Policenauts.

[3DOKid]

Anyone else have this?

http://policenauts.net/3domouseimages.html

I do, I'm going to try and play it.

[bitrate]

I've got it, but never played it.

[3DOKid]

I've got it, but never played it.

It's tough to get off of the first screen.

[mattyg]

I see this pop up on a few sites now & then - I haven't bought though because I have Policenauts , Policenauts Pilot Disc and a brand new mouse - can't justify spending $ on a box!

Might try it soon though

[Mobius]

Huh, cool -- I never knew this existed. Now if only that translation hack would come out...

[Vance]

Now that I can actually read Hiragana and Katakana, I should give this another shot.

Except I don't own it anymore. Of course.

[mattyg]

good to see you back Vance!

[bitrate]

Indeed Vance, it's been a while. Good to see ya back.

[Vance]

Thanks, guys. The store's been keeping me busy, along with the sister site, and the sister site's sister site (link in the signature). I'll be here slightly longer than it takes to seduce Will away from you guys with the promise of money and power, writing for the most evil zine on the internet.

Of course, by "money and power" I mean "not money and power", but don't tell him that.

Anyway, so I don't hijack this thread like a bus full of schoolgirls in a Japanese porno, I'd like to point out that I was almost part of a translation attempt on Policenauts at one point, though we were going to redo Snatcher first. Why, I have no idea, but that's where everybody's passion was. Unfortunately, like most fan projects, it rapidly went from "getting it done sometime next year" to "perhaps sometime before the sun burns out."

So it rolls. Now that I live and work in Little Tokyo, I might have to seduce a nerdy Japanese chick into helping me translate it.

[Trev]

I might have to seduce a nerdy Japanese chick into helping me translate it.

Do whatever it takes Vance! Like James Bond for Queen and country ... Vance for 3DO Zone geeks!

Glad to see you back as well.

[3DO Experience]

WB Vance. I missed your signature image!

mmmm the thought of a Snatcher translation make me wet!

[3DOKid]

Thanks, guys. The store's been keeping me busy, along with the sister site, and the sister site's sister site (link in the signature). I'll be here slightly longer than it takes to seduce Will away from you guys with the promise of money and power, writing for the most evil zine on the internet.

Of course, by "money and power" I mean "not money and power", but don't tell him that.

Anyway, so I don't hijack this thread like a bus full of schoolgirls in a Japanese porno, I'd like to point out that I was almost part of a translation attempt on Policenauts at one point, though we were going to redo Snatcher first. Why, I have no idea, but that's where everybody's passion was. Unfortunately, like most fan projects, it rapidly went from "getting it done sometime next year" to "perhaps sometime before the sun burns out."

So it rolls. Now that I live and work in Little Tokyo, I might have to seduce a nerdy Japanese chick into helping me translate it.

You're secrets safe.

I wanted to do Dr Hauzer (I may have mentioned it's pretty good )

Gir Draxa suggested you could modify a game without breaking the encryption. I just don't remember how he did it.

Certainly, translating Dr Hauzer will be easier than Policenauts. There is miles of text in Policenauts - not to mention cut scenes.

[Vance]

Let me and the nerdy Japanese chick know if you need any help. And if you want to rant in a publication where you can use bad words, let me know about that, too.

[Qcombus]

Gir Draxa suggested you could modify a game without breaking the encryption. I just don't remember how he did it.

Taken from an old forum post by Gir Draxa somewhere:

Code: Select all

Greetings,

You know, at the 3DO Collective, I'd planned to write a guide on doing this kind of thing, but seeing as lack of free time keeps delaying my work on the site, I might as well point this option out to you guys.

Actually, translating an english game to another language might prove easier than most expect.

Here's the deal, a games' on screen text messages could be altered by simply altering the image file. There are a few games that actually store their text messages in one large file on the disc, those are the easiest to do, but any that uses standard text to display messages (not prelaid graphics) can be altered. If you wanted to edit them to your chosen language, it could be done.

