Worst copy protection?

[dire_wolf]

Frontier, checking a certain letter on a certain line on a certain page every five fricken minutes

Speris Legacy - Code book was shiney black letters on matt black paper, daft font made it almost impossible to enter the right code

[kremiso]

Just to share this interesting new video, that talk about code wheels, and early tricks in trying to bypass alphanumerical passwords, using an Action Replay
[ Show youtube player ]

[aeberbach]

Infocom protections were always the best. They did not stop you playing the game but without the two or three vital clues that came in the form of "feelies" (look at what you get with https://gallery.guetech.org/planetfall/planetfall.html) you would never solve the puzzle. There would always be something like an ID card with an employee number or a letter addressed to a certain address or a magic word scrawled in the margin of some document. Without them it was walkthroughs or give up.

[XPD]

F18 Interceptor had a code wheel, which drove me up the wall initially

[mrv2k]

I remember getting a Tetris game with manual protection and hex editing out the answers in zap. I was surprised it worked.

Oh and worst copy protection was Lenslok on the ZX Spectrum.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by mrv2k

I remember getting a Tetris game with manual protection and hex editing out the answers in zap. I was surprised it worked.

Oh and worst copy protection was Lenslok on the ZX Spectrum.

And CPC, don't fo'get

[BarryB]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

And CPC, don't fo'get

And MSX and Atari 8 bit and Sinclair QL and Commodore 64 don't forget.

[kremiso]

Rocket Ranger would have been a ton more faster and with an higher replay value without that Secret decoder wheel

i still have this one original, never played as i would have liked, always tired after a first play of searching how much fuel for each destination

[DamienD]

Back in the day I finished Rocket Ranger; great game

I even purchased the FM Towns version; unfortunately it's not dual language and only in Japanese.

Must say I love Cinemaware games, and have finished the following:

• Defender Of The Crown
• Defender Of The Crown II
• It Came From The Desert
• Rocket Ranger
• Sinbad And The Throne Of The Falcon (Atari ST Conversion)
• The Three Stooges

[mrv2k]

Originally Posted by BarryB

And MSX and Atari 8 bit and Sinclair QL and Commodore 64 don't forget.

They all know the pain of getting it wrong three times and spending another 10 minutes reloading the program.

[kremiso]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Back in the day I finished Rocket Ranger; great game

I even purchased the FM Towns version; unfortunately it's not dual language and only in Japanese...

Cinemaware yeah, great games indeed
i never completed Rocket Ranger, i remember two/three times i reached the moon fight sequence (like in South America / Africa bases), but died there

I have completed Wings a couple of times, as Lords of the rising sun also; i would like to complete Antheads also, sooner or later

Damien, does that Rocket Ranger Fm Towns is somewhat playable, despite the jap language?
i cannot find a tube video, very curious about this rare release...

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by kremiso

Damien, does that Rocket Ranger Fm Towns is somewhat playable, despite the jap language?
i cannot find a tube video, very curious about this rare release...

Unfortunately I would say not

There are some screenshot I took on HOL, but for some reason the title screen is missing.

If you want to try it in UNZ then I can upload the image I made of my original somewhere?

[kremiso]

such a shame, but well yes, i would be interested the same
i have found a collection on archive org containing it, but seems no singular download available, entire set... too much for my crappy internet speed

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by kremiso

i have found a collection on archive org containing it, but seems no singular download available, entire set... too much for my crappy internet speed

Yeah, back in the day when I was collecting FM Towns stuff... one of my friends made me images of his ultra rare FM Towns collection, which he'd spent years hunting down these titles and an absolute fortune purchasing from Japan.

Unfortunately I gave them to another person on the premise that he wouldn't share / keep to himself, but he then uploaded all over the internet; that's why you now see a lot of this stuff.

If my friend who imaged his originals knew that they indirectly came from me; he'd be very upset indeed.

I myself only purchased 4 x FM Towns games, these weren't that rare but still quite expensive:

... Battle Chess
... Lemmings 2 - The Tribes
... Rocket Ranger
... Ultima Underworld - The Stygian Abyss

Here is Rocket Ranger

[kremiso]

Originally Posted by DamienD

...If my friend who imaged his originals knew that they indirectly came from me; he'd be very upset indeed.

I can understand this

There are indeed a couple of interesting Amiga ports, like Shadow of the beast 1&2 (with the second jap only)

amazing also all the ScummVM fmtowns games

many thanks for RR

EDIT
already stuck :

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by kremiso

I can understand this

There are indeed a couple of interesting Amiga ports, like Shadow of the beast 1&2 (with the second jap only)

amazing also all the ScummVM fmtowns games

Below is a list of some of the originals my friend purchased and imaged for me:

• Awesome
• Flashback - The Quest for Identity
• Galaxy Force II
• Image Fight
• Infestation
• KU2++
• Kyukyoku Tiger
• Last Survivor
• Legends of Valour
• Lemmings
• Libble Rabble
• Little Big Adventure
• Marble Madness
• Mega lo Mania
• Muscle Bomber - The Body Explosion
• Puyo Puyo
• Puzznic
• Rainbow Islands Extra
• Scavenger 4
• Shadow of the Beast II
• Splatterhouse
• Super Real Mahjong PII & PIII
• Take the A-Train IV
• Tatsujin Ou
• The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers
• The NewZealand Story

"Flashback - The Quest for Identity", "Shadow of the Beast II", "Splatterhouse" and "Tatsujin Ou" are ultra rare, took him years to source and cost an absolute bomb

He had many more originals too, but I already had images...

One game I wish I got off him is "Samurai Spirits". The problem was it requires a boot disk and we couldn't work out how image this without a proper in-built floppy drive and special software

Originally Posted by kremiso

many thanks for RR

EDIT
already stuck :

I know

I purchased this in the hope that it was dual language. It's also rumoured that there's "It Came from the Desert" for FM-Towns but I've never seen this listed or box images etc...

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by XPD

F18 Interceptor had a code wheel, which drove me up the wall initially

Too bad you did not have access to cool web page back then...

F/A-18 Codes

[Belgarath]

Originally Posted by DamienD

One game I wish I got off him is "Samurai Spirits". The problem was it requires a boot disk and we couldn't work out how image this without a proper in-built floppy drive and special software

I've got an iso + boot disk image of Samurai Spirits if you need it?

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Belgarath

I've got an iso + boot disk image of Samurai Spirits if you need it?

When did someone manage to image the CD-ROM and boot disk?

...was this from the "Neo Kobe" collection? Last time I checked it wasn't there.

Yes please

[DamienD]

Don't worry Belgo, just checked again and indeed this is in "Neo Kobe":

Samurai Spirits (JHV)/Samurai Spirits [Boot].7z	248.763 KB
Samurai Spirits (JHV)/Samurai Spirits [CD] [bad - mp3 source].7z	421.594 MB

Unless the image you have isn't "MP3 source"?

LOL, and I just checked one of my external hard drives... seem like I have a good image: