The bad cracks / 100% working games thread

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Don_Adan

I'll try to explain to you, as easy as possible so you would understand it (here's hoping).
For the start, I'll describe what is a good crack according to me:
1. All protection like doc check, copylock or MFM are removed, along with the checksum.
2. Contains all graphical (plus intro and outro) and sound data as the original game.
3. Crack runs on the same amount of memory (0.5MB Chip and 0.5MB Fast for example) as the original game.
4. Crack runs on the same CPU as the original game.
5. Crack runs on the same ROM as the original game.
6. Crack runs on the same number of different disk drives as the original game.
7. Crack is installable on a HD and runnable from it, if the original game can do so.
8. All codes (cheats and level changing) must work like in the original game.
9. Saving and loading works, if the original game does.
10. Must work on the same chipset as the original game.

Also, very useful features are:
1. PAL/NTSC fix.
2. Bugfixes of the original ingame errors.
3. HD installation, even if the original game doesn't allow it.
4. Repacking of the game so that it would fit on the same number of disks as the original (if possible).



BTW. I don't like it when the cracker replaces the original credits (authors) or highscores, a cracktro or the bootblock is for that.

Just because you are/were a cracker and worked in a game development company does only mean you've got better knowledge then a simple Amiga user, not that you're the alpha and the omega, because you're not. Maybe you'll become one day, who knows.

Now let's get to all the errors which I'll try to list here, easily for you to understand (here's hoping).
1. Gem'X is a good crack you said. For me it isn't, because the cracker forgot about the outro data and keyboard control, and that's why you can't input any level or cheat codes, or see the ending. Try to play the game without being able to input the level code, you have to always start from the first level. Not to mention it looks different then the original, like a beta (or a review copy - as you call it), because it's data is different then the original data. What's funny, the cracker called it Gem'X 100%, but for me this isn't even a 70% crack. But maybe there is a different (badly cracked) version of the game released by the same or other group, I don't know, never seen it. And writing about something that it's 100%, when it isn't, says much about the abilities of the cracker. Or his ego.

2. You claim that the Saint Dragon crack (?) by Skid Row is the full game.Just because it uses a comparably same data as the original it doesn't necessary mean it uses all the data the original game uses. You can check that in Apidya by playing on any difficulty level (starting from EASY), and you'll soon find out that each time the game will be slightly different, both looking at the level design and graphics used. The most important aspect is always the code that runs the data files. Depending on free memory, processor type or chipset, the same game could look/run much/slightly different. For me the Skid Row crack is no review copy but a demo as it works differently then the original game. One can notice it quickly by simply playing that version and the original, in the demo after killing the Dragon you will loose all weapons while in the original you will not. This so-called crack was dated by Skid Row on the 4th of September 1990, while the original is dated at the 2nd November 1990. You really think that after 8 weeks all the authors did was adding the RNC copylock? For such a long time they could change/fix/add many different things in any game. And because it's best to give an example on what was change in those versions, here they are:

Full
dc.l $446E7818,$C52D2CA,$E4F096C4,$B94F4B75,$11763A39
dc.l $CAEC9589,$FBA9544D,$76D052F,$53D5D5E9,$EF86C5AF
dc.l $424A7964,$164A3BD9,$F0FEE99E,$AA445A7A,$7E4E586F
dc.l $6B1F0B3B,$C0B8EAF0,$95C4BD4F,$507D0256,$40676F09
dc.l $7F26CDDD,$8BEC90AD,$B94C5262,$6053D7C,$5E637403
dc.l $D2B855E,$6772097F,$3FDCB8EF,$FF88E458,$7F75051A
dc.l $7257637A,$D1934C0,$D1E5FF85,$A1B30A5A,$6710D0B
dc.l $37A5CCE3,$FBF1B6B6,$4E547F0D,$762838D9,$E7E79CDB
dc.l $40697409,$B3ACCD6,$EC9E82B4,$B8495610,$1032030
dc.l $DBA25E63,$7D050B33,$D1D1E4F0,$F1A2A244,$5E640A19
dc.l $277C476E,$7C6C183C,$CAD5EE9E,$90B0D742,$527D0656
dc.l $44631900,$1024C0B8,$FFF694C4,$A75F5364,$6023D3D
dc.l $D6A2437F,$6B030B37,$C6D0E5F7,$92B7F755,$6F6A047F
dc.l $34CCD6EC,$FB83E451,$747C0D14,$52CADEED,$9E85ACB2
dc.l $2A5C6417,$172A37AF,$F6FD8DFB,$BD495D62,$7609403A
dc.l $D5B9FFEB,$9BA9B42B,$4B61445E,$637C0206,$52C8DDEE
dc.l $F088C4BA,$4F581013,$32728CA,$F6E18982,$CE4C5569
dc.l $63083427,$A6D4EDF1,$8BA0AC5F,$3E7C0519,$3338C4F7
dc.l $969989A1,$565A673B