You'll need to make an image file of your original disc, preferably with CDR Win.

1.>Load the BIN file into ULTRA EDIT32 and locate the text you wish to change (you can use the FIND option. works great, but turn off the CACHING option or searching through large BIN files can take forever. Be warned though that if you turn off caching, any changes you make are permenant!)
2.>Make what changes you can in the given space. Being careful not to overrun the spacing of the area it's in or any 00 or end text commands.
3.> Make sure you save (even though caching may be off.. its a good idea)
4.> Burn your CD image back to a disc.

Voila, the changes should be made. This does work, I've even used it to alter the move commands in SHADOW: WAR OF SUCCESSION. If done correctly, it doesn't effect the encryption and YES it will still boot on the actual 3DO machines.

In theory, this could be applied to graphics files on the discs as well as long as you didn't go beyond the size of the original file or change the overal cd image size. However, this would require you to have an image generator for the given format. As I do not have a program to create 3DO format images (with the exception of the few that use a bitmap or two) I cannot guarantee that it would work.

I've had some success overwriting the MOD files in Crash n Burn and standard AIFF files in other titles. Replacing an AIFC with an AIFF in StarFighter produced very unwelcome results. heh

here's a couple samples of text alteration (menus), these screenshots taken from EMIT 2, running on a regular 3DO FZ-1 :

Before : http://www.cdi.randomvariable.net/before.jpg

After : http://www.cdi.randomvariable.net/after.jpg

Any help needed, I will try to provide as time permits.

Kanpai!
Gir Draxa

PS. I provide this information so that you can use it for your personal amusement. Please do not use this to break copyright laws or other such weirdness. Thanks!

I guess you now have one excuse less!

Edit : Just found out that the first lines of data of many games say Iamaduck over and over again. Was this an easter egg left by the 3DO developpers?

This might be the reason why I guess.

[3DO Experience]

Just found out that the first lines of data of many games say Iamaduck over and over again. Was this an easter egg left by the 3DO developpers?

David Platt answered this question quite some time ago. (but not here)

The use of this string "iamaduck" is sort of a homage to one of first
"real" operating systems I ever had a chance to hack with. It was the
CP-V (Control Program 5) operating system, which ran on the Xerox
Sigma-6 (and later) 32-bit mainframes. This OS (and its predecessor
UTS) was an extremely flexible multiuser OS, which handled both batch
jobs (typically submitted from cards), on-line interactive users, and
"ghost" jobs (what a Unix person would call a daemon). It was written
to run in a small-memory environment, by today's standards - a 256k word
(one-megabyte) CP-V system was larger than usual - and it was capable of
supporting dozens of interactive users (on Teletypes or equivalent ASCII
terminals) and running several batch jobs, all at once. It normally
used a high-speed fixed-head disk or drum as a swap device.

The string IAMADUCK was used in the CP-V operating system to
pre-initialize an error recording table known as the "75TABLE". This
table was used as a snapshot area, to record any inconsistencies in the
filesystem data structures (in memory or disk) which were detected at
runtime. Such filesystem errors (e.g. lost or inaccessible files) were
reported to the program via a standard CP-V four-hex-digit error code
beginning with the sequence 75 (e.g. 7514 means "Cannot access file due
to directory damage")... hence the name of the 75TABLE array.

Since the 75TABLE was preinitialized to a repeated series of IAMADUCK,
and was of a known fixed size, it was easy to tell whether any
filesystem errors had been detected by simply glancing at a hex/ASCII
dump of that portion of the kernel's memory region. If you didn't see
the usual number of lines of IAMADUCK, you knew that there was some
filesystem trace information in the array which was worth examining.

When I wrote the 3DO CD layout software, I decided that preinitializing
the CD image file would be a Good Thing, to help debug problems,
identify uninitialized storage at runtime, and ensure that the old
contents of the image file wasn't accidentally mastered onto a CD
(remember the Prodigy STAGE.DAT file furor? Same issue...). I decided
to resurrect an identifying string from the first real filesystem code I
ever played around with.

