The most badly cracked Amiga game

[Swordlord]

Ordinarily, I wouldn't have anything but respect for these people who work for free, so that other people could enjoy or re-enjoy their favourite games. Kudos and many thanks to them.

But once in a while, very rarely, you stumble upon a game cracked/dumped so poorly that you feel like breaking the CD you put it on and smack yourself over the head for wasting 2 hours with it. Right? Or has this only happened to me?

I just come from playing 'Dragon's Lair'. The first one. (Sorry to bring this again into discussion, I know there are people who hate it, but I really like it.) The original version had 6 disks. The cracked version has 8 .adf files. But the scenes are all over the place. 'Whirlpools/Rapids' are on both disks 1 and 4, stuff that was normally on disk 6 is now on 8, 5 on 6, 5 on 4... It's really mayhem.

The first time I went through tonight, I got to the dragon. Just when Dirk was ready to throw the sword into Singe's gut, it froze. I didn't know what to do. Later, I found out that there's that message at the beginning telling you to switch to disk 6, 'cause the game doesn't tell you. Okay, it's mostly my fault, having to re-start, but it's still bad cracking, ain't it? I mean, putting 5 of the moves in the last scene in one file and 1 move in another? It's not like there just wasn't any more space on the 3.5 floppy disk, is it?

So, I went through again, and this time switched the files. It didn't do anything at first. And then, out of the blue, I see some lines flickering and the screen turned to crap. Like an incompatible PC game. I had to reset, but I'm not going to play this game again because it loads so badly... (And it's just like the PC game, only one room extra.) So, basically, it's not possible to get past the dragon's tail. [But, if anyone did, please let me know how.]

PLEASE, WRITE HERE ABOUT OTHER GAMES YOU'VE PLAYED THAT YOU FEEL ARE BADLY CRACKED. I'm very curious which other .adf files can frustrate the Amiga gamer. Thanks.

[Methanoid]

Does it not have an HD install or WHDLoad???

Which crew cracked it.... as an ex-QTX dude I hope it wasn't us!! I forget!

[fiath]

The list is endless. There are *tons*. Unfortunately, other than those that are known, there are guranteed to be many others that are presumed good purely because they have not been played very much, or not to the end. Even if you play to the end, you can still never be really sure that one is good.

What is so bad about cracked games?
http://www.caps-project.org/articles.php?id=cracks

[Pyromania]

I hear your Swordlord, I love playing Dragon's Lair on the Amiga also. I bought it but the original does not work from the harddrive passed OS 1.3. My new solution will be to buy the Arcade version, kind of big I know.

[Akira]

I can understand you in complaining that the scenes are all over the place, but taking it from 6 disks to 8 is NORMAL. When the crackers expand all the data in teh copyprotected tracks they usually end up with data that fills more than the disks the original came in. This is very normal, VERY. Now putting shit all over the place is a shoddy crack

Use WHDLoad man, and try to play a real game, not Dragons lair

Now for other shoddy cracks I can remember:

Jetstrike. Never been cracked properly AFAIK, not the ECS version (they bypassed teh first copyprotection but forgot to check for others, suckers :P)

Genesia. Same as above, the idiots forgot to check for more protection, and you can't enter the barricades with the crack (ie the game is useless)

[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 ?

[Codetapper]

Firstly you are being a little unfair on whoever cracked Dragon's Lair. A standard Amiga disk has $1600 bytes/track and Dragon's Lair has $1900 bytes/track. Your drive simply cannot write that much so the crack is always going to take more disks than the original unless the cracker repacks the entire game. If the game is already compressed, there is little you can do as crunching a packed file usually gives no difference in filesize and sometimes makes the file bigger! The ReadySoft games in particular are very tough to crack!

From memory Mok cracked Elfmania very well, he depacked and repacked all the files with a better cruncher (ProPack perhaps?) on the highest setting so the game would still only take up 2 disks. Other cracks would surely have taken 3 disks.

