Remember any Retro DRM's?

the_syco

From this thread about someone looking for a game, I remembered a few of the old school anti-piracy code sheets.

With Flashback there was an A4 code sheet that had many different letters, with Micro Machines there were numbers on the back of the booklet. The awesome thing about the anti-piracy measures on the back of the MM booklet, was that the shapes were not a different colour, only "shiny black", so you had to rotate the booklet to see the codes, and thus photocopying was a lot harder.

One of the older golf games that I played on the 486 had several sheets telling you about the courses, and I'm pretty sure you needed to use words from specific sentences and pages to get into the game.

I think one of the Descent games had a sheet similar to the Flashback game, but I could be mistaken.

Anyone remember any other retro anti-piracy measures that included code sheets, booklets, or words from the game booklets?

Retr0gamer

LensLok



What a heap of crap. Only worked at certain times and if your TV was too big it didn't work at all.

Earthbound had a very memorable form of copy protection:

http://starmen.net/mother2/gameinfo/antipiracy/

Retr0gamer

Oh there was Dial a Pirate as well for Monkey Island. I always hated those black code sheets that came with a lot of games as well.

We did a whole episode on this on the arcade and retro podcast.

o1s1n

The screenshots on that link of 'loads of enemies' looks like the standard amount which were on screen when I played through on my Enternow modded cart. I think?

Anyone played through both who can compare?

Dale Parish

Elite II requires letters from various sentences now and again...

Mr.Saturn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Earthbound had a very memorable form of copy protection:

[url][/url]

The DRM on Earthbound is so genius in its trollsomeness, you just gotta admire it.

Myrddin

o1s1n wrote: »

The screenshots on that link of 'loads of enemies' looks like the standard amount which were on screen when I played through on my Enternow modded cart. I think?

Anyone played through both who can compare?

Really? That'd be weird as the game is running off a genuine Mother 2 cart with the exact amount of sram etc required. I take it it didn't freeze on the last boss & delete your save on reset?

Retr0gamer

There's never more than 4 enemies on screen at the same time in Earthbound and even 4 is a lot. there's about 6+ in the screens in those shots.

o1s1n

I definitely had more than 4 on the screen at once on many occasions. You know that dream level? I think there were about 8 question mark enemy things around me at one point. Was even causing some slowdown in the game.

o1s1n

EnterNow wrote: »

Really? That'd be weird as the game is running off a genuine Mother 2 cart with the exact amount of sram etc required. I take it it didn't freeze on the last boss & delete your save on reset?

Apparently there are a few different types of copy protection on it? I don't necessarily think it deletes your save with every one. I was able to finish the game grand - but there were many instances with loads of enemies. All the screenshots in the link retr0 provided look like screens from my version

Andrew76

One DRM I remember was this wheel thing for F/A 18 Interceptor on the Amiga, old school ftw.

Myrddin

o1s1n wrote: »

Apparently there are a few different types of copy protection on it? I don't necessarily think it deletes your save with every one. I was able to finish the game grand - but there were many instances with loads of enemies. All the screenshots in the link retr0 provided look like screens from my version

Strange that, as far as the cart is concerned everything is as it should be. Must check my own, I don't remember seeing any more than four enemies on the screen at once...

o1s1n

EnterNow wrote: »

Strange that, as far as the cart is concerned everything is as it should be. Must check my own, I don't remember seeing any more than four enemies on the screen at once...

Well I thought mine was grand. I'm only going by the link Retr0 sent -

http://theisozone.com/downloads/other-consoles/sega-saturn/battle-garegga-jap/

On that level with the Dinosaurs, I had 4 per screen. (as in the link) .

In the one with the little UFOs at the pyramid, mine was like that with about 6-8 enemies.

Same with the question marks, I had about 8 of them at one point.

Here's the thing though, enemies only spawn as you enter an area. You can backtrack, then go back into the area and they're gone.

I played through the whole game without any issues at all (I could see a child playing through fine with that level of difficulty).

If the game had less enemies than my playthrough it would seem extremely easy? :Confused:

bitburger

Metal gear solid meryls codec number from the back of the cd case, memorable because when i spent weeks looking for a cd case ingame

also had mates that rented it and hadnt a clue what do be doing!