Games modified by crackers

Hewitson · 18 August 2018, 12:36

I realise most people hate it when crackers modify text in games, but I always thought it was cool. Here's a couple to start with:

Speedball 2: "Crystal Cracked" in intro.

Final Fight: "Cracked by Quartex" in title screen.

jotd · 18 August 2018, 12:48

Gods:

"Crystal" .. "Cracked" ... "A Bitmap Brothers Game" (instead of "Renegade presents")

I'm not a big fan either and I used to put the original text back on my cracked copies (still doing it sometimes in whdload when cracked copies are supported and they include modified text)

What is better is when they change "disk format/protection by xxxx" by "cracked by yyyyy", since the protection/format has been removed now

DamienD · 18 August 2018, 13:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I realise most people hate it when crackers modify text in games, but I always thought it was cool.

Personally I hate this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jotd

I'm not a big fan either and I used to put the original text back on my cracked copies (still doing it sometimes in whdload when cracked copies are supported and they include modified text)

Yeah me too when I can

Some of the worst examples of butchery are as follows:

a) Legends of Valour
b) Ziriax

See this thread Cracked games missing stuff... and my post.

Hewitson · 18 August 2018, 13:52

Wow... Those releases really are lame. I don't agree with modifying the graphics and I am surprised that a group like FLT would do such a thing.

meynaf · 18 August 2018, 15:25

Texts are something, they might eventually be fixed later, but sometimes whole parts (like intro or some menu) are missing.

AMIGASYSTEM · 18 August 2018, 15:43

Do not tell me I'm bad, sometimes you do it for fun, I am not a programmer but in the past where it was possible to edit the text with a hexadecimal editor, "in my personal games" added my name to my two children but only for fun (practice that made me gain more experiences in AmigaOS).
An example in Another Word where the protagonist when logging into the computer made the name of one of my children come out, or I used it to translate texts so as to facilitate the use of the game.

jarre · 27 August 2018, 23:29

nice reading here, but not all agreed, i go back to the release of grand prix circuit, from accolade...bamiga (eric) was out of crackers and asked us to join Bamiga, he gave us grand prix circuit and told us to take it easy and come back with a good crack, he got the game 6 weeks before release and told us to wait releasing till he told us to get it out to just a limited friends in the scene. He also asked to put inside the game it was cracked by bamiga sector one / cybertech, in the intro we could say it was cracked by switch. Because he was affraid someone just remove the intro and release it as cracked by..... (this had to do with the very early getting the original, and eric wants to release it before anyone else)
But as we didn't official belong to Bamiga we decided to also put inside the game "Done by switch" and also put it in the intro as cracked by switch, now you can think it is Childish behavior, but back then it was a kind off status..
when started spreading it went to the us bbs ran by brent, and he should only give it to a few persons, meanwhile we made the post packages to the friends...and see what was happen, lots of releases of this game with intro removed and add other intro with things like imported by..and so on, so sometimes it was maybe nessosary to get the fame, it took me alot of time to crack this one by then because it was written in some kinda weird language (as i remember). This resulted in what i that my crack is the only avalible. Anyway the scene was in the early days much different from what is is now..So this maybe puts another light on why sometimes ingame text was changed...

Gr. from Jarre/Switch

StingRay · 27 August 2018, 23:47

Quote:

Because he was affraid someone just remove the intro and release it as cracked by.

This could have been easily "fixed" by just using the intro to execute the crack patch for the game. Intro removed -> game doesn't work anymore.

Quote:

it took me alot of time to crack this one by then because it was written in some kinda weird language (as i remember).

Game is coded in C which isn't a weird language at all. It also uses overlay hunks which most likely were the main reason why it took you a while to crack.

jarre · 28 August 2018, 08:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by StingRay

This could have been easily "fixed" by just using the intro to execute the crack patch for the game. Intro removed -> game doesn't work anymore.
Game is coded in C which isn't a weird language at all. It also uses overlay hunks which most likely were the main reason why it took you a while to crack.

By then we where not able to get it to work for this titel, as you allready say it wasn't easy to put the crack in the code anywayz...

Galahad/FLT · 28 August 2018, 10:26

My own view is.... if you don't like what crackers did to games, you could always just go buy them!

I mean, if it irritated you enough that you played the game regularly to get irritated by it, then you kinda owed it to the developer to buy it, because no-one gets irritated about cracker messages in a game they don't play.

meynaf · 28 August 2018, 10:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

My own view is.... if you don't like what crackers did to games, you could always just go buy them!