And before everyone says how bad crackers were, consider all the great ones out there that made games work better than the originals - all the disk cracks I have done are AGA fixed so they run on all Amigas, lots of Fairlight ones redid the memory allocation routines (eg. Mortal Kombat) so they work on more Amigas than the originals etc etc...

As for bad cracks, I think that Chronicles of Omega is up there with the worst of them - someone froze the game with an Action Replay cart which means it doesn't work on the majority of Amigas.

[Dastardly]

Originally posted by Djay


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

true / false ?

Yeah its true. Those sneaky Bitmaps punished pirates by letting them play their game in super hard mode. IIRC it always crashed in the same place too.

[Djay]

Originally posted by Dastardly
Yeah its true. Those sneaky Bitmaps punished pirates by letting them play their game in super hard mode. IIRC it always crashed in the same place too.

i seem to remember playing a cracked version for a while, then when i got the original i completed pretty quickly

[7-Zark-7]

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 ?

Not totally dissimilar to Karateka cracks on the C64-& even the working version is still a pain-someone should've included a machine gun to get rid of that damm hawk/bird towards the end of the game!

I wonder why more games didn't feature that sort of protection though?

[Critter]

from what i recall Escape from Colditz was a bitch of a crack if you wanted to make copies - you had to copy the disk a certain way. BCOPY? XCOPY? heh been awhile since Ive used the tools.

[Adeptus]

Originally posted by Dastardly
Yeah its true. Those sneaky Bitmaps punished pirates by letting them play their game in super hard mode. IIRC it always crashed in the same place too.

I remember trying to... erm... 'backup' MegaLoMania...
It would let you get as far as the first island, then all your men would suddenly die & you'd get a 'Pirate = Loser' screen, with the 'It's all over' speech looped.

[Adeptus]

Originally posted by Pyromania
I hear your Swordlord, I love playing Dragon's Lair on the Amiga also. I bought it but the original does not work from the harddrive passed OS 1.3. My new solution will be to buy the Arcade version, kind of big I know.

You know you can get it on DVD... will work on a standard DVD player (& I guess on a computer with software DVD player).

I did a real naff "crack" of 5th Gear once.

Yep, one of those Action Replay load's

Other than that I did manage to crack one game "properly" in my years and that was one of the early Championship Manager games.

[Drake1009]

You can also get it on DVD-rom for windows. That one will include the DVD-rom version of Space ace as well as Dragon's lair. All you need is a code (purchase it cheaper than purchasing another DVD)

[Swordlord]

Wow, I didn't expect to see so many replies! I guess it's a delicate issue, isn't it? Yes, I think I was a bit harsh, indeed, but I posted this right after I had gone right to the last move of the game, and then twice had to reset.

Methanoid: I think it was Quartex, yes. I'll have to check to be sure. There's a message at the beginning saying that after throwing the sword at the dragon, I should replace the current disk with disk 6 by myself, 'cause the program won't tell me. So, I did that, but it didn't work.

Pyromania: See the thread about DL games, maybe you'll make it work. And download the PC game(s), they're quite similar to the Amiga games (but very different from the arcade or DVD versions).
Oh, and listen, I wouldn't advise you to buy an arcade. As you probably know, it uses a laserdisc, and those laserdiscs are very fragile. Buy at your own risk. I would stick to the DVD version. It's perfect (if you don't hate the yellow pointers), and it's cheap.

Akira: I'll try to use WHDLoad and see what happens. (But is there a guide somewhere?)
I like this game, because I like all games with knights, monsters and other stuff, I like cartoons and I don't mind simple control at all. What games do you like?

Adeptus: I know about the DVD versions. I recently bought DL1, DL2 and 'Space Ace' on DVD. And I have the Sega CD version, too, and about all others also (except the Jaguar CD and the CD-I versions), which are the same as the 3DO version. (I even downloaded the Coleco Adam game and the emulator. Yup, I'm a fan, alright! )

Drake1009: But I didn't know about that! DVD-ROM for Windows? And it's not the DVD version that can be played also on PS2 and PCs with DVD-ROM drives? Or is it the new game 'Dragon's Lair 3D'?

