CD Projekt - GOG adds Arx Fatalis

Another day, another game added to the Good Old Games catalogue; today it's Arx Fatalis, the 2002 first person action rpg from Arkane Studios(Dark Messiah of Might & Magic). Here's a description of the game from wikipedia:

The design of Arx Fatalis was heavily influenced by games from the now-defunct Looking Glass Studios, especially Ultima Underworld. Arkane Studios have stated that Arx Fatalis was intended to be Ultima Underworld III, however they could not obtain a license for the UW name…
…One of the innovations in Arx Fatalis is the spellcasting system. Using the mouse and the Ctrl key, runes are drawn in mid-air with mouse gestures, which must be correctly drawn, in order to successfully cast a spell. The player can find or buy different runes as gameplay progresses, combinations of which unlock new spells.

More information.

This is great news! Just went and bought it.

Originally Posted by stealth
This is great news! Just went and bought it.

I tried to buy it, but somehow my visa credit card was not accepted… usually works like a charm. Too bad really.

The game may be Old, but I still think it's not Good. I'm really thankful they couldn't do any harm to the Underworld franchise.

I wish they'd get the original UW titles on GOG. I tried playing them recently and had trouble. Granted, I've had them for years and never got very far into either of them.

If anyone here buys it and plays it, let me know how it turns out for you. I have the original boxed version, and the textures are completely missing from many objects in the game. This problem seemed to first arise with DirectX 9. I have been unable to locate a patch to fix it. I'd like to know if GOG's version avoids this issue.

This is a link to the patch. If you buy the game you will need the patch to play it on pc. So far this is the only place I have seen the patch.

Great game, very underrated imo. I still have my original boxed copy, wish I had time for a replay.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Great game, very underrated imo. I still have my original boxed copy, wish I had time for a replay.

my thoughts exactly

Originally Posted by Cm
This is a link to the patch. If you buy the game you will need the patch to play it on pc. So far this is the only place I have seen the patch.

The GOG version is laready patched to the latest version.
From the site:

This game has been patched to the latest official version: 1.19

Love/hate relationship w/ Arx. On one paw, i really liked the atmospere and gameplay a lot. On the other, it was one of those games that I had to have a walkthru lifeline the entire time I was playing. I dont like doing that

Never heard of a 1.19 patch. Remember they made a 1.18 years after the game was released. Maybe a typo?

Originally Posted by Hindukönig
The game may be Old, but I still think it's not Good. I'm really thankful they couldn't do any harm to the Underworld franchise.

I beg to disagree. IMO, it is an excellent game and a worthy successor to UUW 1 & 2. I loved every minute of it and (to me) it felt very much like playing an "updated" UUW.

Necrosis, if you patch the game (as instructed above), you should get rid of the missing textures bug. At least I did (I had the same problem when I played AF on my new rig).

It seems like 1.19 is a GOG made patch. This is the change log:

Arx Fatalis English v1.19
-------------------------
- Fixed resolution management on cinemascope bar.
- New flare's occlusion system and optimization on Flare's management.
- Fixed the "done" button on charactersheet which was not working on some resolutions.
- Fixed the text size on the credits.
- Interface isn't scaled.
- Add version string in the menu.
- Drawtext optimization.
- Fixed light rendering on cinematic.
- New resolution enable.
- New timer system for a better interpolation on animation/camera/movement. (see notes for AMD).
- Fixed flare on lights.
- Remove zbuffer lock/unlock (fps win 14%).
- Fixed bug on raycast.
- Collision enhanced.
- Add flare management on cinemascope.
- Add FSAA and AA on font.

Notes:
- If you have some framerate issue on AMD, please intall the fix available on this web address:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/895980/en-us

Originally Posted by blatantninja
I wish they'd get the original UW titles on GOG. I tried playing them recently and had trouble. Granted, I've had them for years and never got very far into either of them.

Go and vote on GOG's wishlist… unfortunately UUW and UUW2 don't have all too many votes yet

http://www.gog.com/en/wishlist/

Didn't know they had that! Just did it. Dungeon Siege too (for the Ultima remakes)

Originally Posted by blatantninja
Didn't know they had that! Just did it. Dungeon Siege too (for the Ultima remakes)

Yup. It's kinda nice, I guess. Not sure if it will be easy to get the licenses for certain games, but it's a good thing if they see that getting a particular license would pay out. Right now System Shock 2 has the most votes. A lot of people having trouble getting it to run on XP and Vista I guess.

Thanks for the link to the patch, Cm. I will give it a try.

Well, here we are December 29th - and still no standalone 1.19 patch for original owners of Arx Fatalis! This is the first time in gaming history that a patch has been held back from the public in order to sell extra units through a retailer (GOG) that is promoting it as working in XP and VIsta because it has exclusive access to the patch!

It's likeArkane is saying to us original owners 'we don't care - want to play this the way it should? Spend ANOTHER $10 at GOG and you can!' To me it'sbordering on a conspiracy - and more than Arx fans should be very worried about this. This is a PC gaming issue as much as an Arx Fatalis 1.19 patch issue!

From what I gathered patch 1.19 was done by GOG team, so your accusations are untrue UK_John.