All Psygnosis, all the time! [part deux]

rhester72 · 19 April 2023, 16:24

(Due to some extreme forum weirdness, I can no longer edit the lead post for the thread to keep it current, so I am duplicating it here. The original thread, with some very good reading as data evolved, can be found here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=113953

This one's going to be necessarily long (but relates to my efforts to preserve the remaining outliers from Psygnosis).

The elephant in the room...Brataccus. Ignoring how completely awful a game it is, it _was_ Psygnosis' first and historically important (see Bandersnatch), so it's absolutely worth preservation. Trouble is, the NTSC version is well-preserved (and was distributed by Mindscape, no less)...but I've yet to even see a cracked release of a PAL version. Did one even exist, or was there not really a NTSC-specific version and the same code was sold everywhere? (It may, in fact, have been NTSC only - its release being one month after the introduction of PAL Amigas! On the other hand, the manual on HOL shows a UK address with no mention of Mindscape and the game was reviewed in March 1986 in a UK-based magazine, so...)

Then we have the Psyclapse games...and best as I can tell, all of them were PAL exclusives. Does anyone have any data to dispute that?

Barbarian II is inbound at the moment.

Missing NTSC releases (without even unofficial preservation dumps/IPFs) that have been confirmed to exist include:

Globdule HD installable (not sure if it actually existed in NTSC or otherwise, but mentioned in the manual)
[Nothing else! Thank EVERYONE for contributing!]

Have one to dump? Let me know!

And finally...the list of games that I *think* were PAL only based on fairly extensive research but there's always a possibility someone will stand up and say "I have a NTSC version of that!", so I'm including these for completeness (along with commentary where applicable). Know of a NTSC version? Please speak up!

A special note about Shadow of the Beast...*really*? II and III had separate NTSC releases, but not the original? I _know_ this was sold in the US - I saw it, more than once! [Notes on this below]

(Believed to be) PAL-only releases:

All New World of Lemmings AGA
Armour-Geddon II: Codename Hellfire
Barbarian [believed to have been sold in the US, universal release?]
Benefactor
Blood Money [played a cracked version of this a lot in college...was it really never sold in NTSC form?]
Bob's Bad Day
Brian the Lion
Brian the Lion AGA
Chrono Quest
Chrono Quest II [likely universal release]
Cliffhanger [movie titles never made it to the US for some reason]
Combat Air Patrol [a NTSC-labeled box is known to exist, but the ambiguously-labelled game is PAL!]
Dracula (Bram Stoker's)
Dungeon Master v3.x [v2.x was Amiga NTSC/US]
Globdule HD installable [not sure if it actually existed in PAL or otherwise, but mentioned in the manual]
Hired Guns [also played this a lot, but may have been an Aminet demo?]
Holiday Lemmings 1993
Holiday Lemmings 1994
Infestation
Innocent Until Caught
Last Action Hero [see earlier comment about movie games]
Obliterator [definitely sold in the US, universal release]
Perihelion: The Prophecy
Prime Mover [a NTSC-labeled box is known to exist, but the ambiguously-labelled game is PAL!]
Puggsy
Second Samurai
Second Samurai AGA
Shadow of the Beast [I refuse to believe this! The most popular game they made? 2 and 3 had NTSC releases...maybe NTSC and PAL auto-sensing?] <- Someone put a dump claiming to be a NTSC release in The Zone, but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet
Terrorpods
Theatre of Death
Walker
Wiz 'n' Liz
X-It

rhester72 · 19 April 2023, 17:05

Prime Mover is weird.

Just like Combat Air Patrol (described here), the box is very clearly labeled NTSC with a US registration card, but the disks themselves are NOT labeled NTSC (or PAL, for that matter - see the HOL diskscan here, mine looks exactly like the one on the left), and are in fact PAL!

More specifically, when booting, everything looks like it _could_ be NTSC on disk 1 up until the "loading.. please wait" message (which is very badly vertically centered), and then once disk 2 is inserted and the game screen proper comes up, the "Prime Mover" logo at the bottom is mostly (but not entirely) cut off and the game glitches badly during play (none of which happens when booted in PAL).