Now... why did CP-V use "IAMADUCK" as its logging initializer? Beats
me. I never knew who wrote that code (although I did work with many of
the CP-V developers after their move to Honeywell during the development
of the CP-6 O/S).

So... the secret is now out, and the offer of bonus points for answering
the question has hereby expired.
--
Dave Platt dpl...@3do.com
USNAIL: The 3DO Company, Systems Software group
600 Galveston Drive
Redwood City, CA 94063

[BryWI]

ahh thanks. I lost this explanation. That iamaduck thing comes up when people cant figure out how to burn a disc or they question why the images compress so much. Used to always see people say "These game images are fakes!" heh.

[WindowsKiller]

Taken from an old forum post by Gir Draxa somewhere:

This works; however, you shouldn't do this with a .bin file, as that will trigger ECC errors, which can make the game stop loading or loading much slower. You should convert the .bin to .iso first (that is, from 2352 bytes/sector to 2048 bytes/sector) in order to get an image that contains only the actual sector data with no ECC/EDC.

[3DOKid]

the text files in Hauzer, with all the Japanese words in it, were easy to find. I'm sure with some clever translation, this might work.

I'm in Austin at the moment so...

I need a little project like this to help learn the language

[Vance]

I'd actually recommend the DS title "My Japanese Coach" if you're interested in brushing up on language skills. I was kind of skeptical, but it's pretty damn effective. Sure, it doesn't teach you how to go native with such handy little phrases as "The Rape of Nanking is a fiction created by the Chinese and Koreans to discredit the Japanese in global affairs" or "That schoolgirl was obviously asking for it", but it's a damn fine basic vocabulary builder.

[3DOKid]

What? Not even the all time classic:

"Americans knew all about Pearl Harbour because the Japanese fleet commanders broke radio silence on numerous occasions and the U.S. were able to track the unique radio transmissions from the main Japanese carriers by using triangulation. They tracked them right the way across the pacific.

It was because it was necessary for the US to go to war with the Nazi's. If Britain fell the Nazis would have goose-stepped across Canada, and American borders would have been threatened.

So the American government divided the U.S. Naval fleet into two (pacific and Atlantic fleets) and then, with no inconsiderable help from the Japanese empirical aspirations, provoked the Japanese into a war, and left the U.S. Pacific fleet flapping in the breeze under the command of a nitt-witt.

Thanks to the attack on Pearl Harbour the American people who had been ardently against a foreign war had a dramatic change of heart and the U.S. military was given the green-light to fight the Nazi's in Europe.

Fortunately for 3DOKids Brit-backside that is too.

The Americans had no problem with the Japanese after the Japanese defeat, and they decided pretty quickly that the occupation of Japan was to be over quick, Japan and the Japanese were safe. America was more concerned about Chinese communists.

This is partly why the Japanese Emperor was kept safe, and a chap called Hideki Tōjō took the fall. While no saint, Tōjō sort of saved Japan. Part of this is entwined in the furor over the yasukuni shrine.

Anyway, the Americans had already ear marked the Japanese to fight in Korea but the Prime minister of Japan had declared Japan 'Pacifist'."

Not even that? Pfft Nintendo eh?

Which is all bit weird. Because I'm a Brit, who works for a U.S. firm, and my father-in-law was in the Japanese Imperial Guard - he's actually alright.

A lot of people died on all sides so I could bitch about my life from time to time. Kind of humbling really.

As for Nanking anti-Japanese propaganda, the Chinese communist bullsh*t agency has toned that down a little recently, as one word can make them feel somewhat uneasy: "Tibet". Although there is counter and counter-counter propaganda.

A good hour of reading on the least reliable resource in the world, the Internet, brings a lot of 'atrocities' , on all sides, in every country, that is related to modern-day propaganda into question.

