help needed with Outlaws opening movie

Malkien on 17/4/2007 at 13:06

hi all, this is not strictly a technical issue, but here goes.

many of you will remember the excellent fps Outlaws by Lucasarts.
years ago I purchased a copy of the Classics edition and found myself frustrated by the opening movie being broken.
for those who played it, it cuts off with your daughter on the swing.
you will understand one cannot play through a story about revenge without experiencing the moment they kill your wife and kidnap your kid, won't you :D

so, I would be grateful if someone could help me watch the whole movie.
I already contacted tech support at Lucas some time ago, but all I got was a canned response that was no help at all.
I found mention of the problem on a (http://groups.google.com/group/alt.games.outlaws/browse_thread/threa%0Ad/6ca30f709f3a3324/0dd4dff8180d734f?q=cutscene+cuts+off&_done=%2Fgroup%2Fa%0Alt.games.outlaws%2Fsearch%3Fgroup%3Dalt.games.outlaws%26q%3Dcutscene+cuts+%0Aoff%26qt_g%3D1%26searchnow%3DSearch+this+group%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Searc%0Ah&&d) newsgroup, but no help there either.
even though the game is perfectly functional, I don't feel involved enough if I can't experience it 'properly'.

thank you all for any help that comes this way.

Vigil on 17/4/2007 at 13:14

Does the main intro movie play through to the end? What about the opening/ending movies for the other levels?

My own fully-patched copy of Outlaws plays the movie fine, which doesn't help much.

Malkien on 19/4/2007 at 08:31

Quote Posted by Vigil

Does the main intro movie play through to the end? What about the opening/ending movies for the other levels?

My own fully-patched copy of Outlaws plays the movie fine, which doesn't help much.

the main intro movie is the one that gets interrupted.
the other movies, as far as I've seen them, play fine.
If yours is ok, is it from the original edition of the game?
I wonder if it can be extracted to some known format, so that I can watch it standalone.

Vigil on 19/4/2007 at 08:54

Well, the main intro movie actually starts with the train and finishes with the credits and title sequence - the one with the Marshal's family, which you're having trouble with, is the opening movie to mission 1. At least that's what I remember.

You could try copying the .SAN files from the OUTLAWS directory on the CD into the installed directory on your harddrive, in the hopes that it will read them better from there instead. I can't find any viewer for the .SAN movie format online.

My version of Outlaws, I'm sorry to say, is a warezed copy of the ISOs. It's possible that it has slightly different movie files from the version you have - perhaps there was an error in the movie in your version that isn't present on mine.

In any case, here are the filesizes of all the movies on my CD 1 for comparison (these are the actual sizes reported by Windows Explorer, not the "Size on Disk"):
CAE_SAB.SAN: 10,627,488 bytes
IN_SHB.SAN: 95,044,714 bytes
OP_CR.SAN: 37,629,752 bytes
SHE_TOB.SAN: 12,926,924 bytes
TOE_TRB.SAN: 19,380,920 bytes
TRE_CAB.SAN: 11,029,882 bytes

One last question, have you tried running the game in windowed mode or otherwise messing around with the video settings?

Malkien on 19/4/2007 at 16:13

Quote Posted by Vigil

was it two separate movies? sorry, I was mistaken.

Quote Posted by Vigil

My version of Outlaws, I'm sorry to say, is a warezed copy of the ISOs. It's possible that it has slightly different movie files from the version you have - perhaps there was an error in the movie in your version that isn't present on mine.

mine is a reprint, in the Classics line from Lucas, and the software is a different version from the original release.
since mine is not an isolated incident, the movie could have been messed up in that print run.

Quote Posted by Vigil

One last question, have you tried running the game in windowed mode or otherwise messing around with the video settings?

yes, with no effect.
the problem seems to be with the movie data.
I'll check the file sizes as soon as possible and will post back my findings.

YogSo on 19/4/2007 at 17:14

Have you tried decreasing one or two notches the audio Hardware Acceleration slider bar? I read somewhere that was the solution for someone whose Outlaw's movies were playing too fast. Maybe it will also help in your case.

Malkien on 22/4/2007 at 23:27

seems like a different problem.
but if all else fails I'll definitely try that too.

Malkien on 22/4/2007 at 23:52

Quote Posted by Vigil

In any case, here are the filesizes of all the movies on my CD 1 for comparison (these are the actual sizes reported by Windows Explorer, not the "Size on Disk"):
CAE_SAB.SAN: 10,627,488 bytes
IN_SHB.SAN: 95,044,714 bytes
OP_CR.SAN: 37,629,752 bytes
SHE_TOB.SAN: 12,926,924 bytes
TOE_TRB.SAN: 19,380,920 bytes
TRE_CAB.SAN: 11,029,882 bytes

Unfortunately the file sizes are identical.
Since there are six more files on disk two, and I don't know which is which, I post them too:
CLE_RAB.SAN: 32,428,672 bytes
HIE_MNB.SAN: 19,740,346 bytes
MNE_CLB.SAN: 31,681,828 bytes
RAE.SAN: 29,321,258 bytes
RAM.SAN: 2,165,062 bytes
SAE_HIB.SAN: 14,496,162 bytes

the only odd data is the modified date:
all of the 12 files have 21 February, 1997 except 2 files
OP_CR.SAN: 24 February, 1997
IN_SHB.SAN: 13 August, 1997

if everything matches, it would be interesting to try and swap the files one by one in my installed game and see how it runs.

Malkien on 29/2/2012 at 14:10

Hi
I thought I would come back to this five year old thread I started, because I finally got around to play Outlaws.
In the meantime Youtube came to the rescue and someone published that cutscene I needed to watch.
I am running it successfully using Wine on my Debian box, and I can say it was really worth it.
Great atmosphere, undoubtedly helped by the great Morricone-inspired soundtrack.
You should play it on the Ugly difficulty level, as it was meant to be.
With this setting it could be called the first tactical fps ever, as being exposed to enemy fire means certain death and you approach every corner knowing you get no second chance.
A seminal game.