I can't say why there's at least two Psygnosis games in their catalog that were retailed in NTSC-land but with PAL-only media, but I'm 100% confident this happened because _the package was factory-sealed when I received it_.

That being the case, I've zoned the preservation flux anyway (even though I strongly suspect they are identical to the already-preserved SPS release).

One more interesting detail is the disk-analyse conversion of Disk 2. It outputs thusly:

Code:

*** T77.0: Unexpected track length (seen 105671, expected 100150)
*** T78.0: Unexpected track length (seen 105690, expected 100150)
*** T78.1: Unexpected track length (seen 105685, expected 100150)
*** T79.0: Unexpected track length (seen 105672, expected 100150)
*** T79.1: Unexpected track length (seen 105686, expected 100150)
T0.0: AmigaDOS
T0.1-76.1: Prime Mover
T77.0: AmigaDOS
T77.1: Prime Mover
T78.0-79.1: AmigaDOS
T80.0-83.1: Unformatted

suggesting that there's something other than AmigaDOS-sectored data on those tracks. It only happens on disk 2, but the game works perfectly, so...*shrugs*

EDIT: Confirmed via RawDIC that the disks are 100% identical to the SPS release.

rhester72 · 19 April 2023, 18:14

AWESOME (raw preservation flux and unofficial IPFs) Zoned.

Not much noteworthy about it, except even with an official NTSC version the bottom of the screen (where the score and remaining enemies are) is about half cut off at the bottom (past the overscan boundary).

Disks don't seem to have ever been written to as far as I can tell...if anyone sees differently, please advise!

demoniac · 20 April 2023, 05:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhester72

Blood Money [played a cracked version of this a lot in college...was it really never sold in NTSC form?]

I can't believe this, because the poster was available in the US.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhester72

Obliterator

This was definitely sold in the US.

rhester72 · 20 April 2023, 15:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by demoniac

I can't believe this, because the poster was available in the US.

And I want to believe you, but there's just so much evidence to the contrary:

- The SPS dump is absolutely PAL.
- There are no cracks of any kind in TOSEC or elsewhere that are known to exist that are NTSC.
- There's over a dozen copies available on eBay, but exactly zero in North America.
- The physical PAL floppy does not indicate PAL (or any region), and all other known examples of this from Psygnosis have been coded in PAL (despite two similar titles being sold in NTSC boxes in the US!). Similarly, none of the boxes are labeled PAL/Europe/Australasia, which is typical when there was a separate and distinct NTSC release.

I can perhaps explain the poster being in the US...a lot of US resellers imported games from Europe for sale in the US to try to augment sales, particularly after 1992 when US games publishing began to decline. It wouldn't be the first time an (intended) European-exclusive release (not so much to exclude the US market, but simply due to perception by especially UK publishers that there *was* no US market!) was sold on US shores.

Quote:

Originally Posted by demoniac

This was definitely sold in the US.

Noted - I'll update the list to indicate that. It's definitely a 'universal' release then...the RawDIC conversions of the SPS release and both of Abaddon's dumps are all identical.

dlfrsilver · 20 April 2023, 15:56

Ok, here my check :

Awesome NTSC : the Protec $4454 long serial track is bad on disk 2. It's good on disk 3.
so i have replaced Disk 2 bad track with Disk 3 track 0.1. The set of IPF is in the zone.

Prime Mover NTSC : the dump is simply bad, the disks need a clean up. I can't encode anything.

rhester72 · 20 April 2023, 15:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Prime Mover NTSC : the dump is simply bad, the disks need a clean up. I can't encode anything.

From the raw flux? I encoded with no issue at all and can easily boot play from the resulting IPF and the flux. Greaseweazle indicated no issues at all with the data, nor did disk-analyse.

I can try cleaning and redumping the disks, but they were literally brand new straight out of sealed retail packaging.

dlfrsilver · 20 April 2023, 16:20

Also uploading Pinball Fantasies with pristine highscore track (unmodified) in the zone, and the IPF.

dlfrsilver · 20 April 2023, 16:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhester72

From the raw flux? I encoded with no issue at all and can easily boot play from the resulting IPF and the flux. Greaseweazle indicated no issues at all with the data, nor did disk-analyse.

