Original Renegade by Taito - cracked by Quartex?

[jotd]

yeah they probably had to play them to death or enable a in-game trainer (there are almost always a trainer in games, to be able to test levels)... or know a guy who completed it...

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by mc68060

I bought a still sealed copy of Taito's Renegade on ebay (USA). After unpacking it the first strange thing I noticed was that the disk label had "Atari ST 520/1040" on it, although the box front says AMIGA.

Sorry to say that the disk included with the U.S. version you bought isn't legitimate. The floppy that came with my original copy looks exactly like the one in the link below, even down to the serial number in the right-hand corner of the disk label:

https://is.gd/7MzNP6

So I thought that maybe it's just the wrong label and this is true because the disk actually contains the Amiga version of Renegade. However, after kryofluxing it, I noticed that the Renegade version on the disk is actually a Quartex crack.

So WTF is this! Was Taito actually selling a Quartex crack of Renegade?

Taito only ever published conversions of their own coin-ops for the Amiga and all during 1988/89, when the Amiga games market was probably at its strongest in the U.S. Wouldn't it make more sense that they would be trying to protect their potentially lucrative coin-op conversion sales for the home computer market from piracy, rather than encouraging it by publishing unprotected cracks?

All Taito's Amiga coin-op conversions were copy-protected IIRC, which went against the norm in the American market at that time (as copy-protection had caused increasing resentment amongst the large C64 software customer base for a few years prior). Renegade was no exception and my original copy contains RNC protection, with the floppy having the telltale volume name of "Copylock Amiga Key Disk". If I'm not mistaken, the original supplied by Chris Vella for the WHDLoad version of Renegade was the U.S. release and pretty much confirms what I've said about the copy-protection.

[Nobby_UK]

'Still Sealed'

Re-Sealed (if it ever was) more likely

Possibly the disk went bad and they re-wrote it with an ADF ?

[a4k-oerx]

Originally Posted by mc68060

And I think it's very very difficult to do a replica that can't be easily identified as a replica.

The screenshots at back of box do not look like an Amiga game.

Maybe the box in auction is original, but for Commodore 64 version?

mobygames.com has some photos to compare:

• Renegade Commodore 64 box front/back/..
• Renegade Amiga box front/back/..

[niobyte]

I'll also chime in. The US Taito boxes I have, the Amiga label look like the one on the Moby Games Amiga BoxArt listing.

As soon as I had seen that Amiga label in that eBay listing looked like a fake right away.

All the Taito US box releases also have that serial number / batch label on the back (just below the copyright text).

I know a little bit about these US release boxes. I also contributed the 'Taito Game Catalogue 1988' Misc Shots on HOL.

[mc68060]

Thanks for the links to the mobygames.com photos! These are very helpful because they also have photos of the Atari ST box on that site, see here: https://www.mobygames.com/game/atari...gade/cover-art And guess what, this is indeed the very same box I got! Even the serial number sticker on the back of my box matches with the Atari ST box (0139-0143). The only difference is that there is an AMIGA sticker on the front. But the ATARI ST label isn't below the AMIGA sticker. I can see the box art below the sticker, there's no ATARI ST one below it.

Still, I think what we have got here is this: Someone took the Atari ST box, put an AMIGA sticker on front of it and copied the Quartex crack of Renegade to the disk. I still think, however, that this was done 30 years ago because the shrink wrap I removed didn't feel like new at all. It looked, felt, and smelled like very old shrink wrapping.

So I think you're right that this is not the original Taito Amiga release but I don't think that this ebay guy who sold it to me is a fraud. Instead, I think that some US Amiga retailer made these fake Amiga versions of Renegade 30 years ago from his Atari ST stock. So the box and all accompanying material is genuine Taito stuff and not a replica. It's just that someone converted the Atari ST version into the Amiga version. Because of the age of the shrink wrapping this probably happened about 30 years ago.

The fact that the QUARTEX crack text was only uncommented in the startup sequence but not overwritten in the main executable using a hex editor also is evidence that the guy who did this wasn't very experienced. So probably a shop owner or retailer but definitely not that ebay guy who is selling it because the shrink wrapping really is anything but new.

[jotd]

That's very plausible. Fake version from bits and pieces of original stuff from another platform...

Also note that sometimes a hex editor isn't enough to remove crack messages in games, because the files can have been unpacked+altered+repacked.

