misty sand
Its the big 26 now and I still have the good ol black screen problem (lack of the shell animation in the main menu + a black screen when starting singleplayer). I tried out the method of opening the game using the .bat file and it actually worked, but I noticed the graphics (the colors and the shading) are way off, so the game just doesnt look like its supposed to (see 2nd and 3rd picture for screenshots). Honestly, this cant be the final solution for me, so is there anything else I can do (except wait)??? 
