The most badly cracked Amiga game

[Amiga1992]

I don't mean password protection, I mean that the password CONTINUATION system in both games is useless... The passwords the game gives you to continue don't work.

[andreas]

Passwords to CONTINUE? :eek

Gawd, what am I dense then! -- I used to either play it again from the beginning or use save-state in WinUAE
Should try this puppy out again then.

However, this one is a major pain for the eyes on "lameulators"
It scrolls miles less smoothly compared to real thing.

[Amiga1992]

Originally posted by andreas
or use save-state in WinUAE

Blah, I'm playing on a REAL THING and like a real gamer, not using lameulated lamestates.

The passwords given don't work in my version and it pisses me off, because it's not such an easy game. So I hate to have to start from world 1 all the time.

[7-Zark-7]

Originally posted by Akira
Blah, I'm playing on a REAL THING and like a real gamer, not using lameulated lamestates.

The passwords given don't work in my version and it pisses me off, because it's not such an easy game. So I hate to have to start from world 1 all the time.

Go on Akira, lameulate, you know you want to!

[Shatterhand]

You know, here in Brazil we were plagued with bad cracks too. - Or at least bad pirated games, I have no idea of how the traders here managed to get the games cracked in Euorpe

Sierra Soccer - we had only one crack, and it would ALWAYS crash sometime.

I also had trouble with Ruff 'n' Tumble, but not with the passwords. The game would crash in level 2.

And Alien Breed Tower Assault, both versions I got would crash in a certain area.

Not to mention Alien Breed 2, when I reached disk 3, I discovered my disk 3 was just.. EMPTY. (Or was it disk 2? can't remember now)

Beverly Hills Cop was funny, after beating level 2, it asks for disk 2... WHAT DISK 2? I HAVE NO DISK 2.

Flashback here in Brazil was only the version which WAS NOT CRACKED in the 2nd protection check. And it was in French. The Interpol crack took more than a year to be avaialable here.

To live in Brazil sucked for an Amiga gamer.

[Overdoc]

@Akira:

Those copy & sell guys are called 'spreaders'

With Ruff'n Tumble I just know from a friend that you cannot advance a level when you start by entering a password, but othersies it should work. I mean when e.g. you enter password for level 2 then you cannot advance to level 3 after finishing level 2 ( maybe this also only happened on level 3 or 4 ??? )
That's all I can remember...

[Exodus]

You know, I hate cracked copies of games where the text has been changed, and Quartex is the worst offender. I have two Quartex-cracked games somewhere. DragonNinja was one of them, and when you lose all of your lives during a game, the text in the middle of the screen would say "Quartex", not "Game Over" as it should.

The other game I have is RoboCop, lot worse than <i>Dragon Ninja</i>. What happens? At the bottom of the title sreen, it says "TM & © 1987 Orion Picture Corp. All Rights Reserved.", but in the Quartex version, it reads "Cracked by Quartex in [year]".

Normally, I use cracked versions to access trainers that give me infinite lives, time, etc. (I don't know how to win). I have the DHL-trained version of Alien Breed: Tower Assault, which is the only trained version that TOSEC has. The trained version doesn't even work.

[Methanoid]

Well, I'm kinda happy with (c) messages being replaced (as in Stunt Car by Quartex!!)

As to replacing Game Over thats not so good but I wasn't in Quartex at the time so I take no responsibility!

[fiath]

The developers *hate* that. No wonder so many don't like their old games being distributed...

[Galahad/FLT]

Developes hated crack intros more, Quartex in the main were generally quite subtle, not overdoing it.

If you want a game really overdone, a game by Accolade, cracked by TIC (I think) of Bamiga Sector 1, just about every piece of text in it was a reference to who cracked it. Some racing game.

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Developes hated crack intros more, Quartex in the main were generally quite subtle, not overdoing it.

If you want a game really overdone, a game by Accolade, cracked by TIC (I think) of Bamiga Sector 1, just about every piece of text in it was a reference to who cracked it. Some racing game.

