Tyrian 2000

[AutoAdmin]

Feel free to rate and discuss this game.

[jg007]

Played this game again today as I d/l it a while agi but have not really looked at it much and it really is a brilliant game and just shows what quality was produced for Dos and as shareware

[strtj]

Quite possibly the best scrolling shooter ever made. I spent the money for the registered version almost immediately after beating the shareware version (a real rarity, as I only did it for one other game) and never regretted it. I especially remember being very excited when the V2.0 upgrade came out and it had another whole episode!

I remember enjoying Major Stryker and being a big fan of Raptor, but Tyrian was clearly the king. The upgradeable ship concept combined with recharging shields was exactly what I was looking for.

Congrats to the developers for releasing the full version as freeware, and especially to whoever found/provided the full V1.1, as that's the one I remember losing whole days to I'm not particularly a fan of the new episode and weapons that were created for Tyrian 2000, but once every few months I go back and play through the original just for fun. I can't really say that about any other game.

[DOSGuy]

We're in full agreement there. I loved Major Stryker's simple concept, sexual innuendo, and the kick ass music by gaming legend Bobby Prince. Then came Raptor, with almost photo-realistic graphics and screens full of enemies and explosions. The water looks so incredible, I just had to put Raptor on the DVD cover. Buying weapons and upgrades was also a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, I didn't discover Tyrian until a few years ago. I didn't think any shooter was going to be this good. I love the recharging shields, the levels, the music, the upgrades, and even the storyline. I wish I had played Tyrian back in the day, but I'm glad that I'm able to share the entire game now.

[leilei]

Tyrian was quite slow on the 486 40mhz i first played it on in '95

[ThreeHeadedMonkey]

TYRIAN! Quite possibly the best DOS game I ever played. Graphics: amazing! Music/sounds: AWESOME. Gameplay: ADDICTIVE! Sure, Raptor was a pretty good game. But this one blew it out of the way. Completely. Best shooter you'll find, ANYWHERE. Totally and utterly mandatory in every DOS gamer's collection. Download it NOW.

[MrFlibble]

According to the Epic MegaGames website (Wayback Machine copy), the release date of Tyrian shareware v1.0 is Sep 14, 1995 (Epic MegaNews announcement). However, this message suggests that the shareware version was available at ftp.uml.edu and ftp.wustl.edu already on Sep 12.

Version 2.0 was apparently released on Mar 22, 1996: advance announcement, release announcement

[Lunick]

I love Tyrian

[MrFlibble]

The demo version of Tyrian 2000 was released in early October 1999, according to the Stealth Media Group/XSIV Games official website.

[MrFlibble]

The demo that can be found at the archived copy of World Tree Games' website (Tyrian 2000 Demo.zip) appears to be newer than the version that is found here and at FilePlanet (tyrian2000.exe). Some of the files from the World Tree Games version are newer (dated Oct and Nov 2000), including the main game executable file (file0001.exe). However, it also turns out that some of the game data files are missing from this version, making it impossible to play unless you supply files from the earlier version.

Here's a comparison of the title screens from both versions (the earlier one to the left):


The copyright information is different in the newer version, and there is no Ordering Information option. Very possibly, no other changes were introduced in the newer demo version.

[Litude]

There was a SoundBlaster compatibility patch released for both the full and demo versions of the game. IIRC it updated the company name from Eclipse to World Tree Games. Could be that the distribution on that website has been pre-patched with this update.

[MrFlibble]

That's quite possible, but I'm not sure. I didn't know about any post-Epic patches for this game before.

From my experience, Tyrian shareware - no matter which version - tends to be somewhat unstable with SB sounds on in DOSBox (which sometimes results in crashing upon exit). I didn't check if SB compatibility improved with the newest version because I turned SB sounds off in the settings.

[Litude]

You can download the patch for both the demo and retail versions from here. There were at least two versions of the patch available, these patches update the game to v1.3 so possibly the earlier one updated it to v1.2 or v1.1.

Curiously it also seems there was a Spanish, German and French demo version available of the game according to the Stealth website.

EDIT: Seems there were indeed three patches for the game, a v1.1 called t2kpatch01.exe and two SoundBlaster Live patches which possibly updated the game to v1.2 and v1.3 respectively. Also it seems that XSIV also distributed and updated version of the game, as can be seen here.

[MrFlibble]

You can download the patch for both the demo and retail versions from here. There were at least two versions of the patch available, these patches update the game to v1.3 so possibly the earlier one updated it to v1.2 or v1.1.

Thanks for the link! Hopefully DOSGuy will add the patches to the game patch soon.

Curiously it also seems there was a Spanish, German and French demo version available of the game according to the Stealth website.
<...>
Also it seems that XSIV also distributed and updated version of the game, as can be seen here.

Yeah, I've noticed the mentions of those versions but I haven't been able to locate the files themselves.

[Litude]

I did some more research into this updated version of the demo that you found and I found something interesting.

It has not been patched with t2kpatch01.exe and neither has it been patched with the SoundBlaster Live patch. Seemingly it uses some alternate version which has been compiled on the same day as v1.3 of the SoundBlaster Live patch but the version is not SoundBlaster Live compatible. And most curiously, the game is still called version 1.0 at start-up.

As for the corrupt Eclipse logo at start-up, it seems the updated TYRIAN.PIC is missing. This file can be found from the SoundBlaster Live patch.

It is too bad that the version numbers of Tyrian 2000 are really a mess. The freeware version also differs and identifies itself as version 3.0 at start-up (obviously to keep continuity with the original Tyrian version numberings).