[Akira]

Originally posted by Swordlord
Akira: I'll try to use WHDLoad and see what happens. (But is there a guide somewhere?)

Yes my friend, at the FAQs section of this very same board! Check it out.

[Swordlord]

Thank you very much. I'll check it out right now.

[Methanoid]

Swordlord, how BIG are those DVDs... under 4.37GB ?

[Swordlord]

How would I know, man? I just bought them, put them in the DVD Player and played.

Can they really fit that much on a DVD?

[Methanoid]

On a DVD-R its 4.37Gb but its more than double that on a dual layer DVD. The way to tell is to pop the thing in a DVD-Rom if you have one and look at the disc size. I doubt v much that these "old" games would be big even given the option of prettier graphics.

How much R the DVD games?

[Enverex]

Originally posted by Methanoid
On a DVD-R its 4.37Gb but its more than double that on a dual layer DVD. The way to tell is to pop the thing in a DVD-Rom if you have one and look at the disc size. I doubt v much that these "old" games would be big even given the option of prettier graphics.

How much R the DVD games?

Actually it isn't quite double, it's 8.4GB.

[Swordlord]

I hope I'm not wrong; I think it does say 4.37 GB, indeed. But, you know, it has that footage about the DL craze in the '80s and the commercials for the other Digital Leisure games...

Why do you want to know?

[7-Zark-7]

Originally posted by Swordlord

Akira: I'll try to use WHDLoad and see what happens. (But is there a guide somewhere?)
I like this game, because I like all games with knights, monsters and other stuff, I like cartoons and I don't mind simple control at all. What games do you like?

Akira likes playing 1st person 3D shooters,(especially sequels!), on his Windoze PC in between lameulating!
We had to bar him from going on about Half-Life 2, Doom III, UT2004!

Although the Dragon's Lair games were his 2D faves in the old day's too, Big fancy GFX & no gameplay depth-Akira always prefers fancy looks over gameplay depth & variety!!

*runs & hides whilst Akira starts up a chainsaw!*

[Swordlord]

Hehe! Nice...

I wonder why he started to hate the DL games, though.

He's lucky. There are tons of 3D shooters, and they are still being made. I'd like to play more traditional 2D action games, but unfortunately everything's gone 3D now.

[7-Zark-7]

Swordlord, please read my previous post with tongue firmly planted in cheek-just wait for Akira's reply to see what I mean!

You can occasionally find some of the old classic style in modern clothes-Maximo plays right up to its 2D ghosts'n'goblins gameplay roots, for example.

[Swordlord]

Maximo, you say? Thanks, I'll surely look it up.

[Galahad/FLT]

Whilst some games haven't been cracked properly, the stats speak for themselves. Of all the games ever cracked, perhaps only a paltry 6% haven't been done properly.

Also one thing to remember, is that back in the days of 14,400 modems, removing a game intro was essential because of the long transfer times. Some groups would remove the intro, others would leave them in. Some groups would leave them in, and further release another version with the intro removed.

Yes, some games have recently cropped up as not being cracked properly, but they are in the minority.

To quote : "Cracks frequently don't work"

Sorry Fiath, but thats simply not true and you know it. You also by your statements over emphasise the complexity and competance of some of the copy protection systems out there. The fact is, at least 50% of all cracks were 10minute cracks at best because of the coding style of programmers.

As for Dragons Lair, you are talking about a game that takes up a lot of disk room, and is quite tricky to crack. You also have to consider that Rob/Quartex didn't have half the tools/hardware we take for granted now to crack games like Dragons Lair. I could probably do Dragons Lair in a fraction of the time it took Rob to do it, but I wouldn't be so confident of doing it quicker with what he had to use to get the job done.

[Methanoid]

I have fond memories of Rob's abilities from my time in QTX. He came out of retirement for a crack for us, Heimdall by Core Design.

Unfortunately the Crystal courier team were bigger than us and their crack predominated even tho we were first but it was the quality of the crack that I remember.

