Although I am, for the most part, alone in my contention that The Elder Scrolls: Redguard  is the best game ever, far more people remember it as an excellent game. When reduced to its individual parts, this is essentially an adventure game masquerading as a role playing game. And what a game it was: tons of quests, open-endedness, intrigue, and pirates! Yes, there was fighting and running and jumping but 90% of the time the game was pure adventure. Some of my best memories can be traced back to Stros M’kai…

I bought Redguard for $10.00, buying it more to see what it was like than really expecting it to grab my attention. The graphics were ugly-beautiful: you have to play this game to see what I mean. When I started to play it, I recognized that my system was nowhere near as good as the optimal one for playing it. However, soon after, I had a better computer and was able to play it with all the bells and whistles.

At this time, 3dfx reigned supreme. They were the Nvidia of their time. They could not put a foot wrong (until they did). Every game supported glide but the only cards that supported glide were those from 3dfx. Conclusion? A Voodoo was the card to own.

From the moment I started playing Redguard until the time of 3dfx’s bankruptcy, I swore to remain a fully-fledged member of the 3dfx army. My allegiance remained even to the point that I purchased a Voodoo 5 last year on eBay so that I could continue to keep up with newer games as well as play my beloved Redguard. Of course, you can imagine the size of my devastation when I found that Redguard was not forward compatible. I experienced all sorts of glitches and distortions, particularly in the protagonist’s head, while very funny were soon morale crushing when I realized I could not fix the errors even with the help boards and forums online.

Of course, the other option was to play the game without 3dfx, in software mode. Although all the textures were in the right place, the game was just too blocky (think Azrael’s Tear use of the Quake engine) having been spoiled by more recent 3d games.

One day, while searching in desperation for some way of getting Redguard (one of many forays over a 3 month period), I found an interesting link. I clicked on it with high hopes, ready to have them smashed to tiny pieces. You can imagine my sheer joy when I came across Paul Gardiner’s Glidos. Here was a guy who recognized the sheer wonderfulness of this game and devised a way of using OpenGL code to code 3dfx’s glide drivers into language understood by modern videocards. In addition, this program supports Tomb Raider 1 (including Unfinished Business), the hard-to-find Cryo title Dreams to Reality, and the markedly less adventurish titles Descent 2, Carmgeddon, Extreme Assault, Grand Theft Auto 1, Blood 1, and Screamer 2. 

The file is downloadable as an “.exe” file, currently version 1.24 that runs and installs. It creates a shortcut on the desktop that is used start Glidos. From the menu, you choose the game you are playing (and have already installed, of course!) and select “adjust” to make any fine-tuning changes to the graphical display. The display size range option spans 640x480 to 1600x1200, far more detailed than the original games ran! (See the screenshots courtesy of the Glidos website). The game runs normally from this point. Easy.

Paul advises downloading the 700-odd KB program to try before purchasing it. The games all work normally except for a huge Glidos logo that spins across the entire screen. If you had a strong constitution, you could play the game like this but for $10.00 (US), using PayPal, you get codes that remove the logo and provide a crystal clear display of the game the way it was meant to be. In some cases the graphics are even better than what Voodoo had to offer at the time, according to Paul.

On his website, there are game specific pages that offer recommendations and requirements that will make each of the games run as intended. Each game was programmed differently and setting them up is slightly different for each of the major operating systems. However, a neophyte should find almost no difficulty with this as the instructions are simple and methodical. Should you have any problems with Glidos, contact Paul. The support I received was excellent. Paul responded within 48 hours with practical suggestions and advice. I got the feeling that Paul has a great deal of pride in ensuring people are happy with his creation and kudos to him for it. On his site, he illustrates his interest in customer satisfaction: “Many people have initial problems setting up Glidos, but get it working perfectly with help. If you do have problems, IT IS MY FAULT; hassle me about it. Well, it might be the fault of your sound card or graphics card drivers, but hassle me anyway”. His site reserves payproblem@glidos.net for issues to do with functionality or payment problems.

He also has a links page that highlights support sites for those people using Windows XP and Tomb Raider and for getting “very old games on new systems” (VOGONS) to work.

Monolingual French speakers (would they be reading this review?) may be interested to know that this website is in both English and French.

In writing this review, I was aghast to discover that the Glidos codes no longer worked after installing a new GeForce4 128MB videocard. Again, Paul returned my concerned replies explaining that the codes change with certain changes in hardware configurations. I also discovered that he has changed the way the codes work, making it an online automated procedure. Visiting the website (after paying the $10.00), you paste the Glidos ID into the unlock page. You are then given four codes to unlock the program. The program is fully functional after pasting the unlock codes from the clipboard to Glidos. From there, you run the game from the menu.

The beauty of the automated code service allows the paid Glidos user to get the code immediately should the ID change unexpectedly (and not have to wait 24 hours for Paul). Paul warns there are a limited number of times a user is eligible to do this, but most users will only have to access the site again should they install a new videocard. As noted above, though, Paul is a flexible, helpful guy, more concerned with satisfaction of users than whether people have accessed the codes 2 or 3 times. The automated code service also allows Paul more time to fine-tune the program’s stability and smoothness.

Be sure to give Paul some feedback about the program (download it and try it for free) to encourage him to keep enhancing the program whether you purchase it or not. Glidos is worth every penny of the $10.00 charge, however. For gamers with more diverse tastes and a nostalgic streak there are ten titles that will finally work stably on any modern videocard. For the Just Adventure+ reader, Glidos brings four favorites (counting the Tomb Raider installments as two separate titles) into the new millennium. But, for me, Glidos is a ticket back to a place I dearly love that, like a hazy childhood memory, I thought I had lost forever. And there is no price you can put on that…