Yeah I dont think at the time we cracked the games we were thinking "I wonder in 10 years time if we might ask permission to distro these legally"


The example I always prefer to mention is Rob/QTX crack of Heimdall. I doubt that got to TOSEC but it was a work of art and was released before Crystal's although our couriers let us down. The crack removed ALL reference to password check but CSL one was hacked to ask "Enter ANYTHING for Password".... YUK.

Its easy to criticise cracking crews with hindsight... but does not make anyone cleverer....

[7-Zark-7]

Originally Posted by fiath

The developers *hate* that. No wonder so many don't like their old games being distributed...

Not that I'm trying to justify it by any means, but looking at the logic of it all, what was the general age of the crackers at the time? Early teens? It was probably considered a huge ego thing for a 12-14yr old to bust a game protected/written by adults-the cracktro's could almost be considered the electronic equivilent of writing on a toilet wall or school desk with the typical ego of "look at me,I was the first to bust & spread your so called protected game in x hours,& you don't know who I am".

[Methanoid]

I dont think so... I dont know about NOMAD for example but I know that most of the guys in Quartex had jobs - some in Army for example - about the youngest guy I ever met in the scene was Pot Noodle/ATX who was 13 when I met him... and did that make me feel DAMN old... Most of the under 16s could barely code in AMOS let alone 68K and hence unless armed with an Action Replay could not crack anything!

[Galahad/FLT]

Most of the best crackers when the Amiga first came out (Rob, Il Scuro, etc) all had experience of the C64, so would have been getting on for late teens, early twenties.

Me? I'm 30.... you do the math

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Most of the best crackers when the Amiga first came out (Rob, Il Scuro, etc) all had experience of the C64, so would have been getting on for late teens, early twenties.

Me? I'm 30.... you do the math

Child!!! Yeah I was a little "old" but useful nonetheless!!

[Methanoid]

In fact so old I forgot I was not cookied at home!!!

[Tim Janssen]

Do badly trained games also count? If it is, then First Samurai is the worst example I've ever encountered. I don't remember who cracked/trained it, but in the trainer you can select infinite satellites and weapons. When playing the game pressing a certain key will get you additional satellites. If you press the key often enough the game will slow down and result in a Guru Meditation.
Also, some levels simply did not work with another Guru as a result.

All,

To return to the original theme for just a second.....

There were at least two versions of Dragon's Lair. An eight disk version by ACU and a six disk version by TCH/TSK-ACC. From what I can remember alot of people didn't bother cracking it because of the people who put it together (Randy Linden et al.). The six disk version is just missing a couple of things, but obviously alot less disk swapping. There is a QTX version of Escape from Singe's Castle, but I don't believe they did the original version.


Regards,
PSW

[squirminator2k]

Dragons Lair was rubbish anyway, as were its sequels, and Space Ace. Those interactive cartoons weren't games at all, they were "press the button at the right time" excercises, which isn't interactivity at all. Litil Divil is the closest any developer has managed to get to creating an interactive Cartoon, IMHO.

But anyway.

I have a copy of Atomino and it's been some years since I played the game so I downloaded an ADF of the game. Awful crack, it was... the opening intro gave instructions in both English and German sayign that there was nothing they could do to circumvent the copy protection (wow, great job guys!) but after entering the wrong code three times you could press the HELP key and it would run fine. Which it did, except that the game was in German and it ignored all input of any kind so you couldn't play the game because "Press Fire To Start" was asking something of the user that wasn't possible.

I still ahve my Copy Protection bookelt and I tried that, but to no avail. Now if I coudl get my mits on the IPF for the game...

[CFou!]

Originally Posted by Djay

i remember the first cracked editions of GODS not being cracked properly... and its not easy to tell....

i played the cracked edition and thought it was bastard hard, i then found a cheap original version and the original was way easier...

apparently, if you copy the original you get a much harder version of the game...

true / false ?

I don't believe it

I had played with same version and in first time game seems very hard and after i retry some month ago and I finished it very qwickly

in fact game adapted difficulty to you, if you play good game has hard

perhaps in second time you play badly or without try to take all items and looking for all secrets