Demo
dc.l $5F6F6F09,$C725074,$7C081626,$D6985F63,$6F091372
dc.l $5E637403,$D2B8544,$63781C10,$3C85587F,$75051A72
dc.l $5A6B7419,$113BD1C1,$AB5B6F7E,$4133BC2,$D0FFBE40
dc.l $7278010F,$7246766A,$51B37A5,$DCE4E99F,$E49F0000

3. Concerning Curse Of Enchantia I'm not 100% sure if it was a demo or a review copy, because it's been a while and probably nobody has that version anymore so I could check. Anyways, that one was probably a demo version from the authors, so that it would've been cracked before the full game. You say that wasn't the case, but I rememeber a different Core Design game - Skeleton Krew. The demo version was cracked (?) by Paradox, and it succesfully delayed the cracking of the full game by Mok for Prestige, for many (at least 4) weeks. In the mean time the full game was sold in stores (the first few days/weeks are the most important after a release of a new game), and anybody who checked the bad crack noticed something's wrong with it, probably thought the crackers fucked something and because the game was quite good went out to buy the full game.

And another thing. You claim that the game Primal Rage is AGA only. Well, not exactly, it only requires 2MB of RAM (at least 1MB Chip) as I've finished (original 1.4 version and WT crack) it on my A2000 ECS.

Short: HD-Installer for Primal Rage AGA V1.1Author: Galahad/Fairlight and Codetapper/Action
Uploader: Codetapper/Action (codetapper at hotmail dot com)
Version: 1.1
Type: game/patch

This patch applies to Primal Rage AGA, ©1995 Atari Corp / Time WarnerInteractive 4 Disk version, original release

Lets get one thing straight shall we?

i've never claimed to be the 'alpha and omega', but I sure as hell are more clued up on this subject than you are.

I'm sure you're 'happy' that you are trying to prove me wrong, and FAILING, totally and utterly.

Thanks for the 'lesson' on how to crack, no idea quite why you've listed that all for me, but er, 'thanks' anyway.

Some of your 'tips' however are utter crap, and contradictory.

Heres your first 'gem':

4. Crack runs on the same CPU as the original game.

5. Unabling the game to run on all possible configurations. This concerns all chipsets, amount of RAM, CPU or ROM type.

Which is it? As a cracker must I make the game only work on 68000, or do I make sure it can run on all processors??!?!?!?! Thats called an OXYMORON, you should take particular note of the last two syllables of that capilalised word, I think you'll find it enlightening.

Or what about this gem:

3. Crack runs on the same amount of memory (0.5MB Chip and 0.5MB Fast for example) as the original game.

5. Unabling the game to run on all possible configurations. This concerns all chipsets, amount of RAM, CPU or ROM type.

So which is it then? Do I ensure that a game can only run on a slow mem machine, which might even be hard coded to only run from $c00000, or do I fix it to run on any memory type??!?!?

I think that'll do for pointing out the schoolboy errors in your cracker 'lesson' so far!

As for you moaning about crackers putting their name in the game..... quit moaning. If you didn't pay for the game, you've got little cause or right to complain. If you don't like it, feel free to go and buy the original, no-one ever forced you to accept cracked/pirated games you hypocrite!