I can try cleaning and redumping the disks, but they were literally brand new straight out of sealed retail packaging.

Sealed doesn't mean you won't have mould on the disk surface.

Disk 1 for Prime Mover has 8 bad tracks. I have not even tried to encode disk 2.

rhester72 · 20 April 2023, 16:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Disk 1 for Prime Mover has 8 bad tracks. I have not even tried to encode disk 2.

Are they supposed to be empty?

The RAWDic dump of my IPF exactly matches the official SPS release.

dlfrsilver · 20 April 2023, 16:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhester72

Are they supposed to be empty?

The RAWDic dump of my IPF exactly matches the official SPS release.

the tracks are supposed to be clean. And they are not !

rhester72 · 20 April 2023, 16:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

the tracks are supposed to be clean. And they are not !

OK...I'm trying to learn here. What does that _actually mean_?

If I am using that flux to create an IPF that functions, then by definition there's nothing wrong with the data, correct?

If I then use that IPF to create a RAWDic image containing all of the game code, and it is md5sum-identical to the SPS release, how is the 'lack of cleanliness' a real-world factor?

EDIT: Hold on a response to this. I'm not actually entirely sure the RAWDic is, in fact, the same. I'll have more time to look at it this weekend. I hope.

demoniac · 20 April 2023, 20:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhester72

And I want to believe you, but there's just so much evidence to the contrary:

- The SPS dump is absolutely PAL.
- There are no cracks of any kind in TOSEC or elsewhere that are known to exist that are NTSC.
- There's over a dozen copies available on eBay, but exactly zero in North America.
- The physical PAL floppy does not indicate PAL (or any region), and all other known examples of this from Psygnosis have been coded in PAL (despite two similar titles being sold in NTSC boxes in the US!). Similarly, none of the boxes are labeled PAL/Europe/Australasia, which is typical when there was a separate and distinct NTSC release.

I got the poster before 92. I want to say 90/91. I didn't buy it either. Likely I picked it up at a trade show.

Maybe they just did an international release for it.

dlfrsilver · 21 April 2023, 02:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhester72

OK...I'm trying to learn here. What does that _actually mean_?

If I am using that flux to create an IPF that functions, then by definition there's nothing wrong with the data, correct?

If I then use that IPF to create a RAWDic image containing all of the game code, and it is md5sum-identical to the SPS release, how is the 'lack of cleanliness' a real-world factor?

EDIT: Hold on a response to this. I'm not actually entirely sure the RAWDic is, in fact, the same. I'll have more time to look at it this weekend. I hope.

the SPS encoder show and tells me that the dump is bad. I can't make a set of IPF from it.

rhester72 · 24 May 2023, 17:41

@dlfrsilver I've thoroughly cleaned Prime Mover disk 1 with 99.9% IPA and redumped, please take a look - if it's better, I'll redo the other disk

dlfrsilver · 24 May 2023, 19:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhester72

@dlfrsilver I've thoroughly cleaned Prime Mover disk 1 with 99.9% IPA and redumped, please take a look - if it's better, I'll redo the other disk

Now disk 1 is fine ! I can make an IPF. Please do the same for disk 2.

rhester72 · 14 June 2023, 20:45

@dlfrsilver - I didn't forget

I (re-)Zoned my original preservation dump, because it's in the best shape of the nearly 30 attempts I've made after thoroughly cleaning the disk a few weeks ago (which appears to have screwed it up quite badly!). "Attempt 2" also Zoned, it's the best of that batch, but that's as good as it's going to get. The original dump (from a missing sectors/errored tracks/etc.) standpoint appears to be whole.

dlfrsilver · 15 June 2023, 01:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhester72

@dlfrsilver - I didn't forget

I (re-)Zoned my original preservation dump, because it's in the best shape of the nearly 30 attempts I've made after thoroughly cleaning the disk a few weeks ago (which appears to have screwed it up quite badly!). "Attempt 2" also Zoned, it's the best of that batch, but that's as good as it's going to get. The original dump (from a missing sectors/errored tracks/etc.) standpoint appears to be whole.