It's weird, because a lot of 'truths' from that era have already descended into unquestioning myth. And what I've found is that there are a lot of possibilities, and no one version of events. No majority or minority view rings entirely true. There is always one document, one image, one diary entry that sort of makes you step back and question.

Yes that's right folks, I'm in America, it's 4:00am, and I have jet lag.

[Mobius]

What? Not even the all time classic:

What the crap just happened

[Vance]

I think if you look at sources besides the intertubes, Nanking becomes a rather solid reality, rather than an overblown fiction.

Not that I'm seriously criticizing any old side for stuff that happened in WWII. Power in nations is now in the hands of an entirely new generation, for the most part.

But come on, every nation seems to have its hand at some kind of crazy war crimes at one point or the other. Some of the stuff the US was involved in during Vietnam turns my stomach.

[mattyg]

so let me get this straight - first screen on policenauts I initiate a seduction with a nerdy japanese schoolgirl , Rape Nanking , bomb pearl harbour , illegally invade Vietnam , divide the fleet and wake up with jetlag (and not a Japanese Schoolgirl) in Austin Texas.

Wow what a game

Cant wait for level two

now .........where did I put that Nintendo DS babel fish

[UnholyTancred]

What? Not even the all time classic:

"Americans knew all about Pearl Harbour because the Japanese fleet commanders broke radio silence on numerous occasions and the U.S. were able to track the unique radio transmissions from the main Japanese carriers by using triangulation. They tracked them right the way across the pacific.

It was because it was necessary for the US to go to war with the Nazi's. If Britain fell the Nazis would have goose-stepped across Canada, and American borders would have been threatened.

So the American government divided the U.S. Naval fleet into two (pacific and Atlantic fleets) and then, with no inconsiderable help from the Japanese empirical aspirations, provoked the Japanese into a war, and left the U.S. Pacific fleet flapping in the breeze under the command of a nitt-witt.

Thanks to the attack on Pearl Harbour the American people who had been ardently against a foreign war had a dramatic change of heart and the U.S. military was given the green-light to fight the Nazi's in Europe.

Fortunately for 3DOKids Brit-backside that is too.

The Americans had no problem with the Japanese after the Japanese defeat, and they decided pretty quickly that the occupation of Japan was to be over quick, Japan and the Japanese were safe. America was more concerned about Chinese communists.

This is partly why the Japanese Emperor was kept safe, and a chap called Hideki Tōjō took the fall. While no saint, Tōjō sort of saved Japan. Part of this is entwined in the furor over the yasukuni shrine.

Anyway, the Americans had already ear marked the Japanese to fight in Korea but the Prime minister of Japan had declared Japan 'Pacifist'."

Not even that? Pfft Nintendo eh?

Which is all bit weird. Because I'm a Brit, who works for a U.S. firm, and my father-in-law was in the Japanese Imperial Guard - he's actually alright.

A lot of people died on all sides so I could bitch about my life from time to time. Kind of humbling really.

As for Nanking anti-Japanese propaganda, the Chinese communist bullsh*t agency has toned that down a little recently, as one word can make them feel somewhat uneasy: "Tibet". Although there is counter and counter-counter propaganda.

A good hour of reading on the least reliable resource in the world, the Internet, brings a lot of 'atrocities' , on all sides, in every country, that is related to modern-day propaganda into question.

It's weird, because a lot of 'truths' from that era have already descended into unquestioning myth. And what I've found is that there are a lot of possibilities, and no one version of events. No majority or minority view rings entirely true. There is always one document, one image, one diary entry that sort of makes you step back and question.

Yes that's right folks, I'm in America, it's 4:00am, and I have jet lag.

The only reason the Americans participated in the first World War was to protect their financial interests in Britain.

The only reason they participated in the second World War was to get out of the Great Depression.

Yankee imperialists!

[3DOKid]

it worked...