And I HAVE got better knowlege of cracking, and certainly knowledge of this subject. I'm stating it as a FACT. Feel free to PROVE me wrong.... oh thats right, you have summarily failed to do so.

easily for you to understand (here's hoping).

Go patronise someone that gives a damn. Those that resolve to use insults to get their point across, generally have a very weak point to make, that is often times easily dismissed.

As for Gem-X, I had this to say:

I'm pretty sure the Subway/Spreadpoint version is 100%, so long as no-one has saved hiscores to the disk.

And then conceeded after Demoniac went indepth with the different versions......

Ok no worries, I can recrack it from the IPF if needed, the protection is simple and i've accessed the end game sequence on the IPF so I know it works.

So i've already accepted its not 100%, so I have no clue why you are going on about it.

Saint Dragon IS the full game. It WAS a review copy, and CLEARLY when feedback was gotten back from reviewers on the game, they tweaked it with the changes you mentioned. But SPECIFICALLY, all levels are there, all music is there, the game can be completed, has an end game part, other than minor revisions... THE FULL GAME IS THERE. You're being a pedant suggesting otherwise. The differences are such that anyone having the Skid Row crack would not choose to buy the retail release version for the differences you mention, its nothing more than a version revision.

The difference with Skeleton Krew was Paradox didn't know it was a demo version, they thought it was the full version and released it as such. That Prestige didn't touch it is irrelevant. Core Design did not anticipate the demo getting released, just as they didn't anticipate the full version of Wonderdog getting released a full WEEK before the game was onsale.

Games were leaked from EVERYWHERE. Want to know where Dual Crew and Fairlight got hold of Mortal Kombat?

Duplicators, nearly two weeks before its retail release.

Don't try to tell me whether or not I know where these games come from, because I do know, clearly more than you do.

And another thing. You claim that the game Primal Rage is AGA only. Well, not exactly, it only requires 2MB of RAM (at least 1MB Chip) as I've finished (original 1.4 version and WT crack) it on my A2000 ECS.

Yawn.... Go take it up with Time Warner: http://hol.abime.net/1147/boxscan

Not even remotely sure what the fuck thats got to do with the subject at hand, you trolling for shit now?

I have no idea what your 'beef' with me is. You seem to have a little agenda going here, I suppose to try and make me look like I have no clue what i'm talking about.

Theres a reply I'd like you to think about, and i've only had to use it about three times in all the time i've been on the Internet and BBS's.

"Keep on replying, and keep on failing!"

I find you belligerant, rude, quite obnoxious (beyond mere language problems). I know I can be a bit "Grrrr" at times, but you've gone WAY out of your way to try and insult me.

No more.

We are done here, you still haven't proved me wrong, and only served to make yourself look like a misinformed troll.

Good day to you

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by andreas

Awfully cool point.
So if the game only supported one drive, it would be a sacrilege if the crack supported 2 or 3 huh?
Hah, yes sure.

As was quite often the way with lots of cracks utilising more than one drive which the original invariably didn't.

...but hey, must ensure the game only works on original configurations!

Oh dear!

[mr.vince]

Originally Posted by Don_Adan

6. Crack runs on the same number of different disk drives as the original

Sorry, your rules are insane. What about disks that had longtrack protection? You can't crack a title like Turrican 2 to one disk only when using "standard ADOS". The same applies to Xenon 2 One Disk budget version and others as well.

Does that mean only one drive should be supported at all? Just FYI you can not make a non-protected one disk version of these games!

Please feel free to report your findings here, but I don't see why one would have to complain about a crack being a crack. It's like Galahad said... if you want an original, get one. If you want the crack to be like the original except for the protection you'll have to modify it. It's a free world, so do whatever you feel is necessary. Remove the cracktro. Fix the modified strings and remove the QUARTEX messages. Patch it. Then put it on your shelf and lean back.

But that does not mean anyone else must consider a crack being broken...

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

Sorry, your rules are insane. What about disks that had longtrack protection? You can't crack a title like Turrican 2 to one disk only when using "standard ADOS". The same applies to Xenon 2 One Disk budget version and others as well.

