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PowerSlave EX public beta released for PC [update: pulled down again]

G

gelf

Member
No time to try this out at the moment but I've loving seeing the positive impressions here. The game deserved more recognition.
 
C

charlequin

Banned
Lol, I figured it out. Turns out this game haaaaaaaaaaates high mouse polling rates. (The second random game I tested out, The Talos Principle, has the same problem, so for about half an hour I thought I was completely losing my mind.) Turning it down to 125 fixes it completely.
 
P

PaulloDEC

Member
I've played a few hours more now, and it's really pulling me in. I'm kind of amazed at how well the visuals hold up; characters like the humanoid jackal guys look amazingly clean and high-res, even at 1920 x 1200, which has to be... what, four times the resolution they were intended to be viewed at?

The mouse-and-keyboard controls feel absolutely perfect too. I know that technically the game was never lost, but this feels like a lost classic. Great level design, excellent sound and graphics, a (at the time, anyway) novel visual aesthetic and some way ahead-of-its-time Metroid-style gameplay mechanics.
 
J

JasonUresti

Member
PaulloDEC said:
I've played a few hours more now, and it's really pulling me in. I'm kind of amazed at how well the visuals hold up; characters like the humanoid jackal guys look amazingly clean and high-res, even at 1920 x 1200, which has to be... what, four times the resolution they were intended to be viewed at?

The mouse-and-keyboard controls feel absolutely perfect too. I know that technically the game was never lost, but this feels like a lost classic. Great level design, excellent sound and graphics, a (at the time, anyway) novel visual aesthetic and some way ahead-of-its-time Metroid-style gameplay mechanics.
Click to expand...

Yeah Powerslave is really overlooked and didn't get the appreciation it deserved. It's a true "lost gem" type of game, a great game that few remember or played. (Unlike some of the games that get mentioned dozens of times in those discussions, kind of proving that they weren't all that overlooked or forgotten.}

The platforming is also much improved and less frustrating with the addition of fast and precise mouse and keyboard controls. That was one of my few complaints with the PS version, that with the clunky pre dual analog control scheme some of the later platforming was a bit tricky.
 
J

jizzlobber

Member
Exhumed is a much better name than powerslave.

I loved this on the Saturn, lobotomy were fantastic... Any of those guys still in the industry?
 
@

@MUWANdo

Banned
jizzlobber said:
Exhumed is a much better name than powerslave.

I loved this on the Saturn, lobotomy were fantastic... Any of those guys still in the industry?
Click to expand...

Quite a few of them ended up at Snowblind Studios and worked on games like Champions of Norrath, and I think one of them is now an indie producer at Xbox.
 
P

PaulloDEC

Member
JasonUresti said:
The platforming is also much improved and less frustrating with the addition of fast and precise mouse and keyboard controls. That was one of my few complaints with the PS version, that with the clunky pre dual analog control scheme some of the later platforming was a bit tricky.
Click to expand...

Which is lucky, because the instant-death lava and slime hazards scare the crap out of me, even with the new controls.

Just finished the Nile Gorge level, incidentally. Probably the best designed area so far, with a really clever overlapping layout that has you constantly doing the whole "So if that button just lowered a column, I bet I can get to this door now..." thing.
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
Yeah, I'm quickly finding out that the dolls are more difficult to obtain in the PS1 version because you need to unlock Dolphin and Vulture Modes to get at most of them (basically only 10 are available otherwise, including one that can only be found after the final boss, and those 10 are required to unlock Dolphin Mode, which gives you access to 4 more, and 14 are required for Vulture Mode, which all the others require), whereas in the Saturn game you could pick up everything as you came across it as soon as you got the Amun Bombs (although a great many of them required you to bomb-jump everywhere).

At least I managed to get through the instakill tunnel in the Caverns of Chaos. That was rough. Doesn't help that unlike the Saturn version's silent instakill lasers, the PS1 version opts for really noisy instakill fireball launchers.

As for the game proper, I'm a bit stymied by the Kilmaat Colony right now. A lot of the stage changes between the PS1 and Saturn versions have only been subtle tweaks to rooms here and there, but this is a completely different stage, holy crap. At least my second try went a bit better once I started using the charge shot weapon you get in the Caverns of Chaos...
 
A

Aaron D.

Member
CTRL + F: Iron Maiden

Results: 0

Y1DB4.gif
 
L

luka

Loves Robotech S1
man, this is great. been playing for the last few hours and just beat the second boss. it's a shame it's not the saturn version but it's so much fun playing this at a solid framerate for once. this guy does fantastic work.
 
B

bob_arctor

Tough_Smooth
Never have I gone from sheer joy to utter disappointment as quickly. Powerslave is back!! Holy Shit!!!

...And now it's down.

Hope this is only temporary.
 
P

PaulloDEC

Member
Hmm.

On the plus side, the Beta is pretty much perfect already and it's been out in the wild for over a week. Worst case scenario, we'll still have that.
 
@

@MUWANdo

Banned
PowerslaveEX is officially dead and Kaiser can't talk about why, but it seems pretty clear: he was distributing the entire game for free despite a) knowing it'd jeopardise the efforts of his colleagues at Night Dive, and b) knowing that the person/s who own the rights to the game were acutely aware of what was happening. Man, what a dope.
 
