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Mummy issues.

Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy is now available, DRM-free on GOG.com, with a 34% discount until November 17, 1PM UTC.
This action/adventure from 2003 starring the intrepid Egyptian hero comes to the PC for the first time, sporting high-resolution support, HD textures, a proper mouse + keyboard control scheme, and certain visual improvements. Bring your wits, your reflexes, and your sidekick The Mummy along, as you journey to ancient Egypt for an explosive showdown with mythical beasts and feisty gods.

For some groovy beats, get the game's Soundtrack 20% off.

Watch the trailer.
Post edited November 10, 2017 by maladr0Id
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ThomNG: Wohoo - another classic jewel from the past is now available on GOG :) Enjoy and have a great weekend in advance!
Keep on with the good Work, THQ Nordic! :)
I like your "light" enhancement of classics and the good games you are either developing or helping other teams to develop (I have just finished Elex, and I loved every second of it).
I'm waiting impatiently for the new Darksiders and basically everything you'll bring here. In a world of shameless, vampiric publishers, is good to have smaller but serious and dedicated ones like you.
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Enebias: I'm waiting impatiently for the new Darksiders and basically everything you'll bring here. In a world of shameless, vampiric publishers, is good to have smaller but serious and dedicated ones like you.
"Dedicated" to graphical updates. Have you tried playing Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy with keyboard and mouse? Apparently they didn't dedicate themselves enough to that part of the port.

Also, people seem to forget how disastrous the "Deathinitive" Edition of Darksiders II was, on the PC, or how THQ Nordic is basically milking the Darksiders franchise by publishing a third title because they know Darksiders fans will buy it, even if most -- if not all -- of the Darksiders team isn't working on it, and Joe "Mad" Madureira (the man behind it all) explicitly stated he was done with Darksiders and the story was done, as far as he was concerned.

Or, mind you, how THQ Nordic is doing a "remake" of the Black Mirror trilogy of games, because they want to tackle whatever fans of that series as they can, while likely making it in the "TellTale Games" style of interactive fiction, because that's what's profitable.

THQ Nordic is dedicated, alright. Dedicated to the money, like all the "vampiric" big studios you mention. They even added the THQ brand to their previous name, because more people know who THQ were, as opposed to just Nordic (unless you were one of those Gothic nerd diehard fans, the Nordic brand meant next to nothing).

I have some titles published by (THQ) Nordic that I love to death, but that doesn't mean they're the best publisher around, or that they're some kind of "beacon of light" in the "devastated, worn-out, rough world" of video game developing, as you make it sound like. And as for them being "dedicated" towards their customers... yeah... all I say to you is that you should try playing this game with a keyboard and mouse setup. Great game, don't get me wrong, but pretty lousy and disrespectful PC port.
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seppelfred: The low quality-video on the gamecard is a bit irritating. Instead of re-using this very old promo video from back in the day, a new one would have been much better to promote the game.
Yeah I said something similar as well. Why posting a letterboxed trailer when the game is running perfectly and beautiful in 1080p HD?
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groze: Having said this, this port is bad. And I mean *BAD*. Sure, the game is still the same, they added a whole lot of graphical bells and whistles (because TotalBiscuit and his graphic whore minion tribe would shit on the game if you couldn't add anti-aliasing x500, adjust the FOV just that "perfect" way so no nerd can complain, add some 750 multisampling, run it at a smooth 50000 frames per second, and whatnot). If you have a controller, this is the best experience you'll ever have with Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy. That is, *IF* you have a controller. I don't, as many others, as well. Still, if you're making a modern port of a classic 3D console third-person action-adventure, at least give keyboard+mouse users some degree of customization... nothing is rebindable in this port. Took me a while to even understand what keys do what (WASD to move, Enter is START/PAUSE, action buttons are permanently set to TAB, F, Space and *freaking Esc*, Backspace enters the sub-menu for objectives and collectibles, mouse right button is a cancel button, while moving the mouse conveniently controls the camera, at least). This is not acceptable by any means, especially since there's no in-game prompt telling us what key does what, it just uses the very standard-by-these-days Xbox controller layout, and the player has to figure out what keyboard key corresponds to whatever Xbox button the game tells them to press.
I completely agree that EVERY PC game has to have rebindable keys (as long as it is not supposed to be played with mouse only of course ;)). I just looked a bit at the gamefiles and there is an ini file in the game directory called "Sphinx.ini". If you open it with notepad++ you can fild the keys used in the game listed. I have not tested it myself but it MAY be that this al least would be a way to rebind them even though - like it was said before - this should not even have to be necessary at all.