You said you prefer "hard facts" and then you write things that are simply not true? Turrican II CAN be cracked to 1 disk, same for several other longtrack protected games. Btw, how many games did you crack that you are so "sure" here?

Originally Posted by mr.vince

Just FYI you can not make a non-protected one disk version of these games!

See above!


Don Adan is getting a lot of bashing for something that makes perfect sense, to me at least. I don't think it is so hard to understand that he meant "if original game supports more than 1 drive the crack should do the same". And there are cracks that just support df0: while the original supports external drives. Anyway, not wanting to take any sides, I just think some replies here are kinda unfair.

[WayneK]

I agree...up to a point I can see the point(s) Don Adan was making, but he didn't help himself by claiming such a huge percentage of cracks released were broken, or the "originals" were demo versions etc., when that was clearly not true!
On the point of demo versions, most of what he refers to by that name were review copies, completely feature complete games that either were missing custom disk format, a loading screen with the company logo, or something similar... absolutely nothing that would change the gameplay for an end user.
And talking about longtrack games, there are several which if crackers had the time/motivation could have gone back on the same number of disks as the original, but of course there are others where this is simply not possible (Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja, BC Kid (as Galahad pointed out in another thread, I couldn't save the last 40-50k no matter how I packed it!) off the top of my head).

So to summarise, everyone has valid points and we should all get along... group hug!

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by WayneK

but he didn't help himself by claiming such a huge percentage of cracks released were broken, or the "originals" were demo versions etc., when that was clearly not true!

That's something I disagree on too of course. But it still is no reason to deliberately misunderstand anything he writes.

Originally Posted by WayneK

And talking about longtrack games, there are several which if crackers had the time/motivation could have gone back on the same number of disks as the original

And Turrican II was one of them, despite Mr.Vince claiming otherwise.

Originally Posted by WayneK

So to summarise, everyone has valid points and we should all get along... group hug!

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by StingRay

That's something I disagree on too of course. But it still is no reason to deliberately misunderstand anything he writes.



And Turrican II was one of them, despite Mr.Vince claiming otherwise.

Don't get me wrong mate, some of his points are valid, but perhaps if he put them across in a less belligerent way, i'd be more inclined to take notice.

Its rather naive to just blame crackers, when in a lot of cases, the game itself wasn't coded to use any extra hardware whatsoever, including extra drives.

By late 1991, I would say most decent crackers were utilising more than one drive as a standard irrespective of what the original allowed.

Mr.Vince picked the wrong game with Turrican 2, but his reasoning behind it is valid. Lots of 1 disk longtrack MFM games simply won't fit back onto 1 disk 100%.

I struggled like hell to get Snow Bros on 1 disk.

I didn't want this thread turning into a miniature flame war, but i'm afraid Don Adan pretty much brought that upon himself. We could have had a nice discussion, instead he decided to get personal about it.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Don't get me wrong mate, some of his points are valid, but perhaps if he put them across in a less belligerent way, i'd be more inclined to take notice.

Its rather naive to just blame crackers, when in a lot of cases, the game itself wasn't coded to use any extra hardware whatsoever, including extra drives.

I actually was referring to Andreas and Mr.Vince, I perfectly understand why you reacted like you did. =)

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

By late 1991, I would say most decent crackers were utilising more than one drive as a standard irrespective of what the original allowed.

Yes, and often the cracks supported external drives while the original did not. However, there are still a lot of cases where it was exactly the other way 'round.

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Mr.Vince picked the wrong game with Turrican 2, but his reasoning behind it is valid.

Yes he did. And someone who prefers "hard facts" should better inform himself before claiming certain things and jumping on the "let's bash Don Adan" bandwagon. He critizised Don Adan for giving false information yet he does exactly the same! Something's wrong with that!

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

We could have had a nice discussion, instead he decided to get personal about it.

We still have a nice discussion here, I've seen a lot worse threads. =)

[mr.vince]

Originally Posted by StingRay

You said you prefer "hard facts" and then you write things that are simply not true? Turrican II CAN be cracked to 1 disk, same for several other longtrack protected games. Btw, how many games did you crack that you are so "sure" here?

