Posted February 13, 2015
The Mac version of the game is broken and it should be removed from the available downloads in my opiniion. I don't know if these issues are relevant to the Windows version of the game.
I bought this because I loved the original, the 8-way firing option sounded awesome and the trailer looked very nice. They certainly paid some dollars/pounds to a video production company who came up with those good looking steampunk fonts, neat backgrounds with a game running in a small window in the middle of that screen (obviously not to show how mediocre the remastered edition actually looks). The music rocked in the trailer. The flicker and lighting effects were a cool touch. It's sad, but you can't claim this as a false advertisement, this is a high level of sneaky, congratulations to the marketing department.
Now about the remaster (Mac version only):
Broken stuff
1) I can't make the game start in full screen, have to click the "fullscreen" mac button every time (in Yosemite not sure if this works in Mavericks and earlier since the "fullscreen" button works differently in Mac os X prior to Yosemite).
2) Gamepad configuration is broken. You can't play on a digital gamepad. This game handles only gamepads with analog sticks, because it maps the ABXY (1234) buttons to a d-pad, so you can't start a game from the menu and your character ends up moving when you try to use buttons to shoot, switch or whatever. Even if you use a pad to key re-mapper (there are no free re-mappers on a Mac) there's no way to disable the gamepad in the options, so you have to remap all of the actions to some button on the pad which you don't use (just make sure you don't press it accidentally), then spend some time to assign gamepad buttons in a gamepad-to-keyboard re-mapper. I find this hack ridiculous but only way to play this game on a digital gamepad.
3) The sound is too loud and there's no way to control it. It's convenient to have sfx and music loudness controls in games, to be able to control them separately, but here - no sound options whatsoever.
4) There's no hot key to go from a fullscreen to a desktop mode
5) The only way to change the options in fullscreen - move your (invisible) mouse to the top edge of the screen, wait for the menu to appear, click the mouse to show the cursor, then change options
6) Screensaver kicks in if you play on a pad without using a pad to key program
Stuff which was implemented poorly to the point of being useless
-The settings and options are lacking. You can enable the remastered mode which enables a bloom effect and a 2xsai/eagle or whatever smoothing. I love the bloom but hate the 2xsai/eagle smoothing. Not sure what other enhancements they have in the remastered mode, because I can't stand interpolated smoothing engines and to me it's painful to use them even for research purposes.
-The options are scattered around the top menu. A consolidated options dialog box would help.
-All new content (like the new help screens) looks drastically different from what we have in the original. Was it too hard to give a guy with at least basic photoshop skills a task to create a small pixelized versions of the new screens to look like the original game to make it a cohesive experience? This is relevant to so many remasters out there (Wasteland, Another World).
-Subtitles look out of place, the font has nothing to do with the original game art, the placement is no good, covering the artwork or even the original wording.
They have the x1 x2 x3 screen size option. Who and why would need that, aside from programmers who do tests during the development process? This menu occupies most of the options menu system real estate making it hard to navigate. Am I missing something?
-There's a tweet option somewhere in between the real options and it get in the way - another example of a useless option which adds to inconvenience.
I bought this because I loved the original, the 8-way firing option sounded awesome and the trailer looked very nice. They certainly paid some dollars/pounds to a video production company who came up with those good looking steampunk fonts, neat backgrounds with a game running in a small window in the middle of that screen (obviously not to show how mediocre the remastered edition actually looks). The music rocked in the trailer. The flicker and lighting effects were a cool touch. It's sad, but you can't claim this as a false advertisement, this is a high level of sneaky, congratulations to the marketing department.
Now about the remaster (Mac version only):
Broken stuff
1) I can't make the game start in full screen, have to click the "fullscreen" mac button every time (in Yosemite not sure if this works in Mavericks and earlier since the "fullscreen" button works differently in Mac os X prior to Yosemite).
2) Gamepad configuration is broken. You can't play on a digital gamepad. This game handles only gamepads with analog sticks, because it maps the ABXY (1234) buttons to a d-pad, so you can't start a game from the menu and your character ends up moving when you try to use buttons to shoot, switch or whatever. Even if you use a pad to key re-mapper (there are no free re-mappers on a Mac) there's no way to disable the gamepad in the options, so you have to remap all of the actions to some button on the pad which you don't use (just make sure you don't press it accidentally), then spend some time to assign gamepad buttons in a gamepad-to-keyboard re-mapper. I find this hack ridiculous but only way to play this game on a digital gamepad.
3) The sound is too loud and there's no way to control it. It's convenient to have sfx and music loudness controls in games, to be able to control them separately, but here - no sound options whatsoever.
4) There's no hot key to go from a fullscreen to a desktop mode
5) The only way to change the options in fullscreen - move your (invisible) mouse to the top edge of the screen, wait for the menu to appear, click the mouse to show the cursor, then change options
6) Screensaver kicks in if you play on a pad without using a pad to key program
Stuff which was implemented poorly to the point of being useless
-The settings and options are lacking. You can enable the remastered mode which enables a bloom effect and a 2xsai/eagle or whatever smoothing. I love the bloom but hate the 2xsai/eagle smoothing. Not sure what other enhancements they have in the remastered mode, because I can't stand interpolated smoothing engines and to me it's painful to use them even for research purposes.
-The options are scattered around the top menu. A consolidated options dialog box would help.
-All new content (like the new help screens) looks drastically different from what we have in the original. Was it too hard to give a guy with at least basic photoshop skills a task to create a small pixelized versions of the new screens to look like the original game to make it a cohesive experience? This is relevant to so many remasters out there (Wasteland, Another World).
-Subtitles look out of place, the font has nothing to do with the original game art, the placement is no good, covering the artwork or even the original wording.
They have the x1 x2 x3 screen size option. Who and why would need that, aside from programmers who do tests during the development process? This menu occupies most of the options menu system real estate making it hard to navigate. Am I missing something?
-There's a tweet option somewhere in between the real options and it get in the way - another example of a useless option which adds to inconvenience.
Post edited February 17, 2015 by l3l3l5l
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