Edit: If this should not work I always recommend using GlovePie to rebind keys. So far it worked for every game I tried it with and it does not even have to be installed (although it has to run in the background).
Post edited November 11, 2017 by MarkoH01
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groze: Also, people seem to forget how disastrous the "Deathinitive" Edition of Darksiders II was,
No, I did not. That is one of the reason I asked in this very thread if THQ would consider to add the original release of DSII to the deathinitive edition as bonus.

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groze: on the PC, or how THQ Nordic is basically milking the Darksiders franchise by publishing a third title because they know Darksiders fans will buy it, even if most -- if not all -- of the Darksiders team isn't working on it, and Joe "Mad" Madureira (the man behind it all) explicitly stated he was done with Darksiders and the story was done, as far as he was concerned.
I am quite sure that I once read that the story was not supposed to end this way and that they always wanted to send another rider on its way ... I am also quite sure (not a 100% though) that this happened before the original studio closed. Maybe I am confusing something but having played through both DS I really don't think that the story is over no matter what anybody is saying - even the creator.

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groze: Or, mind you, how THQ Nordic is doing a "remake" of the Black Mirror trilogy of games, because they want to tackle whatever fans of that series as they can, while likely making it in the "TellTale Games" style of interactive fiction, because that's what's profitable.
Is this an assumption or do you have some actual facts that show this.

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groze: THQ Nordic is dedicated, alright. Dedicated to the money, like all the "vampiric" big studios you mention. They even added the THQ brand to their previous name, because more people know who THQ were, as opposed to just Nordic (unless you were one of those Gothic nerd diehard fans, the Nordic brand meant next to nothing).
EVERY publisher in the end is dedicated to the money. As long as they still deliver a good product for a good price I have no problem with this at all.
Post edited November 11, 2017 by MarkoH01
Yeah, the really awkward keyboard layout is odd. Then again, I wasn't expecting to play it with anything but a controller, so... *shrug* Other than that, the non-scaling dialog text is teeny tiny even on 1080P. It's still readable though. I haven't encountered any glitches or bugs during my first two hours of play.
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groze: Or, mind you, how THQ Nordic is doing a "remake" of the Black Mirror trilogy of games, because they want to tackle whatever fans of that series as they can, while likely making it in the "TellTale Games" style of interactive fiction, because that's what's profitable.
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MarkoH01: Is this an assumption or do you have some actual facts that show this.
It's an assumption, I thought the "likely making it..." part would have been clear indication that I was just guessing, and not basing my statement in any sort of known, proven fact.

As for the Darksiders debate, I'm certain Joe Mad stated on Facebook a few years ago he was done with the story and that he wished it to remain this way, but he *did* wish the best of luck to whomever would pick up the project next, considering someone would. I'm not going to go browsing for Facebook status from years ago just to prove this, plus, it's not like the paranoid regular people in here use Facebook, anyway, so I apologize but you'll just have to take my word for it.

The point of the matter -- and this is what's relevant for this thread -- is that Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy is a poor PC port, the likes of which I haven't seen in years. I really hope someone makes a patch to address/fix the keyboard + mouse issue, because, in the state it's in, this game can barely pass as a proper PC port, and it's clear they are riding the nostalgia wave alone, not really caring about making a decent PC version, other than adding HD support and all that crap so that the Youtuber gamers can be appeased (those generally use controllers, anyway). And, yes, I'm really angry at THQ Nordic for ruining what is otherwise an amazing game by being lazy and not considering the default input methods of the PC when making this port.
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Dralel: I was looking up gameplay for this game literally an hour ago for the first time, and now suddenly it's on GOG, what the fuck lol
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HereForTheBeer: Your next assignment is to look up gameplay for NOLF 1 and 2
LOL, I was actually thinking about posting this very same response to him, what a coincidence!