Hm, you mean how many people does one have to kill before he's allowed to work in forensics?

More below.

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Mr.Vince picked the wrong game with Turrican 2, but his reasoning behind it is valid. Lots of 1 disk longtrack MFM games simply won't fit back onto 1 disk 100%. I struggled like hell to get Snow Bros on 1 disk.

I wonder if you might want to tell us if you think you were able to do this (Snow Bros.) with the tools you had in e.g. 1991. At least I think (!) I remember that Factor 5's packer was quite good and everyone was having trouble compressing the data to fit on a standard ADOS disk.

Originally Posted by StingRay

Yes he did. And someone who prefers "hard facts" should better inform himself before claiming certain things and jumping on the "let's bash Don Adan" bandwagon. He critizised Don Adan for giving false information yet he does exactly the same! Something's wrong with that!

The difference might be... yeah, maybe I picked the wrong title, you knew better. No hard feelings because of that. Let's exchange it for one of the many others.

Still scratching my head... and because I am curious: The one disk T2 cracked by Apex omits intro and end sequence. The one by Starlight asks for second disk when loading music for world 5... Which one did you refer to (would like to take a peek...)?

Please note that I am not saying here those who cracked this in the first place were lame... I just think there wasn't a packer available that could reduce the amount of data to fit on one disk (besides the fact that depacking must happen in an amount of time acceptable for the user - and for the cracker when packing in the first place).

If you are talking about one-disking it now... well we can as well 1:1 copy it back to disk today because of advanced electronics and hardware stuff. But we couldn't do it in 1991 (or barely... with Cyclone).

Coming back to the original thesis: While there might have been some titles that were cracked badly in the first place, I can not think of many titles that weren't broken 100% after all these years. Yes, there are bad cracks. But games that mattered where usually done well... or fixed sooner or (much) later.

[mai]

Another example, where it seems, that a beta/demo has been cracked is the game "Goal!"
On disk you can read "GOAL! V1.5 BETA Demo 20-04-93", but in real its probably not a demo, its the final sales.
On IPF image you can read the same.

[deicidal]

The problem is people always winge even when they havent paid for it, if your unhappy buy the original.

Of course releasing a lode of shoddy goods never does your rep any good either didnt it take Angels 3 attempts to get shadow of the beast 2 right.

And lets face it all games have some bugs in at realease (some more way than others) but its usually the cracker who gets the blame for it crashing. I think it was robocop where the cracker actually made a point of mentioning what you had to do at the end to stop the game from hanging as it was the game at fault.

[andreas]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

As was quite often the way with lots of cracks utilising more than one drive which the original invariably didn't.

...but hey, must ensure the game only works on original configurations!

Yes damn it!
You are strictly prohibited to make the game better if the original game was crap in handling and/or whatnot. Your only aim must be to preserve originality!
(IOW crap must stay crap *snigger*)

Oh dear!

Well. From the looks of it, none of my sarcasm got lost on its way (feared it tho´). Nice to know (you never know in these effin' online networks do ya)

[andreas]

Originally Posted by StingRay

I don't think it is so hard to understand that he meant "if original game supports more than 1 drive the crack should do the same". And there are cracks that just support df0: while the original supports external drives. Anyway, not wanting to take any sides, I just think some replies here are kinda unfair.

Well, everything depends on wording, right?
While your interpretation is distinctly one-way and hard to misinterpret, his's...

Crack runs on the same number of different disk drives as the original

... "works" in BOTH directions, if supported drives of crack are less or equal *OR* greater or equal than those supported on the original.
You may consider that nitpicky; but Don's "axiom" was just too "foggy" (IMO && YMMV).
However I concede, that it's also a way of seeing things: admittedly I do that too mathematically-logically sometimes ("Berufskrankheit" as they commonly dub this in German eh )

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Premier Manager 3 Deluxe is also not 100%, none of the checksums were removed from that either.

