War of the Worlds PC game Companion

Anyone who has played the original Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds PC Game will know its limitations. It has an ‘unfinished’ feel to it especially in the area of game configuration and being able to save and restart scenarios. This utility resolves those problems. The software consists of four modules, The Companion, The Selector, Additional Scenario Module and the Registry Changer. 

The Companion provides hints and tips on how to play the game, access to the back door cheats that can help you win the game. The Companion allows you to launch the game from the hard disc which speeds up the game considerably and it also provides the full text of the original book by H.G. Wells. The Companion allows you to upgrade your original WOTW executable with the latest patch version. The Companion is also the launcher for the three main WOTW utilities.  

The first utility is the Scenario Selector, this allows the WOTW gamer to automatically save and manually restore scenarios, a critical feature that was missing from the original game. If the autosave function is switched on then it is now possible to recover from crashes and restart the game at an earlier point. 

Another critical feature missing from the original game was the lack of scenarios to play. The Additional Scenario module provides seven new scenarios for the gamer and a facility for loading them into the original game.

The final and most important utility is the Registry Changer. This allows you to modify key game characteristics to speed up the game:

i.   Reduce briefing/debriefing screen delay times; 
ii.   Improve Human or Martian weapon effectiveness;
iii.  Increase the A.I. aggressiveness;
iv. Change the number of ground and naval units allowed in a sector;
v.   Slow down the Martian pod landings in Scotland;
vi.  Allow building on land that is normally inaccessible;
vii. The ability to turn off all interruptions;
viii. Make the enemy A.I. forces visible on the War Map and Battle Maps;
ix.  Set the window and screen sizes to run successfully on both XP and Win98;
x.   The ability to reset all game characteristics to their default values;
xi.  Finally to clear the fog of war and make the enemy visible at all times.

This utility has been written especially for WOTW gamers that have bought “Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds PC Game” but have found it to be wanting in a few key areas.

The companion was an old VB6 application. the look and feel shows that VB6 can make exceedingly interesting looking apps. It ran on Windows only. From this bit of VB6 development I started creating my distinctive steampunk widgets with a similar look and feel.

Downloading:

The file is a little large, and consists of a 92mb executable so it isn't available through Deviantart. It is however available on dropbox.

www.dropbox.com/s/2cccjql4tzvs…
<---- if this link does not work contact me.

Don't expect the companion to function perfectly on Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.  It has only been tested by me on Windows XP. It might work on some NT6 systems and you can try running it in XP mode but with no certainty that it will do all its stuff. Bear in mind that a lot changed in Vista onward. UPDATE: I have been told that it works perfectly on Win7 & 8.

Don't  expect any support for a free download. With all the best will in the world I am rather busy so there probably won't be any.

The installation requires a password and that is 'wotwcompanion'.

I reserve the right to close down the download temporarily if too many try to pull it down daily, as dropbox only allows only so many downloads per day.

You will also find the original introduction video from the Pc game uploaded here to youtube:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=whaTJh…
You can download this and drop it into the FMV folder for the Companion to view on demand.

Please let me know how you get on.