• zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    There were some very elaborate copy-protection schemes. Like, “go to page 12 in the manual and enter the word at the bottom of the page”. Of course, people could just share what the word was, so some games did stuff like having a fucking codewheel in the manual, instead. So you had to take the code the game gave you, turn the wheel to the correct spot, and then enter the result the wheel gave you.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 days ago

        You talking about the radio frequency to contact Marrow? Not much for anti piracy, really. If you called Colonel Campbell three times total, her frequency was added to your saved frequency list.

        • ampersandrew@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Ah, I never knew that. But even that was a callback to them using a very similar trick in the old MSX games as anti-piracy. (Meryl, btw.)

          • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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            2 days ago

            Yeah. In metal gear 2 it was like a requirement that you had the instruction book. But I really don’t think it was a piracy thing. I believe they just wanted to be a bit clever with their gameplay. MGS is really just MG2 with a bigger budget.

    • sep@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Split the wheel and copied it on the school copier. ;) much easier the copying the whole manual that was sometimes needed