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There is some rather vulgar anti-piracy text left in the game's files that states:
"Yo buddy! I don't know and I don't care how and why are you here, I just want to give you a few advises in case if you're here to CRACK this stuff.Well,in every 80 seconds a man is murdered,and in every 10 seconds another one of our PROTECTION-STAGES starts. In other words, you can be sure that you will NEVER have a WORKING CRACK of PERIHELION. (WANNA BET?) Of course you're proud and you'll try (I too would try) but you will fail because you won't even realize where did ya fail, what's the problem,what is PROTECTION and what is not.Phew,that's life! Will you play it over a dozen times? IT WON'T WORK! Will you release a fuckin' dying half-crack? WHAT A SHAME! Relax honey,you're gonna suck up not because you're SOOO LAME,but because WE ARE SOOO GOOD! Right? Well,that's all for today,now go back to your childish toys and let's see how our computerized insecticide works on parasites like you. By the way,did ya know that PIRACY IS THEFT? Oh,surely not,sorry... Now at least you cannot say we didn't warn you... SIGNED: MORBID VISIONS"
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In the Amiga version of the game's files contains a message for people who attempt to pirate the game:
"Line Of Fire was written by Richard Aplin for Creative Materials & U.S. Gold from July-November 1990.
;Dear Cracker, ;To save you time, simply fill in the appropriate lines below..
type "Line Of Fire! type " Cracked by the utterly amazing and fab _________ of _______!" type "Hot greets to _____ and _____!!" type "Lamings and slaggings to _____ of _____ and _____!!!" type "Call our BBSs on ____-______ and ____-______ for the latest warez!" type "" type "I am a sad and immature spotty little twat because _______________." type "I crack games for free as I have no friends" type "and am physically repulsive to females because of my chronic _______." type "I hate my parents because they _____ and make me tidy me room even" type "when I have been at kindergarten the whole day." type "" type "I have played with myself ____ times in the past 24 hours" type "and have wet dreams about ________ from Neighbours." type "" type "The last Kylie Minogue record I brought was ________ and I think" type "she's lush and fab and ace and wicked because she's _________ and I fancy her." type "" type "Press right button for trainer, left for normal. Probably." Crap_Demo_That_Crashes_Half_The_Time_And_Has_A_Sprite_Starfield_Oooh_How_Original run Corrupt_loads_of_memory_all_over_the_place Game
***************************************************************************** *If you are under 14 or have a Datel Action Replay, you may not read further* *****************************************************************************
Right that's that over with.
Firstly.... For those who might possibly be interested, rather than those who just want to hack the program to bits....
Sega wouldn't let us have ANY credits on the game, so I thought we might as well put some here.
I (Richard Aplin) wrote the Amiga and ST versions (though at the time of writing - 12th Nov.1990 - I haven't started the ST conversion yet!) I much prefer the Amiga (doesn't anyone?) so I have done that version first, using all the extra hardware, then i'm going to bang out the ST version when necessary.
"Uncle Art" (actually a limited company!) did the (not very good) music. - Oh yeah.. Apologies and sympathy to Uncle Tom (the person!) for the fuck up with his amazing Double Dragon II music!
The bitmap graphics were grabbed from the arcade PCB video output by Andy Heike and Nick Vincent with the colour frame grabber, and the sprites were read, decoded and converted from the arcade machine's Eproms by me. (Not a bit of bloody help from Sega either!) They were remapped from 21 million to 16 colours by Andy Heike, Nick Vincent, and some students in Manchester.
I sampled the sound effects from the PCB's sound chip (not very hard at all!)
Tiertex wrote the protection check code (which is utter shit - well on form for Tiertex!)
Steve Fitton and Tony Porter from U.S. Gold provided all the nagging and hassle which was most unwelcome, but kind of expected anyway.