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Nope, but I'd be interested to see if some on here could do it 100%

Since I decided to create a WHDLoad patch for this very game I just had a look at the protection. And to be honest I found it very easy to crack (took me about 10 minutes including disassembling the exe). Protection has a major flaw (code is not 100% pc relative) which renders all the checks if the code has been modified useless. Also, even though the checks if the code has been tampered with were "disguised" (indirect memory accesses) they were quite easy to find because they all accessed the protection routine in one way or another. And "strange labels" are always suspicious! Which is why I searched where they are used and found the routine which modified the protection check opcode and then of course looked for more (even though it wasn't really necessary as I cracked it without touching the actual protection code). Anyway, if you remember the code of PM3 you should be able to figure out how my crack patch works. And I'm quite sure it's 100%. Here's the code:

patch   move.l  (a7),a0
        add.w   2(a0),a0
        move.l  2(a0),a0
        move.b  (a0),d0
        rts

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Since I decided to create a WHDLoad patch for this very game I just had a look at the protection. And to be honest I found it very easy to crack (took me about 10 minutes including disassembling the exe). Protection has a major flaw (code is not 100% pc relative) which renders all the checks if the code has been modified useless. Also, even though the checks if the code has been tampered with were "disguised" (indirect memory accesses) they were quite easy to find because they all accessed the protection routine in one way or another. And "strange labels" are always suspicious! Which is why I searched where they are used and found the routine which modified the protection check opcode and then of course looked for more (even though it wasn't really necessary as I cracked it without touching the actual protection code). Anyway, if you remember the code of PM3 you should be able to figure out how my crack patch works. And I'm quite sure it's 100%. Here's the code:

patch   move.l  (a7),a0
        add.w   2(a0),a0
        move.l  2(a0),a0
        move.b  (a0),d0
        rts

You say that, but be honest. If I hadn't had told you there were sneaky checks in there, would you have really looked for them back in 1994? Bearing in mind 99% of the code is the same as it was in PM3, all the other PM games didn't do anything special either, so I used that to my advantage.

Put it this way, you've cracked it, but its taken 16 years for it to be done successfully........ i'd say the protection did its job

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

You say that, but be honest. If I hadn't had told you there were sneaky checks in there, would you have really looked for them back in 1994?

Honestly, I would have looked for them due to the reasons I already mentioned in my first post. Strange labels created in ReSource in the middle of some instruction in the protection routine which don't make sense (which are a result of the disguised checks if the code has been tampered with) are always suspicious. The protection in "The Settlers" f.e worked around exactly that problem by using a base offset outside the main executable (lea PROGSTART-SOME_VALUE,ax) so no strange labels were created.

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Put it this way, you've cracked it, but its taken 16 years for it to be done successfully........ i'd say the protection did its job

No doubt about that!

[Galahad/FLT]

Thing is I was limited simply because I had to use Gremlins stupid codewheel protection, and the other point is that anyone with an MMU could have probably done it in about 5 minutes.

But like Jurassic Park, I figured out that because most crackers of the day were familiar with the Gremlin code wheel protection, most wouldn't give it more than a few minutes and just assume it was standad so probably wouldn't bother to check further, because outwardly, it would appear to work.

And most probably wouldn't have used a resourcer either !

[mai]

Flight of the Amazon Queen (1995)(Renegade)(Disk 01 of 11)[cr HLM]
has been also not succesfully cracked.
The mosaic protection later in game is still active!

by the way, is something known about non english versions?
At least the developer have planned to release non english versions, i suppose, because there is a trace in main executable.

[mai]

Has someone ever played the "PGS" release of "Erben der Erde"?
Is this version something like a beta and/or uncracked, because you can never finish this version.

You reach a point where you will be locked by the police to jail and get a message "shit pirate".

[mai]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Just a bad image, i remember getting a long way into that game back in the day.

Again this disk, i havent found any working disk 2 in ADF format until now.
I have not the knowledge to find out, whats wrong with the available disk 2 of this game, but this disk is definitelly not working, game crashes later in the game.
A friend told me, that it would be nice to have a working disk 2.
Maybe one of our members with the knowledge can look at the ADF and if possible fix it, or recrack the available IPF(any kind of protection track 00).
I have tried IPF disk 2 together with some cracked disks and it works, but in same configuration in WinUAE cracked disk 2 crashes the game.