Ok please remove both dumped, i have fixed Disk 2 try 1 track 0.0 (bad) with Disk 2 try 2 track 0.0 (Good). The remaining tracks in try 1 are good.

I made an IPF set of Prime Mover NTSC.

Each zoned !

rhester72 · 15 June 2023, 04:09

Thank you very much!

rhester72 · 16 November 2023, 21:38

Holy Grail found!

Oh No! More Lemmings NTSC Stand-Alone in The Zone!

19 April 2023, 16:24	#1
rhester72 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: New York / USA Posts: 360	All Psygnosis, all the time! [part deux] (Due to some extreme forum weirdness, I can no longer edit the lead post for the thread to keep it current, so I am duplicating it here. The original thread, with some very good reading as data evolved, can be found here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=113953 This one's going to be necessarily long (but relates to my efforts to preserve the remaining outliers from Psygnosis). The elephant in the room...Brataccus. Ignoring how completely awful a game it is, it _was_ Psygnosis' first and historically important (see Bandersnatch), so it's absolutely worth preservation. Trouble is, the NTSC version is well-preserved (and was distributed by Mindscape, no less)...but I've yet to even see a cracked release of a PAL version. Did one even exist, or was there not really a NTSC-specific version and the same code was sold everywhere? (It may, in fact, have been NTSC only - its release being one month after the introduction of PAL Amigas! On the other hand, the manual on HOL shows a UK address with no mention of Mindscape and the game was reviewed in March 1986 in a UK-based magazine, so...) Then we have the Psyclapse games...and best as I can tell, all of them were PAL exclusives. Does anyone have any data to dispute that? Barbarian II is inbound at the moment. Missing NTSC releases (without even unofficial preservation dumps/IPFs) that have been confirmed to exist include: Globdule HD installable (not sure if it actually existed in NTSC or otherwise, but mentioned in the manual) [Nothing else! Thank EVERYONE for contributing!] Have one to dump? Let me know! And finally...the list of games that I think were PAL only based on fairly extensive research but there's always a possibility someone will stand up and say "I have a NTSC version of that!", so I'm including these for completeness (along with commentary where applicable). Know of a NTSC version? Please speak up! A special note about Shadow of the Beast...really? II and III had separate NTSC releases, but not the original? I _know_ this was sold in the US - I saw it, more than once! [Notes on this below] (Believed to be) PAL-only releases: All New World of Lemmings AGA Armour-Geddon II: Codename Hellfire Barbarian [believed to have been sold in the US, universal release?] Benefactor Blood Money [played a cracked version of this a lot in college...was it really never sold in NTSC form?] Bob's Bad Day Brian the Lion Brian the Lion AGA Chrono Quest Chrono Quest II [likely universal release] Cliffhanger [movie titles never made it to the US for some reason] Combat Air Patrol [a NTSC-labeled box is known to exist, but the ambiguously-labelled game is PAL!] Dracula (Bram Stoker's) Dungeon Master v3.x [v2.x was Amiga NTSC/US] Globdule HD installable [not sure if it actually existed in PAL or otherwise, but mentioned in the manual] Hired Guns [also played this a lot, but may have been an Aminet demo?] Holiday Lemmings 1993 Holiday Lemmings 1994 Infestation Innocent Until Caught Last Action Hero [see earlier comment about movie games] Obliterator [definitely sold in the US, universal release] Perihelion: The Prophecy Prime Mover [a NTSC-labeled box is known to exist, but the ambiguously-labelled game is PAL!] Puggsy Second Samurai Second Samurai AGA Shadow of the Beast [I refuse to believe this! The most popular game they made? 2 and 3 had NTSC releases...maybe NTSC and PAL auto-sensing?] <- Someone put a dump claiming to be a NTSC release in The Zone, but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet Terrorpods Theatre of Death Walker Wiz 'n' Liz X-It Last edited by rhester72; 28 February 2024 at 15:29.