During the writing of this, I used:
Work ==== 3 Commodore A500s 21Mb A590 Hard Disk + 2.5Mb ram Commodore A1000 + 2Mb ram Tandon 20Mhz 80386 PC + 40Mb Hard Disk Souped-up JCL Colourpic video frame-grabber PerfectSound sampler Some custom EPROM-reading hardware I built to read the arcade board's roms. Atari 1040ST (yuk) +Various extra drives, disks, etc,etc Lots of coffee
Fun (Notice how the two are divided?!?) === Nintendo GameBoy (+Tetris & others) Sega MegaDrive (+Ghouls'n'ghosts, etc) Mr.Do! arcade board Hundreds of records, tapes & CDs and a {} stereo Sony Video Walkman (+Blackadder 1-4, Comic Strip, Young Ones, and others) Roland D110 multi-timbral LA synth (rackmount) Cheetah MS6 multi-timbral analogue synth (rackmount) Yamaha TX7 FM synth (stupidly-shaped black box) Casio FZ1 16-bit sampler + loads of disks Alesis Quadraverb 16-bit digital fx processor (rackmount) Fender Strat guitar (well, a cheap clone) A couple of guitar fx pedals DeskTech 6:2 mixer MicroIllusions Music-X sequencer (Amazing program) Virtually no musical talent/ability whatsoever US Robotics Courier HST modem (for P.D. BBSs of course) Many gallons of beer, Black Bush whisky, Potheen (when available - cheers Mark!) Various people's floors/sofas/etc in London when at computer shows (most time spent at the bar)"
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Inside the game's files is a vulgar message to pirates: STOP IT =NOW=, OK! You will gain *NOTHING* from breaking this protection, but I guess you're too fucking ignorant, narrow-minded or maybe even too stupid to understand that. Yeah, so you and your 'leaders' and 'spreaders' (that's what they like to call themselves, but they're nothing but LEECHES gaining some kind of fame from the work you do) will have something to spread around on BBS', ok... But what the hell do they, or you, REALLY get for all that, huh? Ok credits... So they can download some shit games or other software, but in a wider perspective? I'll tell you =NOTHING=. It's pointless. If you don't realize that now, I assure you that in a few years you will look back at this time and wonder why you did it. I know that from experience. Go and do something constructive, like studying, socializing, programming or whatever! Cracking is not constructive. To you it might seem like a challenge or something you do to get famous, well OK it is a challenge to crack, and you do get famous if you're good at it. Famous for a while, a short while. But nobody will care about that five years from now. You will benefit much more from getting a job, education or a girlfriend, I'm telling you because I KNOW. I was a cracker once, one of the best. In a time when you could actually send the originals by mail, work for a day or two, and then send the cracked version back, and still have a world-first release. Then the scene consisted by computer freaks who made it for the fun of it. The scene today is perverted and lead by ignorant computer-illiterate idiots, only in for the fame and money. They think they're famous and legendary, but nobody likes or admires them for sure. I HATE IT! Now I've realized the stupidity of my actions, and I wish I could undo them. You'll also do just that in a few years too if you have a conscience, and wish you had done something else. SO DON'T CRACK IT!"
Another one is written by Stefan Boberg, the game's creator, who may have also written the message above:
================ DIVINE PROTECTION BY =THE MIGHTY GOD= WRITE TO ME: boberg@lysator.liu.se FINALLY YOU HAVETHE OPPORTUNITY TO SPEAK TO A REAL COMPUTER ===== GOD! ===== CURRENTLY STUDYING APPLIED PHYSICS AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AT LINKOPING INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY!! =====SWEDEN===== Don't even think about it. Cracking is both illegal and immoral and will get you NOWHERE in this world. We have spent a lot of time doing this game, and we will not hesitate to take legal actions against those who duplicate this game illegally. We have complete overview over the cracking scene, and know your name and whereabouts, no doubt. We have prepared a nice surprise for you. You may think it is challenging, exciting or even glorious to crack, but from our point of view it is nothing but theft and sabotage. You may have read or heard all this before, but this time it's different and REAL. We mean it. Think about it. If you continue doing what you're doing right now, the game programmers will have to leave the Amiga programming in favour for Nintendo, Sega etc. It is up to you and the rest of the Amiga users. If you still insist on being an ignorant egocentric lowlife and go ahead cracking this, go ahead, try me. It won't be easy. It will be hard, damn close to impossible, destructive, and it will be SO DAMN POINTLESS. Go and do something else instead, something positive and constructive, do that homework of yours, read a book, learn something, call some friend, date a girl, or whatever. Or if you can't get away from the computer, do something yourself, something useful or fun. This protection is the toughest ever. Unbreachable. That's what all I have to say, now it's up to you to decide whether you should crack this or not. We hope you won't. It'll be so much easier and less painful for all of us, especially for you. Signed, the creator of this and plenty to come protections, Stefan Boberg"
If the game detects that it is being run illicitly, when Gohan first goes to the world map, a message will appear saying "This game will not run on the hardware found.". You will then be sent to the title screen.
