Arcade Action II 101 in 1

[taizou]

cah4e3 dumped another one of my carts, the Arcade Action II 101 in 1, containing 1 original(?) game, F22 (a shooter, with an.. interesting intro), and 60ish hacks:
http://cah4e3.shedevr.org.ru/dumping_2010.php
you'll need the latest version of FCEU from his site.

F22 crashes at the end of the first level, which I guess is an emulation problem - I just sent him an email about that, so we'll see. also its sound effects are a bit off, probably for the same reason the menu music is - it apparently has duplicate sound hardware (which isnt emulated yet). this is what the menu sounds like on real hardware:
http://fuji.drillspirits.net/stuff/menu.mp3

[codeman38]

Wow, these are some elaborate hacks. Nonsensical, on occasion, too-- I love how Batman is now Hellfire by "Funfoat" and "DC Spinsi" (?!). Or the James Bond Jr and Tiny Toons hacks, where they edited the sprites but forgot to change the story text...

And it runs on the same mapper as Street Dance. So it's probably the same Invent behind both.

[Awesome Panda]

codeman38

Nov 22 2010, 11:59:03 AM

Or the James Bond Jr and Tiny Toons hacks, where they edited the sprites but forgot to change the story text...[/quote]Same for the Arkanoid hack. Even better, in the Race America hack they forgot to edit the credits screen. :lol: The background on the menu is also used on the Famicom Yarou Vol 5 7-in-1 which also includes some of these hacks. Also, I'm not sure if anyone else spotted this but within the repeats is Door Door, which they apparently forgot to hack. :lol: Also, why did they hack Super Contra 6 instead of Contra Force? Oh, and in case you didn't notice, the overworld theme in Pandamar is different, and ripped off from some song from the 1920's I forget the name of.

codeman38

 

And it runs on the same mapper as Street Dance. So it's probably the same Invent behind both.[/quote]
If that's the case, then might it be possible that they also hacked one of Sunsoft's later games? (that is, ones that use the sound chip Invent ripped off for Street Dance)

[taizou]

Cheetahmen

Nov 22 2010, 02:04:49 PM

Also, I'm not sure if anyone else spotted this but within the repeats is Door Door, which they apparently forgot to hack. :lol: [/quote]I think Door Door and Track & Field were both last minute additions (hence them being unhacked) - cah4e3 mentioned the graphics from an unused Dead Fox (Japanese Codename Viper) hack, "Extremity Task", at the end of the ROM, but if you compare it to the real game's CHR you can see the Track & Field and Door Door stuff occupies the same space as the missing graphics. so I guess for some reason Extremity Task wasn't working out, and they decided to overwrite it with those two games.

[codeman38]

Ooh. Don't know if this is significant, but amidst the sprites for F-22 in the ROM is the logo for Shanghai Paradise Science & Technology.

[Awesome Panda]

taizou

Nov 22 2010, 03:55:00 PM

Cheetahmen

Nov 22 2010, 02:04:49 PM

Also, I'm not sure if anyone else spotted this but within the repeats is Door Door, which they apparently forgot to hack. :lol: [/quote]I think Door Door and Track & Field were both last minute additions (hence them being unhacked) - cah4e3 mentioned the graphics from an unused Dead Fox (Japanese Codename Viper) hack, "Extremity Task", at the end of the ROM, but if you compare it to the real game's CHR you can see the Track & Field and Door Door stuff occupies the same space as the missing graphics. so I guess for some reason Extremity Task wasn't working out, and they decided to overwrite it with those two games. [/quote]That makes sense I guess, although given how lazy these hacks are you'd think it wouldn't take them long to hack Door Door. Like a few other multicarts, Track & Field was split up into numerous events.

BTW, look what I found in the ROM.

Spoiler: click to toggle

Apparently for some crazy reason, they included tiles from one of Paradise Science & Technology's games, although given that none of the games are based off Rad Racer (as to my knowledge, those are the only hacks they did) I've got no idea what it's doing there. Maybe Invent/Inventor is an alias of it or something? Mind you, some of the graphics in F22 have a vaguely similar style to the ones in those games, except (with the exception of the horribly done cutscenes) slightly better I guess.

codeman38

 

Ooh. Don't know if this is significant, but amidst the sprites for F-22 in the ROM is the logo for Shanghai Paradise Science & Technology. [/quote]

Somehow, I figured that'd happen. :lol:

[taizou]

That Shanghai Paradise logo is actually loaded into memory when the game boots, but it isnt displayed (just a blank screen.. that you can skip with the start button, which definitely points to it being a copyright screen that was removed rather than some kind of loading delay)

and as cah4e3 mentioned there was supposed to be text in the intro, but the font was removed - unfortunately you can't restore it either, it seems to have been stored as blocks of graphics rather than a standard font. maybe it was Chinese?