19 April 2023, 17:05	#2
rhester72 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: New York / USA Posts: 360	Prime Mover is weird. Just like Combat Air Patrol (described here), the box is very clearly labeled NTSC with a US registration card, but the disks themselves are NOT labeled NTSC (or PAL, for that matter - see the HOL diskscan here, mine looks exactly like the one on the left), and are in fact PAL! More specifically, when booting, everything looks like it _could_ be NTSC on disk 1 up until the "loading.. please wait" message (which is very badly vertically centered), and then once disk 2 is inserted and the game screen proper comes up, the "Prime Mover" logo at the bottom is mostly (but not entirely) cut off and the game glitches badly during play (none of which happens when booted in PAL). I can't say why there's at least two Psygnosis games in their catalog that were retailed in NTSC-land but with PAL-only media, but I'm 100% confident this happened because _the package was factory-sealed when I received it_. That being the case, I've zoned the preservation flux anyway (even though I strongly suspect they are identical to the already-preserved SPS release). One more interesting detail is the disk-analyse conversion of Disk 2. It outputs thusly: Code: * T77.0: Unexpected track length (seen 105671, expected 100150) * T78.0: Unexpected track length (seen 105690, expected 100150) * T78.1: Unexpected track length (seen 105685, expected 100150) * T79.0: Unexpected track length (seen 105672, expected 100150) *** T79.1: Unexpected track length (seen 105686, expected 100150) T0.0: AmigaDOS T0.1-76.1: Prime Mover T77.0: AmigaDOS T77.1: Prime Mover T78.0-79.1: AmigaDOS T80.0-83.1: Unformatted suggesting that there's something other than AmigaDOS-sectored data on those tracks. It only happens on disk 2, but the game works perfectly, so...shrugs EDIT: Confirmed via RawDIC that the disks are 100% identical to the SPS release. Last edited by rhester72; 19 April 2023 at 19:43.

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19 April 2023, 18:14	#3
rhester72 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: New York / USA Posts: 360	AWESOME (raw preservation flux and unofficial IPFs) Zoned. Not much noteworthy about it, except even with an official NTSC version the bottom of the screen (where the score and remaining enemies are) is about half cut off at the bottom (past the overscan boundary). Disks don't seem to have ever been written to as far as I can tell...if anyone sees differently, please advise!

20 April 2023, 15:56	#6
dlfrsilver CaptainM68K-SPS France Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Melun nearby Paris/France Age: 46 Posts: 10,413	Ok, here my check : Awesome NTSC : the Protec $4454 long serial track is bad on disk 2. It's good on disk 3. so i have replaced Disk 2 bad track with Disk 3 track 0.1. The set of IPF is in the zone. Prime Mover NTSC : the dump is simply bad, the disks need a clean up. I can't encode anything.

20 April 2023, 16:20	#8
dlfrsilver CaptainM68K-SPS France Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Melun nearby Paris/France Age: 46 Posts: 10,413	Also uploading Pinball Fantasies with pristine highscore track (unmodified) in the zone, and the IPF.

24 May 2023, 17:41	#15
rhester72 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: New York / USA Posts: 360	@dlfrsilver I've thoroughly cleaned Prime Mover disk 1 with 99.9% IPA and redumped, please take a look - if it's better, I'll redo the other disk

14 June 2023, 20:45	#17
rhester72 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: New York / USA Posts: 360	@dlfrsilver - I didn't forget I (re-)Zoned my original preservation dump, because it's in the best shape of the nearly 30 attempts I've made after thoroughly cleaning the disk a few weeks ago (which appears to have screwed it up quite badly!). "Attempt 2" also Zoned, it's the best of that batch, but that's as good as it's going to get. The original dump (from a missing sectors/errored tracks/etc.) standpoint appears to be whole.

15 June 2023, 04:09	#19
rhester72 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: New York / USA Posts: 360	Thank you very much!

16 November 2023, 21:38	#20
rhester72 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: New York / USA Posts: 360	Holy Grail found! Oh No! More Lemmings NTSC Stand-Alone in The Zone!

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