If the game detects 0KB of SRAM (normal carts have 2KB), an anti-piracy screen will trigger and prevent the game from playing. The game will present the same screen if a series of tests made to detect copying devices fails.
When playing an emulated or pirated copy of the game, only five levels and a final boss are playable. After beating the final boss, a screen will come up telling the player to play a cartridge version of the game and will not allow the full version of the game to play.
If the game detects that it's a pirated copy, a screen will appear saying "Winners don't make copy!!". The message is a reference to the phrase "Winners don't use drugs", which appeared in arcade cabinets in the 1990s.
As a way to deter software piracy, the player is prompted to answer questions when starting a new game based on materials found in the game's manual. Failing to answer these properly will cause a significant spike in difficulty, including a forced failure during the game's tutorial sword fight, starting with lower health and crew, and immediately being targeted by the English, Spanish, French, and Dutch governments.
If the game detects that it is being played on a catridge copier, you won't be able to run, jump, or shoot in the game, technically making the game unplayable.
If the game detects that you're playing a pirated copy of the game, a message will appear saying "This program will not run on the hardware found", making the pirated copy unplayable.
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If the game detects the disk ID has been modified it will display a picture of Ranma naked, saying "Too bad huh..." thus locking the game and making it unplayable.
If the game detects that the copy you're playing has been pirated, a screen will appear saying "This game will not run on this hardware" making it unplayable.
A demo mode was made available via the Japanese site that could be downloaded onto the PSP and featured all characters from the three kingdoms. However, just a few hours after release, a code was discovered that made all the 'Other' type characters also available for use. After a lawsuit threat from Koei, the code was taken down. The demo had a level cap of three and had only three stages, although all weapons were available for use.
The NES prototype of Mother has an anti-piracy message, preventing it from being played on an emulator.
A ROM-translating group, "Neo Demiforce", created a ROM that circumvents the anti-piracy measures. They also added the word "Zero" to the title screen in order to prevent confusion with Mother 2, released in North America as Earthbound for SNES.
Pirating the game causes all characters to wear pirate hats, which cannot be removed. The pirated version was released by the developers themselves with the hope that people would appreciate the joke and purchase the game.
After finishing the story mode of a pirated copy of the game, a notice will pop up saying "What is the square root of a fish? Now I'm sad." This was most likely added to confuse pirates.
Within the game's code is an aggressive message aimed at crackers who were looking to release the game to pirates. This cannot be seen within the game itself.
Spoiler:MESSAGE TO FAGSHITE AND PARAPLEGIC AND ALL THE OTHER DICKHEADS! BETTER LUCK THIS TIME! TRY AND REMOVE MORE THAT 20% OF THE PROTECTION THIS TIME YOU USELESS CUNTS! ISN'T IT TIME YOU STOPPED PULLING YOUR DICKS AND LEFT YOUR BEDROOMS AND GOT A REAL JOB?
If the game detects 0KB of SRAM (normal carts have 2KB), an anti-piracy screen will trigger and prevent the game from playing. The game will present the same screen if a series of tests made to detect copying devices fails.
When playing an emulated or pirated copy of the game, only five levels and a final boss are playable. After beating the final boss, a screen will come up telling the player to play a cartridge version of the game and will not allow the full version of the game to play.
If the game detects that the copy you're playing has been pirated, a screen will appear saying "This game will not run on this hardware" making it unplayable.
The NES prototype of Mother has an anti-piracy message, preventing it from being played on an emulator.
After finishing the story mode of a pirated copy of the game, a notice will pop up saying "What is the square root of a fish? Now I'm sad." This was most likely added to confuse pirates.