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groze: Having said this, this port is bad. And I mean *BAD*.
So your only complaints are non-rebindable controls and a sound bug (which sounds more like a game bug than on your side)?
And this makes it such a horrible, horrible port?

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groze: Sure, the game is still the same, they added a whole lot of graphical bells and whistles (because TotalBiscuit and his graphic whore minion tribe would shit on the game if you couldn't add anti-aliasing x500, adjust the FOV just that "perfect" way so no nerd can complain, add some 750 multisampling, run it at a smooth 50000 frames per second, and whatnot).
And that's what I like about PC games: you can customise a lot of (technical) stuff!

Above someone posted that it may be possible to change key bindings by modifying an ini-file. Have you tried this? Maybe this makes the game OK for you.

But in case you insist on an in-game UI for rebinding keys then maybe PC gaming is not for you...
Post edited November 11, 2017 by Sir_Kill_A_Lot
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groze: Having said this, this port is bad. And I mean *BAD*.
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Sir_Kill_A_Lot: So your only complaints are non-rebindable controls and a sound bug (which sounds more like a game bug than on your side)?
And this makes it such a horrible, horrible port?
Yes. Yes, it does. If you're porting a game to the PC and completely neglect the platform's default input peripherals (keyboard and mouse), then, yes, it's a pretty crappy port. You might as well just play the original version of the game, for the consoles, on an emulator, using pretty much the same graphical enhancements, and even an emulator has better key rebinding.

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groze: Sure, the game is still the same, they added a whole lot of graphical bells and whistles (because TotalBiscuit and his graphic whore minion tribe would shit on the game if you couldn't add anti-aliasing x500, adjust the FOV just that "perfect" way so no nerd can complain, add some 750 multisampling, run it at a smooth 50000 frames per second, and whatnot).
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Sir_Kill_A_Lot: And that's what I like about PC games: you can customise a lot of (technical) stuff!

Above someone posted that it may be possible to change key bindings by modifying an ini-file. Have you tried this? Maybe this makes the game OK for you.
You can customize a lot of stuff except for the peripherals that come as default with pretty much every computer. Right...

As for the .ini, yeah, I tried messing around with it. It does have a section for rebinding the keyboard keys, but it won't let me rebind anything on the mouse buttons, which would make a lot more sense. It's also written in some sort of "EXKey" or "EXKeyboard.h," numeric code crap, which means I need to look up very specific codes for the keys I want to rebind the Xbox button to. That's just way too much work to be had, just to play a freaking video game properly, and it should be the developers' or publishers' job to have this covered, not the user's.

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Sir_Kill_A_Lot: But in case you insist on an in-game UI for rebinding keys then maybe PC gaming is not for you...
Thanks for being an elitist and patronizing douche canoe, it's really what this forum's been missing.
Post edited November 11, 2017 by groze
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groze: Having said this, this port is bad. And I mean *BAD*.
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Sir_Kill_A_Lot: So your only complaints are non-rebindable controls and a sound bug (which sounds more like a game bug than on your side)?
And this makes it such a horrible, horrible port?

...

Above someone posted that it may be possible to change key bindings by modifying an ini-file. Have you tried this? Maybe this makes the game OK for you.

But in case you insist on an in-game UI for rebinding keys then maybe PC gaming is not for you...
Did you play this port by yourself or are you just talking about stuff, you don't know because you're writing that "SOMEONE posted that it is MAY BE POSSIBLE to change key bindings by modifying an ini-file".

By all respect, but yes the port isn't that good. It's not only that you can't rebind your keys, you also get no clue which key on the keyboard responds to the gamepad buttons shown on the screen. I couldn't even find out which key corresponds to the gamepad button X. I pressed every key on the keyboard and the mouse buttons to find out, but no reaction. So without a gamepad this game is unplayable for me.

If you think this should be the new standard of releasing PC games and that the customer has to completely fix PC games to a playable state by him-/herself in future, then I'm out.

