Proudly Present

Pinball Illusions (c) Digital Illusions/21st Century Entertainment

Supplied by │ Mad Turnip             │ Release Date    │ Sep 13th 1995
Cracked by  │ Cyber                  │ Protection      │ CD check/Encryption
Packaged by │ Hoson                  │ Game Type       │ Pinball game
Stripped by │ Cyber                  │ Game Rating     │ 85%

Requirements: 386DX-40, 4MB RAM, DOS, VGA, 50MB free HD-space.

We are proud to bring you one of the most awaited games this year...
Pinball Illusions! - Now featuring multiball + 4 new tables and running
very smooth in 320x400 resolution. Programmed by Swedish people, and,
ofcourse cracked and made convenient by Swedish people! You've been
waiting for this one, haven't you? Just go ahead and download it then!

What has been raped(!) out?

Nothing at all! It's *ALL* there! Except for the 15 audio tracks the
original CD held. BUT, these audio tracks wasn't part of the game.
They were probably put there just so you could listen to the cool music
in your regular CD-player. The reason why it takes 50MB of your precious
HD-space is that the villainous makers of the game have added approx.
40MB of PURE GARBAGE to the ILLUSION.EXE file, thus making the game
appear larger than it actually is, or are they just preventing people
from ripping it (?) - who the hell knows! Read more about it in Cyber's
crack 'n strip notes below.

Cyber's crack 'n strip notes:

I started cracking this game with the specific intention of reducing it to
at least half the original size. I knew the files had to be stored inside
the EXE data, the problem was just locating the 'directory'. Since the EXE
stub loader wasn't crunched, I took a quick tour through the memory and
came up empty. OK, no problem. They probably had it encrypted along with
the rest of the data. Then I started decoding the encrypted part, but I
still couldn't find any filenames. I did, however, find some strings that
indicated DPMI support, which was very odd considering it wouldn't run
under Windows. The DPMI support was uncovered when I went deeper into the
code and discovered a FULL set of extenderroutines. They'd just removed the
check for it. Some sort of Soft-Ice protection maybe? Then I made the next
startling discovery: the FILENAMES were also encrypted! Hmmm... Someone had
obviously gone through a lot of trouble to make sure that none would find
out which files were used and which were not. My suspicion was confirmed
when I found a set of files which seemed never to be used. These files took
up approx. 44 of the 49 megs. I figured out how the files were stored and
then I simply filled them with zeroes. I just didn't have the energy to
totally rearrange the directory table to remove them.

The result? The game can now be stored on four disks.I personally think
it's a display of poor attitude to make a file big just because it's on CD.
Also the game is quite full of bugs, at least when it comes to the sound.
Try enjoying the music when you return to the selector after playing a
table and you'll know what I mean.

The game checked for a CD, but it didn't check for the correct one. I used
one of my ZZ Top CD's before I had the check removed.

Allright, enough flaming now. The Pinball Dreams/Fantasies/Illusions games
are, all in all, rather enjoyable and I know of many who have become
addicted - so why keep them from playing it just because it would take
34 disks?
-Cyber
Installation:

Just unzip all the files to a directory and run INSTALL.EXE.
After installation, type PINBALL to configure/start the game!

Hybrid welcomes:

Two new crazy traders, namely Fatalman (+972) and Slaine (+34). Welcome!

Special greets to  : Cyber, MindBender, Lord Soth, Madcap, Bluewater,
Celestial Wizard, The Undertaker, Mad Turnip, TRC,
Randall Flagg, Mr.Terry, Spearhead, MISHA, Widget and
RingoStar/ex-Classic Amiga (I couldn't find your name
anywhere in the credits part. If I would have seen it
there, I wouldn't have release the game in the first
place, but you already knew that, didn't you? :-)

Group greets       : Phoenix, Hoodlum, DOD, Complex (JMagic), Jeskola!

Notes to TDUJam!   : What's the point having 1.44 format if you always
make disk #1 1.57 format? Small hint: when you ARJ,
add -vr80K to your option string, and ARJ will auto-
matically reserve 80KB on ARJ volume #1. It's really
annoying when you can't store disk #1 and the TDUJAM
installer/intro on the same disk, rite? OK cool!

Hybrid Membership

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Slain, The Druid, and Ustasa.

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You may contact Hybrid for any reasons (joining, fan/hate-mail, etc.)
using one of the services listed beneath;

Americans, e-mail us at: bwater@magi.com
Europeans, e-mail us at: electro@tripnet.se

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Today's wise quote:

"CD-Audio or Cassette? CD-ROM or Floppy? You choose!"