E: archive.org gave me some options which I need to test, but for now I’m calling it SOLVED, thanks!
I know I’m not meant to ask for a specific title, but it’s the second in the series where you age up your empire wink wink…
Looking for the HD edition in English, so far I just keep getting Russian versions, if I risk downloading at all, since most the sites that are coming up in my search look dodgy af…
You could always run it in a sandbox if you’re not sure.
Unpopular opinion: for executables, I purchase everything. It’s no longer worth it to me to risk a ransomeware attack. The game you’re looking for is $20 on steam which certainly isn’t free, but worth it imo.
I really have no interest in using steam.
There’s a reason I asked in this specific community.
An admirable sentiment.
The fact that a game is Steam-only is good enough reason to pirate it.
Yeah, the other day I’d gone to play another older game I had already pirated and played loads, but not for a while, and it suddenly wouldn’t run without steam. Like tf? So I deleted it and pirated an updated copy that runs fine lol
I refuse to use these kinds of 3rd party services, I just want a copy of the game that I know is safe on my machine.
E: speaking of which - I’ve just been testing the games I downloaded off the back of this post, and one is now stuck looking for steam subscriptions before it will run, on to the next!
I do wonder how pirated games can somehow stop working after a while. I’m guessing there’s some sort of anti-piracy thing that hasn’t quite been fully removed. I had this experience with one game which was known to have Denuvo; a newer crack fixed it.
Fair enough! Not trying to guilt or pass judgement.
Have you used windows sandbox before? I’ve used it with success back when I used cracked executables.
Windows sandbox? What is that? Like a VM?
A VM that is cut off from the rest of the computer so that malware cannot pass to your computer.
Not exactly a VM but a desktop environment.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/application-security/application-isolation/windows-sandbox/windows-sandbox-overview
I appreciate it.
And no, I’ve not used the sandbox before, I generally just scan the file for viruses and hope for the best (terrible practice, I know, but I so rarely download anything), but I would be happy to try it out, problem is all the versions I’ve downloaded so far have been in Russian (even when selecting English), so even if I do test them in the sandbox, I still don’t know what any of the UI is saying lol
I agree. I’ve stopped pirating games on PC as well because the risk is simply no longer worth it. I can afford games and can pay for the ones I need on PC. They’re also not as overpriced as console games.