"The INC & THG Files" by The Renegade Chemist of RAZOR 1911 Well, boys and girls. You may recently have seen 2 copies of ACES OF THE PACIFIC from Sierra Dynamix floating around. One from INC, which is sup- posedly "cracked" and one from THG which is "uncracked." The official word from The Cracksmith of INC was that "..well THG got their copy out first but we took some time to crack ours, something they didn't bother to do." This is clearly an admittance of releasing a copy after THG did but the statement that INC cracked ACES and THG didn't redeems the double release, in fact makes it more valid than the THG one. WRONG. INC did NOT crack any "Roaming Doc Check" as they claimed to in their release. How do I know this? Simple. I have never trusted The Cracksmith, and when he called me (at 6pm central time) to let me know that "INC had smoked RAZOR again" I was no less than skeptical. I had seen the THG version out for hours. TC claimed that the INC copy had been released in the afternoon. I told him that THG had had a copy out since that morning (this all took place 5/28/92 by the way) and he seemed stunned. He asked when theirs came out and I told him it had been out for a while, and that the RAZOR version had also been ready for a while but we chose not to double release THG. At any rate, all of a sudden Cracksmith seemed to remember "hearing about" the THG version and how it "wasn't cracked." This sudden change of heart on the part of TC made me even more skeptical, so I decided to take it upon myself to check it out. Here is where I got my versions of the game from (yes.. I *AM* leading up to something here): THG Version ----------- Disks 1 & 2 - WARES FOR THE MASSES 302 836 6175 Disk 3 - THE DARK PALACE 804 272 1007 (He d/led from PITS) INC Version ----------- Disks 1 - 3 - SUBURBIA 214 258 6634 (u/l by Hannibal Lektor/INC) Once I had all disks of both versions, I unzipped the files ACES-1.ZIP, ACES-2.ZIP, and ACES-3.ZIP into a subdirectory called C:\THG. This is the THG version of the game. I then deleted the ACES.NFO file, the GUESS.TXT and any other VGA ads in the file, until only the bare game files were left. I then did the same for ACESINC1, ACESINC2, and ACESINC3 but this time into a directory called C:\INC. After I deleted all of the zip ads and NFO file, I checked the combined file sizes of each version, and they both came out to the same thing: 4050525 bytes. But this was not enough for me to condemn INC. So I executed a DOS COMP command to compare every byte in each of the files. This is the command sequence I used: A>c: C>comp c:\thg\*.* c:\inc\*.* >compare.txt And these are the results I got back when I read the text file. EVERY SINGLE FILE IN BOTH VERSIONS WAS EXACTLY THE SAME. This meant that INC did not make any sort of modification or "hard crack" to the game. Since they did not include a patch or TSR in the zip, this is the only way that Jake Pickett could have cracked the "Roaming Doc Check" that TC claimed to have discovered in the game. Lastly, I did a directory on both versions, and the file dates and times were all exactly the same. Finally my suspicions were confirmed - INC had, in fact, double released one of the biggest games of the year and had tried to cover up their folly by claiming to crack something they did not. My point: the way it is now, INC pretty much rigs everything in the scene. FelonyNet, the Ware Report, even releases. THG's reputation has been done a huge amount of damage by these thieves, and it can never be repaired. What I am trying to say by this is that - WE, AS PIRATES, MUST BE INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO QUESTION THE "MOST RESPECTED" OR "MOST REVERED" CRACKING GROUPS AROUND. Remember, these groups were once nothing and will be nothing again. INC has pulled wool over the eyes of the public more times than any of you might imagine. Of course most groups do from time to time, that is the nature of the business. But I know one thing - if I open my copy of the ware report this month, and I see that INC got credit for doing what I consider butchery to the scene, then the ware report is null and void to RAZOR. We do not condone that kind of crap. INC can rig whatever the hell they like, but I won't put up with it and neither should you. Some closing facts: 1. Cracksmith later called me back (after the phone call at 6pm) and asked if we had a copy of the game and didn't release it or if we just had hard luck. Of course we had a copy but we were not about to double release anybody knowingly. I then attacked him for double releasing THG, and he changed his time of release from afternoon to morning. Note that TC packaged the game, and that he is the one who mentioned the "Roaming Doc Check" that nobody else has been able to find (besides Jake Pickett who has been slandered by this whole ordeal - Jake I don't think you are a bad cracker I just don't think you know how to pick good company, :]) - and by INC. 2. Well this one is more opinion than fact. Based on my convers- ations with TC, and with other people who were about on the 28th of May, I have arrived at these conclusions: 1. INC received the game AFTER THG. 2. Cracksmith called me at 6pm AS he was releasing the game, and when I told him about the THG version he KNOWINGLY double released them. 3. In order to cover up his double release, TC created a ficticious "Roaming Doc Check" that happened to hit Jake Pickett while he was looking for protection in the game. This allowed him to release the game as a 100% working version, because just because "the doc check popped up" for him does not mean it had to "pop up" for everyone. RESULTS FOR COMP of THG & INC VERSION - (If you don't believe me, grab the THG and INC versions and do what I did. You will then see the truth.) Comparing C:\THG\RESOURCE.002 and C:\INC\RESOURCE.002... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\DEMOCARR.VCR and C:\INC\DEMOCARR.VCR... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\DEMODOG.VCR and C:\INC\DEMODOG.VCR... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\DEMOGRND.VCR and C:\INC\DEMOGRND.VCR... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\DEMOTORP.VCR and C:\INC\DEMOTORP.VCR... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\RESOURCE.001 and C:\INC\RESOURCE.001... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\RESOURCE.000 and C:\INC\RESOURCE.000... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\RESOURCE.CFG and C:\INC\RESOURCE.CFG... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\INSTALL.HLP and C:\INC\INSTALL.HLP... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\STD.DRV and C:\INC\STD.DRV... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\ADL.DRV and C:\INC\ADL.DRV... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\IBMPS1.DRV and C:\INC\IBMPS1.DRV... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\MT32.DRV and C:\INC\MT32.DRV... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\README and C:\INC\README... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\TANDY3V.DRV and C:\INC\TANDY3V.DRV... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\INSTALL.EXE and C:\INC\INSTALL.EXE... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\INSTALL.TXT and C:\INC\INSTALL.TXT... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\INSTALL.SCR and C:\INC\INSTALL.SCR... Files compare OK Comparing C:\THG\UNCHUNK.EXE and C:\INC\UNCHUNK.EXE... Files compare OK -Chemist 05/29/92 ============================================================================== THiS TEXT FILE WAS LEECHED FROM: [INNER CIRCLE - REBELS SHQ +46-31-WiCO] ==============================================================================