CSL crack asked you to enter anything for the password when asked.

Rob's crack for Quartex removed the whole check routine and the bit that asked for entry. You never even KNEW there had been copy protection.

I also have fond memories of a session with The Surge/Quartex when I was sending him a title to crack by 14.4 HST modem. I upped the first game to his private BBS and started the 2nd. He cracked the 1st, had it repacked and ready for me to download before the 2nd title had even finished uploading.

On that day we released 3 of the 4 titles that came out. Crystal beat us on PP Hammer, cracked by NOMAD with a nice plasma/copper effect crack intro.

What some people forget when they look at "crack quality" is the huge time pressures the crackers were put under.

Even the greats made boo-boos. I have nothing but respect for NOMAD's work but Marc made a fair few mistakes. The people were human after all

[fiath]

Originally posted by Galahad/FLT
Yes, some games have recently cropped up as not being cracked properly, but they are in the minority.

To quote : "Cracks frequently don't work"

Sorry Fiath, but thats simply not true and you know it. You also by your statements over emphasise the complexity and competance of some of the copy protection systems out there. The fact is, at least 50% of all cracks were 10minute cracks at best because of the coding style of programmers.

It is true, otherwise we would not have said it. Cracks frequently do not work. This has been seen time and time again, and the issue comes up and up again. That is frequent, is it not?

Sure, (probably) there are many more cracks work than do not, yes they are (probably) in the minority. But that doesn't get away from the fact they there are tons of cracks out that that do not work, and anyway, what use is any of that if you do not know for sure?

Cracks are bad m'kay?

You also by your statements over emphasise the complexity and competance of some of the copy protection systems out there.

What statements? The stuff on our site? That is not exactly me...

Sure, there was lots of stupid stuff out there, but there is very clever stuff too. Saying "some" means nothing. "some" stuff was very silly, sure. But "some" stuff was very very clever. No offense, but we really should know. 1549 games preserved so far....

I guess the Dragon's Lair stuff was not intended for me.

[fiath]

Originally posted by Methanoid
What some people forget when they look at "crack quality" is the huge time pressures the crackers were put under.
[/b]

Exactly.

Actually, I think we wrote exactly that somewhere...

Even the greats made boo-boos. I have nothing but respect for NOMAD's work but Marc made a fair few mistakes. The people were human after all

Absolutely.

And think of all that money spent by publishers to make sure that the game worked as it should.

You can't really get close to that with one to a few guys in a few hours.

But then, I doubt that crackers thought their efforts might be used in the long term.

[Galahad/FLT]

But, if you say "cracks frequently dont work", then I judge that to mean cracks as a whole.

If you kept on attempting to play the Fairlight version of Hook/Ocean over and over again, it would not work correctly. There is a reason for this, because it hasn't been cracked properly, so it goes that it "frequently" doesn't work.

If I play Alien Breed 3D Team 17, also released by Fairlight, it works all the time, no cracking errors are present, the only thing that will make the game fall over is a programming error.

Similarly, if Back to the Future 2, Battle Command or Chase HQ don't work, its not because of the 'complex' copy protection, it is for other reasons.

You say "tonnes" of them don't work, but don't attempt to come up with a figure.

My answer to that would be :

Most cracks work fine
Some cracks have introduction sequences removed, but overall this doesn't affect the overall enjoyment or 'experience' of the game.
There are some versions released with cracking errors that were subsequently updated to fix those errors, but unfortunately, these versions don't always get copied over the duff versions.
There are some games that have never been properly cracked until the advent of WHDLoad and the like.

To say "cracks frequently dont work" is obviously not true. For it to be frequent, it would have to be a very regular occurence.

To be a pedant, I would say "some cracks dont work", that is a more inclusive and honest statement

Also, without going into greater detail, you blame cracks for r/w errors. You don't really think a cracker is going to goto the trouble of releasing a game that can't be copied do you? That would pretty much make cracking it a redundant point.

