does have many questionable things (starting you off in a swamp level and immediately introducing annoying tiny enemies as your first foes, a gun that will hurt you in the shallow water present on the level, save gems, level design of varying quality, the fact that the main villain is secretly Dr. Robotnik since you're frequently pitted against robotic animals), but it can be a fun game, a fun deathmatch game with proximity bombs, rocket launchers, ricochet guns, and more, and of course, if you still hate the game with every fiber of your being, you can always try your hand at making a better Daikatana with the map editor. ;)

Also, inappropriate sounds effects were my greatest annoyance. Some of them just seem out of place, and the worst use of sound effects is in the rather long loading screens. I can't believe they didn't figure out how annoying the loading screen sounds were, it shouldn't take even an hour of playtesting to determine that. -_-;

I forgot to mention. For some reason, the console is disabled by default. Add "+set console 1" to the command line options to enable the console. Add "+set cheats 1" to enable cheats, including noclip and god mode. In addition, editing your configuration file and your key bindings is pretty much identical to Quake, it shouldn't be too hard. Just make sure you save any changes to your settings before you quit the game. It doesn't do this automatically. Again, odd design decisions, but there's still a pretty decent game in there. I've played much, much worse.

Also, the patcher seems to delete katana.ico. Be sure to back it up before patching it you want the icon.

Yes, it's a great obscure gem...but funnily enough I liked many of those little things people hate: I loved the bugs and the buzz they made, and even though the weapon hurts you underwater so does a certain weapon in Blood(Blood2?) I believe, and knowing this I learned well to use melee underwater or other appropriate weapons.

I also found the robotic enemies quite fun to fight in some cases, as well.

The save gems I did bypass I admit, and having team mates get stuck as we crawled in vents & traversed narrow hallways or get hurt by falling from ledges or dying from hazards was a pain....but both were easily circumvented or avoided.

I'm the kind of guy who can laugh at and ignore flaws in just about any game. Unless the game has absolutely no redeeming qualities, nothing to like, and is soulless cash-in garbage. Daikatana is nowhere near perfect, but they tried to make an awesome game and, as long as you can put up with the bad and enjoy the good, it shows.

I like the robotic animals too. Almost every let's play I've seen inevitably makes an allusion to Dr. Robotnik, it's funny. Perhaps the idea of small annoying enemies and immediately handing you a gun that will hurt you in a good portion of the level was questionable, but I do think John Romero was legitimately trying to make an "expert-level fps" and not just trying to pass off questionable design decisions as deliberate challenge to save face. It's just, unlike Resident Evil, having limited saves in an FPS is really awkward and most people absolutely loathed all of these ideas.

There are bad games that are fun to play, just to make fun of. Big Rigs is so awful you can't not love it. Unfortunately for Daikatana, a lot of the bad points are more "dull" and just plain bad than they are funny. However, like I said, I personally found enough good in the game to make up for it. Most people didn't. Plus, you know, it's hard to hate an FPS without my buddy Superfly. ;)

My method involves using the task manager to end the downloader process and then track down the location of the currently running installer (it's got to be somewhere). Usually the downloader just decrypts the launch file in the download folder. As long as you end the downloader process it can't re-encrypt the file.

I came across one game however where the downloader moved the decrypted setup file into my C:\Windows folder (of all places). I have a feeling your batch file would have been useful there, so thanks. I'll keep it for future use.

Will this work for every game?

Oh forsaken Hitman games on gamersgate, Why does thou have DRM, it is like you are saying "Cheap game here but oh we don't want your money".

As long as the launch file decrypts to setup.exe. You'll have to change the name in the batch file if it's not setup.exe.