Note: 20 years ago, I sold my original boxes and disks, and also bought second hand originals to be able to sell them back. I sold ALL my boxes & disks, but I must admit that in some cases I had overwritten the original versions by cracks (shame on me) just to get rid of the disk protection (of course, I made sure that there were no cracktros/crack text and all). But that was utterly stupid!

Also I repaired the originals I bought because 50% of them didn't work. It often implied to copy a cracked version over the faulty disk. Noone ever complained, as the most precious item wasn't the disk contents (the games worked after all) but the box & manual & all.

[stevsurv]

Originally Posted by mc68060

Seriously, it would be complete nonsense to assume that somebody has taken the pain to reproduce all this stuff and then sell it for $44 on ebay.

Originally Posted by Hewitson

It really wouldn't. Get a few hundred boxes made and some documentation printed in China, buy a shrinkwrap machine, and you're making an absolute killing.

It is very possible to re-shrink wrap a box. This seller is advertising a product as original where it obviously is not! You could put forward a complaint to ebay and let them investigate further.

[stevsurv]

Just comparing the Front box pictures of the 1-Ebay Amiga box, 2-Org C64 box, 3-Org Amiga box.

The Taito logo in Pic1(1-Ebay Amiga box) looks the same as the Taito logo in Pic2(2-Org C64 box).
Amiga sticker in Pic1(1-Ebay Amiga box) doesn't look like the orig amiga sticker as in Pic3(3-Org Amiga box) and both Taito logo's are different.

Ebay one possibly a fake?

[a4k-oerx]

Maybe Taito themself re-used existing stock of C64 boxes for official Atari release and later some unknown party used that Atari release to "manufacture" the Amiga release which then ended up at ebay.

So the only "fake" parts in this case would be the Amiga sticker and the contents of disk.

Guess we will never know..

[mc68060]

So the only "fake" parts in this case would be the Amiga sticker and the contents of disk.

Yes, the rest is definitely original. The print quality of the box and all additional material (manual, Taito 1988 catalogue, registration card) is excellent. This material was definitely produced by Taito. It's really easy to tell if it's in your hands.

The only thing that is fake is what's on the disk and maybe the Amiga sticker. I tried looking at the date stamp of s:startup-sequence on the disk, because it was modified by the person who compiled this package to not show the Quartex message, but unfortunately the date stamp is 1978, i.e. bad system clock settings. So it doesn't help us to tell when this was actually manufactured. All other files have 1987 datestamps.

So the most plausible explanation is still that some retailer turned some Atari ST versions of Renegade into Amiga versions, probably because of higher demand for Amiga games

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by mc68060

Yes, the rest is definitely original. The print quality of the box and all additional material (manual, Taito 1988 catalogue, registration card) is excellent. This material was definitely produced by Taito. It's really easy to tell if it's in your hands.

If I printed it on a decent paper from high quality scans it's very unlikely you'd be able to tell the difference. Same goes for shrink-wrap- it's nigh on impossible to tell, if somebody has re-wrapped it carefully. I've just bought a several 30+ old shrink wrapped boxes and they look perfectly new (NOS). The "old smell" is subjective and can come from being kept in dank storage or whatever.

It's also entirely possible somebody would go through all the hassle to do it for profit, since these games are not cheap. Some things you can print, some others get from cheaply bought incomplete lots. And this dude has quite a few of such items "NEW! only one on ebay!!!1!" things, (interestingly most of his photos are done with a potato too, which is quite lame even if he's an honest'un).


But, I'm absolutely not saying "definitely" or "100%" that it is what has happened in this case. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't, and they are really some bizarre "originals". Like a4k-oerx has just said, most likely we'll never know.

[mc68060]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

If I printed it on a decent paper from high quality scans it's very unlikely you'd be able to tell the difference.

And you really think somebody is able to pull off such high quality replicas of the box, the Taito 1988 catalogue, the registration card (complete with PERFORATION to easily cut off the card) and then ship it with an Atari ST label and a Quartex crack on the disk?

Seriously, it's nonsense. This is the original Taito Atari ST release that has been amateurishly converted into an Amiga version. Everything else just doesn't make sense.

[Konrad]

Originally Posted by mc68060

Yes, the rest is definitely original. The print quality of the box and all additional material (manual, Taito 1988 catalogue, registration card) is excellent. This material was definitely produced by Taito. It's really easy to tell if it's in your hands.

