3DO ZONE Forums

I brought back an NTSC console, a few years ago from the USA, along with 20 game titles. The console is no longer playable so I bought a replacement unit from ebay, thinking there was no regional lock, but the games won't boot on a PAL machine. Does anyone know whether there is any software to unlock the regional codes, I don't want to go to all the trouble of trying to back up my originals, through my PC, unless I can unlock the regional protection.

Cheers

i thought all 3do's were region free?

i can play 99.9% of all 3do games on my consoles with the exception of a handfull of japanese games, and as far as i know 3DOKid doesnt have problems playing US games on his systems

what does your 3do do when you put in a game?
have you tried playing a music CD in it to see what happens?

There's no region lock on 3DO, but a few "NTSC" titles don't work on PAL units and vice-versa. But if none of your 20 games work on a PAL unit, then I'd say the unit is broken.

Lemmi and WindowsKiller are correct. I have Panasonic FZ-1, FZ-10 (NTSC, PAL), Goldstar (NTSC, PAL), Goldstar Alive II (NTSC), and Sanyo TRY (PAL) consoles and with a few exceptions all machines will play all games. Which model of 3DO do you have?

I've never had a problem with compatibility and the FZ1 and the FZ-10 - but be warned.

Region protected games that I remember:

- Soccer Kid.
- Powers Kingdom.
- Casper.

All need the right machine for the right game region. Also some Japanese games need the Kanji support.

- Twinkle knights. (maybe)
- Blue Forest Story.
- Cradle moon.
- Blue Chicago blues (maybe)

However, my Japanese FZ1 and FZ10 seems to play anything...

Most do work however.

Some backups labour away and give up for reasons unknown.
Try cleaning the lens.

3DO Kid.

I think you can add Crash 'n Burn to the list of titles that aren't Pal compatible also.

Many thanks guys for all contributions, as pointed out, my problem originated from a hardware malfunction, probably the laser. I bought from ebay, from someone who shall we say is a product of a union without marriage, so to speak, but in fairness, these things don't travel too well at their age, so it may well have worked ok when posted, but there you go. Many thanks again to everyone.

Cheers

Trev wrote:I think you can add Crash 'n Burn to the list of titles that aren't Pal compatible also.

You sure? I have the US NTSC version of crash n' burn and it runs fine on my PAL system.

Hmmm ... I guess I'm wrong. I was sure I read that in an issue of 3DO magazine though (I'm gonna double check)

Well, I can say that I have the Japanese Import of Crash N' Burn and it works on my US PZ-1. I bought it because I can never seem to find a US one! Wish I could though as the Japanese dialogue in the game kind of ruins the cheese factor for me as I loved the cheesy FMV in this game!

Here is a quote from the July 1996 issue of 3DO magazine, page 28 ...

"The game was actually written alongside the 3DO OS, which was occasionally reworked to suit the game - since it was the pack-in title, the machine itself couldn't shup until Crash 'N' Burn was complete. Unsurprisingly some shortcuts were taken in the game programming - which made it incompatible with PAL machines (it tends to lock-up during races) and even on some of the newer NTSC machines."

Evidently this must not be too big a problem though, if nobody here has encountered it. Maybe it was just another case of isolated problems with the Goldstar machine. Anyway, I knew I had read it somewhere

I'm going to try Crash n Burn out on a PAL machine as I just recently hooked my PAL FZ-1 up - that and I have nothing better to do right now

T2KFreeker wrote:Well, I can say that I have the Japanese Import of Crash N' Burn and it works on my US PZ-1. I bought it because I can never seem to find a US one! Wish I could though as the Japanese dialogue in the game kind of ruins the cheese factor for me as I loved the cheesy FMV in this game!

Too true. THough I'm surprized you cannot find Crash n Burn. I have about 25 copies of it that I got when I kept buying in lots many years ago. Now what is rarer is to find the longbox one. heh. The pack-in is ultra-common.

Drax

Some 3DO PAL games gave confusing signals to most of the GOLDSTAR systems, and to launch day FZ-1's. Sometimes they boot, sometimes they don't. I have a PAL version of POWER'S KINGDOM that is very hit & miss on my original US FZ-1.

The only true "intentionally locked out" titles are from Japan though. Intrestingly though, I found a copy of Onomancy Special that gave my TRY system fits. No idea to this day as to why.

Drax

I've only ever tested on FZ1s and FZ10 (UK, US and JPN) and they've been pretty reliable. I often looked at the Goldstar and Sanyo machines but they were pretty rare in the UK.

Power Kingdoms fails using a US machine but works fine on a UK PAL machine and a japanese machine and the US version of Power Kingdoms, called Guardian Wars failed on the PAL machine but also worked on the Japanese machine.

Go figure.

Soccer Kid does properly say "Not supported in your region" (or something like that) and Casper too but I have tried all permutations of that.

humm since crash n burn came up in this thread would anyone know whats up with 2 different CD colors for the game?

i have one thats red and one thats silver and blue, maybe a different regions CD?

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f105/ ... rs0034.jpg

and did corpse killer in the UK come with a small manual with very tiny writting? i have 2 versions of corpse killers manual

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f105/ ... ls0035.jpg

I am almost certain that the silver & blue disc copy of 'Crash 'n burn' is the version that came packaged w/the original FZ-1 model 3DO in just a jewel case. Perhaps the red copy was the one made available seperately in a long box.

Edit: Or that /\/\/\

Crash N Burn... I don't know for sure, but it looks like regional differences to me. The bottom one is obviously a US release because it has the ESRB rating on it. The top one is missing it. If it was a US release, it'd have the logo, too.