I mean, if it irritated you enough that you played the game regularly to get irritated by it, then you kinda owed it to the developer to buy it, because no-one gets irritated about cracker messages in a game they don't play.

This was valid back in the past and frankly i didn't care at all. But now, when buying isn't in some cases a valid option because the game is simply not available anymore ?

Galahad/FLT · 28 August 2018, 11:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by meynaf

This was valid back in the past and frankly i didn't care at all. But now, when buying isn't in some cases a valid option because the game is simply not available anymore ?

I have no clue whatsoever why people buy old games when WHDLoad and IPF's are so common place.

Buying to preserve is one thing, buying because someone didn't like it saying "Broken by QUARTEX" is entirely meh to me.

ross · 28 August 2018, 11:53

"A game worth playing is a game worth buying"

Methanoid · 28 August 2018, 13:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I have no clue whatsoever why people buy old games when WHDLoad and IPF's are so common place.

Buying to preserve is one thing, buying because someone didn't like it saying "Broken by QUARTEX" is entirely meh to me.

Stuntcar Racer from QTX
Menace from Ackerlight

Both hacked a bit but I'm really not fussed

Now G, tell us why the South West is crap??

WayneK · 28 August 2018, 13:24

When we ran a console group ("Capital", on the Gameboy Color mainly), we constantly received complaints about adding intros to releases... my favourite two were "it takes too long to get to the game" (literally hold start and you would see the screen flash after 0.02 seconds and the game would begin), and "it alters the checksum of the ROM" (damn, sorry, that probably completely ruined the gameplay for you, I apologise).

After some weeks of this, I decided to include an IPS Patch file with every release to restore the game to it's original condition, removing the intro... however I called it "IAMLAME.IPS", so that anyone who applied it had to admit their lameness :P

jarre · 29 August 2018, 23:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by WayneK

When we ran a console group ("Capital", on the Gameboy Color mainly), we constantly received complaints about adding intros to releases... my favourite two were "it takes too long to get to the game" (literally hold start and you would see the screen flash after 0.02 seconds and the game would begin), and "it alters the checksum of the ROM" (damn, sorry, that probably completely ruined the gameplay for you, I apologise).

After some weeks of this, I decided to include an IPS Patch file with every release to restore the game to it's original condition, removing the intro... however I called it "IAMLAME.IPS", so that anyone who applied it had to admit their lameness :P

Same here when i was in Magical, releasing and fixing megadrive and snes games, there was always comments on the intros, but meanwile they leeched and played the games, and by that time it was very normal and cool to add intro's or use ingame text to show who released the game

see here some of the cracktro's i've made on the megadrive:

[ Show youtube player ][/

[ Show youtube player ]

[ Show youtube player ]

WayneK · 30 August 2018, 13:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by jarre

Same here when i was in Magical, releasing and fixing megadrive and snes games, there was always comments on the intros, but meanwile they leeched and played the games, and by that time it was very normal and cool to add intro's or use ingame text to show who released the game

Our group ("Capital") was formed by Rotox/Magical, and I was also around the console scene (supplied one game, obviously a major part of the scene!) during SNES/Megadrive. I remember your intros well

modrobert · 30 August 2018, 13:33

I remember the first time when playing some cracked soccer game on the C64, and the ads around the field read 'cracked by 1103' or if it was only '1103', not intrusive, just inspiring.

StingRay · 30 August 2018, 13:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by modrobert

I remember the first time when playing some cracked soccer game on the C64, and the ads around the field read 'cracked by 1103' or if it was only '1103', not intrusive, just inspiring.

That was International Soccer cracked by the "J" part of JEDI (Oliver Joppich) and 1103 is his birthday.

One of the very few groups which truly deserves the "legendary" status.

Nibbler · 30 August 2018, 14:00

The German version of The Secret of Monkey Island by Quartex made Guybrush´s skin more RED... like, he was more under the sun and a real pirate

18 August 2018, 12:36	#1
Hewitson Registered User Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Melbourne, Australia Age: 41 Posts: 3,772	Games modified by crackers I realise most people hate it when crackers modify text in games, but I always thought it was cool. Here's a couple to start with: Speedball 2: "Crystal Cracked" in intro. Final Fight: "Cracked by Quartex" in title screen. Last edited by Hewitson; 18 August 2018 at 13:05.