As already said, we can't find this out here for sure. It is very possible that a reseller did that 20 years ago.

BUT, not in this case: Generally speaking you really underestimate the fakes which nowadays exist.
There are fakes which even are hard to tell for professionals. They even fake the weld+position of heat shrink. Why ? Because you can make money with collectors.

So if you don't know your stuff about fakes, then just saying "It's really easy to tell if it's in your hands" is worth nothing at all .
If you're curious just google for console fakes, especially NES.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by mc68060

And you really think somebody is able to pull off such high quality replicas of the box, the Taito 1988 catalogue, the registration card (complete with PERFORATION to easily cut off the card) and then ship it with an Atari ST label and a Quartex crack on the disk?

Seriously, it's nonsense. This is the original Taito Atari ST release that has been amateurishly converted into an Amiga version. Everything else just doesn't make sense.

What I think is that I don't know what happened. Seems that you do know 100%, definitely and for sure though. Okay. It could very well be that you are right, but it also could be that you are completely wrong. And there's not enough data to go on. "Feelings" aren't the best indicator of truth here.

It's not that difficult to frankenstein together a convincing fake(s), especially if you deal in a lot of stuff over the years. Buy a few different Renegades somewhere, stitch them together, print this or that (or maybe nothing), shrink-wrap, and presto! I have an obscure Zelda Wind Waker Edition which I cobbled together from 2 different sources. And this explanation makes as much sense as the story about a renegade (pun intended) shop churning out strange hybrids of a rather lame port.

You are also the buyer, who really wants to believe, so there's that too

[mc68060]

Originally Posted by Konrad

There are fakes which even are hard to tell for professionals. They even fake the weld+position of heat shrink. Why ? Because you can make money with collectors.

So if you don't know your stuff about fakes, then just saying "It's really easy to tell if it's in your hands" is worth nothing at all .
If you're curious just google for console fakes, especially NES.

NES and consoles are a wholly different thing. This is a much much bigger market than Amiga ever was which of course also means that there are many many more collectors in that market. NES alone sold over 60 million units. Comparing the Amiga collectors' market to what's going on in the console world doesn't make much sense. Quick ebay search returns about 75,000 results for NES game and some 3,000 results for Amiga game.

Originally Posted by Konrad

BUT, not in this case: Generally speaking you really underestimate the fakes which nowadays exist.

So have you got ANY actual evidence for fakes in the Amiga market or is all your evidence based on the console retro market? The only Amiga fake case I know about is Giana Sisters which some people attempted to fake. But faking Giana sisters doesn't count either because it's stupidly easy to fake because it comes in the same plastic box as several other Rainbow Arts games, so all you have to do is get such a box and then duplicate the inlay.

But what about your typical Amiga game in a cardboard box? Has there ever been a case of such a box being faked and then sold? I don't know of any. If there really have been such cases, please provide evidence...

[Konrad]

That was not my point.

My point was that you think you can tell something is genuine by touching it, and that's simply not true. There you underestimate today's fake quality.

You can probably be sure that at least your box+docs is legit, as - as you said - the market for Amiga fakes isn't big enough. That's a at least valid argument. That can't be said about your impression of the look+feel.

[mc68060]

Originally Posted by Konrad

You can probably be sure that at least your box+docs is legit, as - as you said - the market for Amiga fakes isn't big enough. That's a at least valid argument. That can't be said about your impression of the look+feel.

It's not only about the look and feel but it's about combining what you see, smell and feel with your common sense. Of course, the fact that it just doesn't make sense to fake crappy Renegade of all things is an important factor as well. I mentioned this earlier. On top of that, I have a genuine copy of Taito's Bubble Bobble here which I used for reference and comparison and everything matches perfectly as well.

Yeah, we can't be 100% sure. But using some common sense we can be 99.9% sure that this is the Atari ST version of Renegade. Claiming this to be a replica is about as plausible as claiming Bill Gates invented the coronavirus

[DamienD]

Alrighty, let's move on now people...

[TjLaZer]

A lot of the ST stuff came on two disks vs the Amigas 1 disk. (Single sided disks) so I bet the seller used the 2 ST disks to make two Amiga versions. Question is where did he get the second box? This was clearly a swap a roo to make more $.