Hacks and Rip-Offs

[Captain Harlock]

In the Post-Crash era, our mail order "Quelle" also sold Atari 2600 Games under their label. They had German titles and I think were mostly aimed at children. Quelle sold these games until let's say 1993 or 1994 since the 2600 became popular again after 1989 in the former GDR after the Berlin Wall was torn down.

Most of the games were simply (mostly crappy) older games from the "Crash time", others were hacked Activision games. I don't know if they even had a license for this, but no one cared since it already was Abandonware then.

 

So, here we go:

"Dschungel Boy" (aka Tom Boy) is a hack of Pitfall! making it somewhat easier. There are no walls in the lower level. The graphics have been hacked: The rolling logs are now snakes, the poisonous snake is now a spider (look at it closely on the attached pics), the crocodiles in the ponds have been replaced with stones, so it's easier to come across these ponds.

 

EDIT: Look at the pictures from bottom to top.

[Captain Harlock]

Next one is a hack series:

 

Original game is Space Jockey by US games, a crappy but fun shooter also found on the 32-in-1 under the name "UFO".

The first hack is not a true hack. It is Air Raid by Men-A-Vision. It uses (nearly) the same game engine and it uses the same sound effects, but it scrolls vertically (the background horizontally). The game variations are also nearly the same as in Space Jockey.

The second hack is about the crappiest one I have ever seen, it is "Gefecht im All" from Quelle/Starsoft. They took Space Jockey, removed the scrolling ground, re-did the sprites so they look even uglier and changed some of the sound effects. Some of the new sprites look like these things you put over the cheese that it doesn't smell in the whole room (in Germany we say "Käseglocke"), and others look like some blocky guys sitting on houses. The player sprite is the upper half of a UFO.

[Captain Harlock]

Next hack is Keystone Kapers.

The original is from Activision, as everyone knows.

There is also a quite crappy Starsoft hack called "Hey Stop!" or in Germany "Wachroboter jagt Jupy".

The colors were changed, the great graphics were taken out due to the color changes and there are no extras to collect like money bags or suitcases for bonus points. The bouncing balls have been changed into yellow bouncing rings, the criminal to chase is now a green alien and the policeman is now a robot. Due to the removal of the collectible extras the gameplay also changed a bit.

[Captain Harlock]

Last one for today is Enduro.

Original is - again - made by Activision. Quelle sold the game "Super Ferrari" in Germany which is an Enduro hack.

The sounds were a bit changed - the pitch of the crash sound depends now on your speed, the mountains in the background and the cars look different, and they left out the copyright notice and inserted "Super Ferrari" instead.

[povlok1]

verykewl.. always neat to see somting different

[Thomas Jentzsch]

If you are looking for more Quelle Rip-Offs check CloneSpy.

 

Try "Listspy.exe +starsoft" on the command line.

[Captain Harlock]

I just looked at Brick Kick, it plays like a very crappy version of Pengo.

Brick Kick is also known as "Peter Penguin" and came out in Germany under the name "Jagd auf Diamanten-Frisco".

But I did never know it's a clever hack of Pac-Man...

[Thomas Jentzsch]

But I did never know it's a clever hack of Pac-Man...

Without CloneSpy I probably would never have known too.

[Sharky]

 

Actually I used to own Tom Boy, one of the very few games I had, and actually prefered it over Pitfall.

 

In Tom Boy you could keep running and jumping non-stop, instead of having to stop and wait for crocrodicles/alligators.

 

And there may be no walls underground, but that little white animal (scorpion in Pitfall), you can't jump him! Well ive never managed too, but my friend claims to have done it once... (yeah right )

[Thomas Jentzsch]

And there may be no walls underground, but that little white animal (scorpion in Pitfall), you can't jump him!

No underground shortuts then? That IMO takes away one of the most important features (no mapping!) and also makes it impossible to finish the game.

[Sharky]

And there may be no walls underground, but that little white animal (scorpion in Pitfall), you can't jump him!

No underground shortuts then? That IMO takes away one of the most important features (no mapping!) and also makes it impossible to finish the game.

 

Theres underground short-cuts, actually the mapping would be exactly like Pitfall, just you couldnt go the direction the white animal was walking.

 

 

Basically they are both the same game(s), except Tom Boy was slightly easier minus the crodicodiles.

[Cootster]

Off Your Rocker is a hack of . . . Gopher? Or vice versa? No way.

 

And Space Robot is Missile Command and not Commando Raid . . . Hhhmmm . . .

 

And Cubicolor was released by CCE? Was this in the original 2600 lifespan or after Fulop's hyper-limited edition?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Off Your Rocker is a hack of . . . Gopher?  Or vice versa?  No way.

Just make a filecompare. There are three large areas that are completely identical: $76b..$bff$, $e04..$e5f and $e90..$eff.

 

But probably you are right and Amiga used an EPROM previously used for Gopher and the larger parts are just unused remains of Gopher.

 

And Space Robot is Missile Command and not Commando Raid . . . Hhhmmm . . .

                                                                 0  1  2  3  4

0 Robot Fight (AKA Space Robot) (HomeVision) (PAL) [!]········   · 98 82 84  6

1 Space Robot (AKA Robot Fight) (Dimax)·······················   =  · 82 84  6

2 Missile Command (1981) (Atari) (PAL) [!]····················   =  =  · 97  6

3 Missile Command (1981) (Atari) [!]··························   =  =  =  ·  6

4 Commando Raid (1982) (US Games)·····························   5  5  5  5  ·

Convinced?

[Sharky]

Gosh! I wish i was the Know-It-All here...