Skiing is on this  12 in 1 as "Alps Skiing" along with a bunch of other hacks, some of which are from this cart.. and it's a pretty extensive hack of Shanghai Paradise's Super Hang-On '97 (which itself is an extensive hack of Rad Racer). so i wonder if F22 is a hack of some as yet unknown Shanghai Paradise game? (or if Shanghai Paradise itself became Inventor, even)

[Awesome Panda]

I'd say it makes sense for Skiing and those other hacks to be by the same company, although it does raise a couple of issues. Firstly, Super Hang-On (the hack) and Skiing were made in 1997 whereas the other hacks were made around about 2000/2001. Maybe Shanghai lived off those Rad Racer hacks to start with and then they made the other hacks for multicarts later on. Also, F22 appears to be made from scratch as far as I can tell but none of the other games are so maybe Inventor was a seperate company that developed that game and Street Dance?

BTW, I just realised that the layout in the Pinball hack is actually a little bit different to the one in the original game, much like how that game on the V-Mega Computer is. I doubt they're the same hack, but it's a bit odd that 2 seperate ones both change the level design, especially when one of them is made by a developer that rarely does that.

Edit: I forgot to point this out earlier but I think the characters on the opponent select screen (apart from the bios, of course) of the Race America hack are taken from one of the Saint Seiya games. Not entirely sure about that though.

[taizou]

Cheetahmen

Nov 22 2010, 05:52:54 PM

I'd say it makes sense for Skiing and those other hacks to be by the same company, although it does raise a couple of issues. Firstly, Super Hang-On (the hack) and Skiing were made in 1997 whereas the other hacks were made around about 2000/2001. Maybe Shanghai lived off those Rad Racer hacks to start with and then they made the other hacks for multicarts later on. Also, F22 appears to be made from scratch as far as I can tell but none of the other games are so maybe Inventor was a seperate company that developed that game and Street Dance?[/quote]well, we only know for sure that Super Hang-On was made in 1997. Skiing has the same copyright stored in the ROM, but it isn't actually displayed, so it might just be a leftover from Super Hang-on. but that still leaves the question of what they were doing between 97 and 2000.

Inventor is credited in one of the hacks though, "Sea War 2000" (no 55). so they definitely had something to do with at least some of the hacks too.

also looking through the rom there are two unused game names stored with the menu text - "Air-Umb" and "On the Moon". Air-Umb is almost certainly Air Umbrella, a Balloon Fight hack that's shown up elsewhere. but no idea about On the Moon - its stored between the unique game names and the Panda repeat names, so it could have been intended as either, I guess.

[Awesome Panda]

taizou

 

Inventor is credited in one of the hacks though, "Sea War 2000" (no 55). so they definitely had something to do with at least some of the hacks too.[/quote]

Is it just me or does Sea War 2000 have more effort put into it than most of the other hacks? A consistent theme, no ridiculous typos or errors, the sound effects are changed unlike the other hacks (apart from Bicycle Race, I think) and the screen layout is different to the one in Battle City, unlike Future Copter which is literally the same thing as Battle City/Tank 1990 with different graphics and levels. Strange how the latter is more common though.

[taizou]

Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. Assuming the copyright dates weren't changed for this cart, Future Tank was made in 2001 and Sea War 2000 in .. well, 2000. even though Sea War is a much better hack. And I always thought Future Tank was an older one, since its on the Power Joy and the music isnt changed. (is it called Future Copter on there? that name rings a bell, but i'm not sure)

but I guess maybe the company just had a few different people making hacks, and some were better than others? Or maybe the rest of the hacks just werent made by Inventor, I guess. If they put their name in Sea War you'd think they'd put it in the others too.

[codeman38]

Just found another place where they failed to hack something. Go into the Options screen in Space War. "Gun-Nac Control Room"? Oops.

And the best part? That string is stored in plain ASCII in the ROM. It's not like they even needed a specialized hex editor for that one.

[taizou]

Strangely they even changed the names of the difficulty settings on that same screen, for no apparent reason, and reversed the usual area select cheat (where you can only change area with the sound test on 05 - in the hack you can change it on every setting except 05) but they still missed the name of the original game sitting right there at the top.

[Awesome Panda]

They probably thought that "Gun-Nac Control Room" was another term for an options screen. If so, then we can probably assume that the hacker can't tie his own shoe laces. Also, they forgot to edit the story in that game as well, much like all of them that apply.

[taizou]

I guess they didn't speak much English, they probably didn't notice stuff like that. character names in most of the games are unchanged too.