Indeo Codecs

Many older PC titles use the Indeo codec for video (e.g., cut scenes). The problem is that Indeo is no longer supported either by Intel (the original developers) or by Microsoft (which used to provide them with Windows update). Essentially, if you are running XP with Service Pack 2 or later, these codecs are not on your machine. In some cases, games can be played anyway (if the cinematics are not essential to gameplay), but in other cases, they cannot.

You can download the Indeo codec installer here.

Once the download is complete, open the installer. Please note that once you start the installation, a dialog box will appear that says:

Searching for Instances of Netscape. Please wait.

If you have a lot of stuff on your hard-drive (as most of us do these days), this search will take a long time -- possibly as much as 10 minutes. Just be patient; eventually the damn thing will realize that nobody uses Netscape any more and complete the installation.

A bit of a pain, but that's what we get for supporting older games.

Incidentally, if you prefer trying to play the game without the cinematics, try the following (this won't work for every game, but will for many):

1. When you start the game, a "loading screen" appears.
   
2. The loading screen goes away, and your desktop appears--the game appears on your task bar, but it is minimized.
   
3. You need to click on it in the task bar. This brings up a blank white screen.
   
4. PRESS ESC to exit from the blank white screen--this brings up the main menu for the game.
   
5. Select something from the main menu--everything should work fine from here on in, at least until the game tries to play another video file, in which case repeating the process should work.