MAY BE you can post us all a fixed-ini file instead of only writing about what is MAY BE possible?
Post edited November 11, 2017 by Silverhawk170485
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groze: [...] TotalBiscuit and his graphic whore minion tribe [...]
"Hi. HeartsAndRainbows from the 'TotalBiscuit graphic whore minion tribe' here..." x)

You do realize that critiques critique games, right? Pointing out merits and flaws is part of that process.
For instance if a first person 3D game only runs at 30 FPS I get seasick after playing for a while: I feel ill, the room begins to turn and I have to lay down while suppressing a gag reflex. This is not a fun experience! (The first few times I experienced this I thought I had been eating something that had spoiled or something. It took a while until I realized that the game was making me feel sick.)
So if a first person 3D game runs at 30 FPS (or lacks a FOV slider) that kind of information is very important for me to have before I make a purchasing decision.
In the same vein, someone's enjoyment of a game might be severely hindered if other graphical options wouldn't be up to date. As it turns out, there are people that really care about these sort of things. I think nobody should be shamed for having a different taste.
Post edited November 11, 2017 by HeartsAndRainbows
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groze: [...] TotalBiscuit and his graphic whore minion tribe [...]
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HeartsAndRainbows: "Hi. HeartsAndRainbows from the 'TotalBiscuit graphic whore minion tribe' here..." x)

You do realize that critiques critique games, right? Pointing out merits and flaws is part of that process.
For instance if a first person 3D game only runs at 30 FPS I get seasick after playing for a while: I feel ill, the room begins to turn and I have to lay down while suppressing a gag reflex. This is not a fun experience! (The first few times I experienced this I thought I had been eating something that had spoiled or something. It took a while until I realized that the game was making me feel sick.)
So if a first person 3D game runs at 30 FPS (or lacks a FOV slider) that kind of information is very important for me to have before I make a purchasing decision.
In the same vein, someone's enjoyment of a game might be severely hindered if other graphical options wouldn't be up to date. As it turns out, there are people that really care about these sort of things. I think nobody should be shamed for having a different taste.
I sincerely apologize if I offended you or any other people who actually have trouble playing games because of some graphical options -- or lack thereof. I didn't mean to minimize your issues or those of others and, mind you, I am glad the game does come with a lot of options for people to customize it to their liking, graphically.

But would you say this was a good PC port if you couldn't do any of that from the get-go, or if you had to use a third-party program or tweak with config and *.ini files in order to be able to play the game? You probably wouldn't. And I'm not happy with the way they handled the keyboard + mouse bindings, plus the way there's no indicator whatsoever in-game as to what key does what. I had to press *ALL* the keys to find out Esc was assigned to the "Crawl" command when playing with Tut (the Mummy). This is not sign of a good port on the PC, and I'll stand by this statement. Some people may tell me that if I want an in-game UI to rebind keys, then "PC gaming is not for me". I tell them they're wrong. Consoles don't generally have key remapping for their games (though even some console games allow you to do so), but it's a common feature in PC gaming. So, yeah, PC gaming *is* for me, especially since I'm demanding a feature that should be commonplace in all PC games.

I may not get physically ill, like you do when a game is not set to a proper visual way, but I can safely say this game gets borderline unplayable with the default key mapping. WASD to move I can deal with, but don't put Attack as F, because it hinders the precision and flow of movement during combat, since you lose one of the fingers assigned to WASD. Mouse left button would have been the obvious choice. F could have been the Use button, instead of TAB, Space is jump, so that's fine, right and left shoulder buttons are mapped to Q and E, which also feels OK, but in under any situation should you bind a face button to Escape, unless you expect an octopus to be playing your game. Again: while I do not get physically affected by this, it's still a pretty crappy situation that the devs -- not the customers -- should have addressed beforehand. And, to some of us, getting a controller is just not an option, at least for the time being.

I'm really sorry if I offended you, if you felt I somehow ridiculed your issues and those of many other people. Please, try to understand, though, that at this moment I'm angry at THQ Nordic for what I see as a huge blunder and disrespect for the players who can only play this game with keyboard and mouse.
Don't worry about it, groze. I made a point, you got my point. All is well.

I also understand why you are displeased with this port/remaster and with THQ Nordic GmbH.

And as a side note I found it quite funny that the title of TotalBiscuit graphic whore minion tribe was applied to me (although indirectly) because I play a lot of games with, how a friend puts it "pixels the size of a house". ;)
Nice
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ThomNG: snip
Any chance for a Deadfall Adventures gog release ?