You also over estimate the competancy of some games programmers. Some games work by virtue that they are cracked. Speedball 2 doesn't work on o2o+ machines for the sole reason that its copy protected, same with Double Dragon 2, same with countless other 'ingenious' copy protection schemes.

I'm sure IFW has laughed out aloud everytime he looks at a game loader to see the stepper routine timed by a cpu DBRA loop.

Sometimes cracks don't work, because the game itself is barely capable of running on the machine it was 'designed' on.

Just a thought from a pedant!

[andreas]

Originally posted by Galahad/FLT
Sometimes cracks don't work, because the game itself is barely capable of running on the machine it was 'designed' on.

No wonder if the so-called "crack" is in fact an Action Replay freeze that maybe only works on the kickstart version it's frozen with! Talk about KS 1.2-only "cracks"!

[Galahad/FLT]

Quartex
Paradox
Fairlight
Black Monks
Prestige
Zenith
TRSI
Skid Row
Paranoimia
Defjam
Angels
Genesis
Oracle
Nemesis
Ministry
Dual Crew Shining
The Company
Delirium
Thrill Kill Kult
Classic
Vision Factory
Freestyle
Bamiga Sector One
Medway Boys
Agile
......... name me one game any of these groups released that was an Action Replay Save All crack?

Therefore I don't consider 'homebrew' action replay 'cracks' an issue!

[CPC464]

Personally Speaking one of the worst cracked games I came accross was "GENESIA"

Turn out this was not cracked at all as there were 2 sets of secutiry the first was cracked but the 2nd wasn't

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr what a dissapointment and I loved this game

[andreas]

@Galahad
Not surprising. You only named the real "renowned" groups; no one of them would ever have dared do an AR freeze type crack. The 'dissing' from others would have broken all bounds

Ah another one to name here as bad:
Exile ('cracks' released in 1989/90).

[Overdoc]

I once posted a thread with all bad cracks I have come across:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3747

Quite a lot of them had the problem that there was a password protection, but not only at the start of the game, but also later in the game ! Of course this 2nd protection has been overlooked by some crackers.
Some examples I remember were Flashback, Thargan, Brian the Lion, Bumby's Arcade Fantasy, Waxworks

Some others were just released 'as is' without cracking because the protection couldn't be noticed at first, e.g. Gods, Leander and I think there was another one.

I still wonder whether the problem with the end-of-game monster in D.N.A Warrior is in the original itself, of if it is just a crack error or maybe a hardware compatibility issue ? ( I tested 2 different cracks and both had the same problem )

[Galahad/FLT]

There was one version of Brian the Lion not properly cracked, but there were at least 4 different groups who released that game that I can recall and they all did get the second protection check.

The most commonly spread version of Flashback was the Interpol version which was the French version converted by the group to English. Any other released versions would have been a waste of time as it was 100%

But yes, others did escape undetected. Bumpys Arcade Fantasy definately being one of them.

[Akira]

I got to disagree with the point that an intro doesn't make for the experience, I always hated that I was missing something. Of course you could of tell me "then why didn't you buy the blimin' game", and the simple answer is that in Argentina original games did NOT EXIST, so if you wanted software for your computer you had to copy it. If you had a bunch of friends with teh same computer, grand, you swapped with them. Alternatively you had to go to a place where they charged you for copying the stuff (lame, I know). all local "crackers" operated like this. I say "crackers" because thsi is teh name they put themselves to but what they actually did was, at the most, make an intro with RSI Demo Maker or something, remove the original intro and slap theirs in it. Absolutely lame. and to top things off they distributed the stuff ONLY for a profit! but anyway...

I now remember two games that gave me trouble. Jurassic Park ECS never accepted the passwords so I gave up on it for not being able to advance. And Ruff n Tumble gave me the same shit. Could it be due to bad cracks?

[andreas]

Originally posted by Akira
Ruff n Tumble gave me the same shit. Could it be due to bad cracks?

Possibly, but you must have come VERY far in this game then?
The first levels I played had no password protection at all.