27 August 2018, 23:29	#7
jarre Registered User Join Date: Sep 2016 Location: Deventer - Netherlands Posts: 599	grand prix circuit from accolade nice reading here, but not all agreed, i go back to the release of grand prix circuit, from accolade...bamiga (eric) was out of crackers and asked us to join Bamiga, he gave us grand prix circuit and told us to take it easy and come back with a good crack, he got the game 6 weeks before release and told us to wait releasing till he told us to get it out to just a limited friends in the scene. He also asked to put inside the game it was cracked by bamiga sector one / cybertech, in the intro we could say it was cracked by switch. Because he was affraid someone just remove the intro and release it as cracked by..... (this had to do with the very early getting the original, and eric wants to release it before anyone else) But as we didn't official belong to Bamiga we decided to also put inside the game "Done by switch" and also put it in the intro as cracked by switch, now you can think it is Childish behavior, but back then it was a kind off status.. when started spreading it went to the us bbs ran by brent, and he should only give it to a few persons, meanwhile we made the post packages to the friends...and see what was happen, lots of releases of this game with intro removed and add other intro with things like imported by..and so on, so sometimes it was maybe nessosary to get the fame, it took me alot of time to crack this one by then because it was written in some kinda weird language (as i remember). This resulted in what i that my crack is the only avalible. Anyway the scene was in the early days much different from what is is now..So this maybe puts another light on why sometimes ingame text was changed... Gr. from Jarre/Switch Last edited by jarre; 18 November 2020 at 13:11.

30 August 2018, 14:00	#20
Nibbler namm namm AMIGA Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: Austria Age: 44 Posts: 734	The German version of The Secret of Monkey Island by Quartex made Guybrush´s skin more RED... like, he was more under the sun and a real pirate Last edited by Nibbler; 30 August 2018 at 14:01. Reason: I had the game originial of course ! But i knew a few people that had guybrush with a bad Sunburn XD

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18 August 2018, 12:48	#2
jotd This cat is no more Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: FRANCE Age: 52 Posts: 8,161	Gods: "Crystal" .. "Cracked" ... "A Bitmap Brothers Game" (instead of "Renegade presents") I'm not a big fan either and I used to put the original text back on my cracked copies (still doing it sometimes in whdload when cracked copies are supported and they include modified text) What is better is when they change "disk format/protection by xxxx" by "cracked by yyyyy", since the protection/format has been removed now

18 August 2018, 13:52	#4
Hewitson Registered User Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Melbourne, Australia Age: 41 Posts: 3,772	Wow... Those releases really are lame. I don't agree with modifying the graphics and I am surprised that a group like FLT would do such a thing.

18 August 2018, 15:25	#5
meynaf son of 68k Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Lyon / France Age: 51 Posts: 5,323	Texts are something, they might eventually be fixed later, but sometimes whole parts (like intro or some menu) are missing.

18 August 2018, 15:43	#6
AMIGASYSTEM Registered User Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Brindisi (Italy) Age: 70 Posts: 8,248	Do not tell me I'm bad, sometimes you do it for fun, I am not a programmer but in the past where it was possible to edit the text with a hexadecimal editor, "in my personal games" added my name to my two children but only for fun (practice that made me gain more experiences in AmigaOS). An example in Another Word where the protagonist when logging into the computer made the name of one of my children come out, or I used it to translate texts so as to facilitate the use of the game.

28 August 2018, 10:26	#10
Galahad/FLT Going nowhere Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: United Kingdom Age: 50 Posts: 8,986	My own view is.... if you don't like what crackers did to games, you could always just go buy them! I mean, if it irritated you enough that you played the game regularly to get irritated by it, then you kinda owed it to the developer to buy it, because no-one gets irritated about cracker messages in a game they don't play.

28 August 2018, 11:53	#13
ross Defendit numerus Join Date: Mar 2017 Location: Crossing the Rubicon Age: 53 Posts: 4,468	"A game worth playing is a game worth buying"

28 August 2018, 13:24	#15
WayneK Registered User Join Date: May 2004 Location: Somewhere secret Age: 50 Posts: 364	When we ran a console group ("Capital", on the Gameboy Color mainly), we constantly received complaints about adding intros to releases... my favourite two were "it takes too long to get to the game" (literally hold start and you would see the screen flash after 0.02 seconds and the game would begin), and "it alters the checksum of the ROM" (damn, sorry, that probably completely ruined the gameplay for you, I apologise). After some weeks of this, I decided to include an IPS Patch file with every release to restore the game to it's original condition, removing the intro... however I called it "IAMLAME.IPS", so that anyone who applied it had to admit their lameness :P

30 August 2018, 13:33	#18
modrobert old bearded fool Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Bangkok Age: 56 Posts: 775	I remember the first time when playing some cracked soccer game on the C64, and the ads around the field read 'cracked by 1103' or if it was only '1103', not intrusive, just inspiring.

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