Rockstar Rapes & Pillages…Pirates??

Rockstar: 1; Pirates: uh, 1?

Oh this is just too delicious on a number of levels:

Not sure if this has been mentioned anywhere, or if there is another reason for it, but it seem rockstar used a cracked version of Max Payne 2 for steam retail. Check out this picture:

[REPRODUCED ABOVE W/ HIGHLIGHTS]

As you can see there’s an ASCII “Myth” logo, which is an old cracking team that were quite prevelent a while back. Seems Rockstar got a little lazy and used this crack instead of recompilling their executable without DRM.

Note: The logo is much easier to see if you back away from it or just zoom out using by holding the ctrl key and spinning your mouse wheel.

Basically Rockstar, erm, appropriated some code from the pirates that cracked the original release of Max Payne 2 for their legit Steam release, so I guess what comes around goes around? Or something?

h/t: The Arch-Nerd

PS2 On PSP

No, not like that

Misleading headline note: Sorry, practicing my Kotaku-style headlines like the pros who aren’t really pros because they’re bloggers even though, when it counts (swag, etc.) they are pros so that means…something…I dunno…they’re pros (I think) so they have it all figured out…right?

Actually it’s a PS2 controller on a PSP which is pretty neat because it requires zero hacking to the actual PSP beyond being able to run, um, hacks…on the actual PSP… so…never mind (but it’s still neat!):

The good news is that you don’t have to take apart your PSP to make it work¹ , so that’s something, right?

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1 Like some of us, because Sony shipped a shoddy, sub-standard (yeah, Sony–big surprise, right?) piece of junk which ‘we’ had to open and fix the crappy dpad that wouldn’t actually go right which, as you may have guessed, is kinda important. (Ken Kutaragi, at the time, insisted this was how it was supposed to work and, like, you’ll play and like it you gaijin whores.) And, yeah, *we’re* still a little bitter about it, though not quite as bitter as The Nerd’s tail of woe involving five PSPs, a stolen ICBM and the wherewithal to use it (he’ll do it! He’s Canadian and they’re…well…milquetoast…and crazy!) which he might recount in the comments and then dupe as a post on his site. Or I might do it, whichever one of us proves to be slightly less lazy…I’m about a 9 on the lazy scale right now, putting me near-comatose/almost dead. (And, yeah, this screed/footnote has a lot more words in it than the actual post so, really, it should have been the post and the video and stuff should have been the footnote, though it really doesn’t work the other way around…what?…Yeah, OK…*swallows meds*.)

Ubi Is Going to be Hacked Off at This News

Probably not the guys behind this hack

Hahahahaha:

Skid Row also left a note for Ubisoft directly, telling the company to spend less time on its DRM and more on the actual game play:

“Thank you Ubisoft, this was quiete [sic] a challenge for us, but nothing stops the leading force from doing what we do. Next time focus on the game and not on the DRM. It was probably horrible for all legit users. We just make their lifes [sic] easier.”

Prior to Skid Row’s release, there has been a hack that emulated the back and forth of Ubisoft’s DRM servers to the game. However, it did not work for all users or localizations of the game. In the readme file, Skid Row claimed its new solution “cannot be compared to that.”

And guess what: I’m still not buying your games, you bastards–now if only someone could hack the DRM in Final Fight all would be semi-right with the world for fifteen minutes.

Awww, Look at the Widdle Wii: It Thinks It’s a Media Center Now!

It Only Does Everything¹

Cause, uh, it is:

Features:

*Ability to play virtually any video or audio format
*DVD playback, with DVD menu support (requires IOS 202)
*Picture viewer
*Music player
*Online media support
*SD, USB 2.0, SMB, HTTP, and FTP support
*Attractive libwiigui-based interface, designed with the Wii in mind

More info here. (And, yes, you will need to engage in some alchemical magic to enable the Wii for this.)

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1 Since Sony can’t rightly use this marketing verbiage anymore, wii’ll just borrow it.

The Only Reason It Took This Long Is Because Nobody Cared

Zune sales increase in 3..2..1..

Looks like Zune et al has finally been hacked:

Until recently, writing applications for the Zune meant one thing: XNA. While the XNA game development platform aims to provide a framework that makes game development accessible to the masses, on the Zune this translates to no 3D, no Internet access, and a performance penalty of around an order of magnitude – all when the hardware is right there.

That’s about to change. Through the work of myself as well as Netrix, Nurta, and the rest of the ZuneBoards Development Front, all Zune models, including the Zune HD, have been hacked. The first true hack available for the Zune, this makes it possible to, for the first time, run applications directly on top of the Zune firmware, with full access to everything XNA withheld before. The limitations of XNA are now no limitations at all.

(Easy) Prediction: Zune sales will actually be up, week-on-week, with this news as new ‘fans’ discover the ‘virtues’ of ‘free’ stuff. (Yeah, enjoy the awesome games like Sudoku and Luck Lanes Bowling–these are the same guys responsible for the 360, right??)

H/T: N4G

Score: Geohot 1; Sony 0

3.21 firmware hacked:

For those that haven’t been paying attention: this means, when he releases it, that if you didn’t update your PS3 already, you’ll be able to safely update and maintain Other OS functionality, i.e. you’ll be able to keep that which you paid for with the side-effect being that it appears that this is just the bare minimum we can expect:

Note to the people who removed OtherOS, you are potentially turning 100000+ legit users into “hackers.” There was a huge(20x) traffic spike to this blog after the announcement of 3.21. If I had ads on this site I guess I’d be thanking you.

One thing is for sure, though: Sony’s self-inflicted headaches have only just begun.