S

SparkTR

Member
@MUWANdo said:
PowerslaveEX is officially dead and Kaiser can't talk about why, but it seems pretty clear: he was distributing the entire game for free despite a) knowing it'd jeopardise the efforts of his colleagues at Night Dive, and b) knowing that the person/s who own the rights to the game were acutely aware of what was happening. Man, what a dope.
Click to expand...

Yeah this whole thing seemed a bit dumb, why wasn't this just an official Night Dive/Steam release? Are they still going through with that or was that cancelled and this was his way of getting around that?
 
K

KatamariOnTheRocks

Member
If an official release is ever put out I'd gladly buy it day one. It's unfortunate if this version has a negative impact on sales but getting to try it out in this manner has got me eager to support people taking chances on awesome old IP like this.

I hope things work out for the best and that anyone negatively affected by this gets a fair chance at putting the game out for retail.
 
I

ichtyander

Member
@MUWANdo said:
PowerslaveEX is officially dead and Kaiser can't talk about why, but it seems pretty clear: he was distributing the entire game for free despite a) knowing it'd jeopardise the efforts of his colleagues at Night Dive, and b) knowing that the person/s who own the rights to the game were acutely aware of what was happening. Man, what a dope.
Click to expand...

I was rather hoping to actually try this release but it didn't work for me (crash on startup). Seems we won't be getting that fix now, what a shame.
 
B

BuffetChamp

Banned
Booooo, I totally missed out on grabbing this. Would have been cool to see the update. Eh on a bright not I never knew the Saturn version was playable with the Nights pad. Haven't played the game in over a decade. Time to get busy with the Nights pad and avoid those damn Piranhas!
 
M

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
@MUWANdo said:
PowerslaveEX is officially dead and Kaiser can't talk about why, but it seems pretty clear: he was distributing the entire game for free despite a) knowing it'd jeopardise the efforts of his colleagues at Night Dive, and b) knowing that the person/s who own the rights to the game were acutely aware of what was happening. Man, what a dope.
Click to expand...
Huh, that is weird... according to the FAQ it seemed fairly legal, but it seems that it wasn't? If he knowingly released a free game without permission that's really impossibly dumb. WTF.
 
C

charlequin

Banned
Shame this seems to have gone pear-shaped (though I guess that should've been obvious, distributing a ported version of a game without requiring source files to play it.) I do hope some kind of official release gets pulled together, I'd still buy it.
 
L

Lafazar

Member
@MUWANdo said:
PowerslaveEX is officially dead and Kaiser can't talk about why, but it seems pretty clear: he was distributing the entire game for free despite a) knowing it'd jeopardise the efforts of his colleagues at Night Dive, and b) knowing that the person/s who own the rights to the game were acutely aware of what was happening. Man, what a dope.
Click to expand...

Why would he do that? That's just bizarre. I wonder what's going on behind the scenes.

The only scenario I can come up with is that the Nightdive negotiations were taking longer than expected and Kaiser simply got impatient to release it. Or the negotiations are on a longterm hold. In either case, doing a free release like that seems incredibly shortsighted by him.

He could have just released the source and binaries like with the Strife:Veteran Edition, so people with the PSX disc could make it run on their own:
https://github.com/svkaiser/strife-ve
 
D

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
What a shame.

He really should have been more careful here. Hopefully it does not compromise any further projects (like Turok EX). This was an attempt to preserve the game after all. If that work is trashed I will feel very disappointed. Hopefully Night Dive can salvage this. I would buy it in a second.
 
P

PaulloDEC

Member
dark10x said:
What a shame.

He really should have been more careful here. Hopefully it does not compromise any further projects (like Turok EX). This was an attempt to preserve the game after all. If that work is trashed I will feel very disappointed. Hopefully Night Dive can salvage this. I would buy it in a second.
Click to expand...

Fingers crossed. I think they'd be nuts to trash an essentially finished, saleable product simply because a few people got their hands on the beta for free. I already tipped the guy a few bucks on his blog, and like you I'd still pay for it again on Steam or GOG.

I feel like we'll probably see it again sometime in the future.
 
onken

onken

Member
Man bummed to hear the news. Lucky I still have the beta, looks and runs great on my PC. There were a couple of niggles to sort out but I can live with it. Hope it sees the light of day in some form eventually, more people need to play this game.
 
E

ElTopo

Banned
I was afraid this was going to happen. But hopefully the official release will have mod tools and maybe online multiplayer?
 
AlteredForms

AlteredForms

Banned
For those that are curious, Power slave doesn't take it's name from the Iron Maiden album according to the original director of the game. Exhumed was chosen by a European marketing company and sounded much cooler.
 
M

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Shadow Hog said:
Not according to this guy, although he doesn't exactly state where they did get the name if not Iron Maiden.
Click to expand...
AlteredForms said:
For those that are curious, Power slave doesn't take it's name from the Iron Maiden album according to the original director of the game.
Click to expand...
I really don't understand this. What else did they take the name from, if not Iron Maiden? The word didn't exist in Egyptian mythology or lore or anything like that as far as I know, and it'd be too weird of a coincidence.

Exhumed was chosen by a European marketing company and sounded much cooler.
Click to expand...
I disagree. Plus, Exhumed is a much inferior band. ;)
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
Honestly, I was kinda hoping the video I linked would state where, but beyond the implication that they found it while doing research on ancient Egypt, nada.
 
M

md99

Banned
Is the Night Dive Studio version still confirmed and going ahead? I've seen nothing on their website, Facebook or Twitter.

Its supposedly a port of the Saturn and PC version, yes?
 
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