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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby hfric » Tue Oct 13, 2015 2:22 am

Welcome to my rant about GOG quality back in 2014 ... when i bought from them Phantasmagoria 1 because they wrote they decompiled it, to make it run in windows ... i was like WOW windows 256 colours 640x480 video version then the awful 16 colours 320x240 DOS version (both version are on the disc) ... the thing with this game is : when on CD4 you get the dragon key to open the secret passageway in the walls ... on windows vista/7/8 this game crashes ... but in dos, it does not ...

So i got the game ... what BullS***T version it was ... custom Dosbox dll mixed with ONLY THE DOS FILES FROM PHANTASMAGORIA 1 :x forcing you to play this game in 16 colours 320x240 ... then the superior COUNTERPART , gog moderators hated me that day ...

Same with Gorky17 ... a game MADE BY THEM :x not recompiled to run with new Accelerator 3D cards ... NO ... your FORCED TO PLAY IN THE SOFTWARE MODE and by the way why not remove the accelerator files in it to disable anytrace it was made in the first for those cards *Facepalm tough scull*

Now they add 3dfx emus , DX wrappers ... in such a broken state its pathetic , not to mention patch support ... steam instant , gog 3 weeks later
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby RhymeKidder » Tue Oct 13, 2015 6:45 pm

Rayman Forever (Rayman 1 GOG modded) had annoying music problems from their tweak hacks. But new games like Witcher 3 have big problems with buggy GOG Galaxy client. Workaround was to delete their own dlls to avoid firewall problems in offline mode.

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/so_why ... subfolders
http://gameswiki.net/the-witcher-3-wild ... rrors-fix/

I thought some GOG users had to redownload the entire GOG TW3 edition several times after 1.0 came out because of how CDPR kept changing patch updates.


Me like their nodrm policy. Not so sure about how they handle it though with games - going to be hyper suspicious of what GOG cut out. My baby OCD says to get all the flavors and merge them. :eh:
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby RhymeKidder » Wed Oct 14, 2015 6:42 pm

Off-topic: My trust in GOG no-drm is getting shaky. Telltale won't even fix S&M1 GOG after 3 years. ~Wow. :|

https://www.telltalegames.com/support/d ... orld-patch
http://www.gog.com/forum/sam_and_max_se ... iler/page1
http://www.gog.com/mix/games_that_treat ... s_citizens

Steampeasants vs. GOG masterrace


On-topic: http://fileforums.com/showthread.php?p=335975
Says the uncut patch was never uploaded correctly..? Also mentions that CD contains extra movies that DVD does not have.
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby RhymeKidder » Thu Oct 15, 2015 3:09 am

Using XP + Shattered's 3CD version + Daemon Tools Lite 4.40.2.0131 (all special emulation options enabled) + CD3 mounted == game works okay..? Played Europe version ago and don't remember seeing sand monsters being cut vertically in half on speed kill so I think it passes.


And yes the executable was different, a pop3.dat(ProtectioniD detected it as "StarForceFileSystem (SFFS) container") and an amir.dll exist in GOG version.


If later Europe version has Starforce removed, does GOG version still need (encrypted) pop3.dat file to run? If yes, then maybe Starforce has some secret exploit method inside pop3.exe or amir.dll/exe that allows unlocking without a physical disc.
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby Shattered » Thu Oct 15, 2015 4:50 am

RhymeKidder wrote:Using XP + Shattered's 3CD version + Daemon Tools Lite 4.40.2.0131 (all special emulation options enabled) + CD3 mounted == game works okay..?


Yes, it should work OK. I tried it on XP in the past and it worked. The disadvantage was that I needed to physically unplug my IDE drives (CD/DVD-burner) before I could play it. As far as I remember you don't need any emulation options enabled.
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby RhymeKidder » Fri Oct 16, 2015 2:33 am

This removes dvd check for POP:TT (Collector's Edition by Shattered) (crack by me)
https://www.4shared.com/archive/sQNQv09 ... nodvd.html


Also compared versions some more
- CE Cine videos support 5 languages, US has 3
- CE Artworks/Videos is missing VIDEO02-05.BIK
- CE has Menu folder depending on language installed (?) (I think this is Starforce pop3.dat unencrypted resources)
- CE manual.pdf is changed
- CE does not have Starforce amir.exe/dll (as mentioned earlier)

I suppose exe code would have some method of choosing death animation. If there's some resource editor, maybe it'd be possible to locate which ones are used and debugger backtrack from there.
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby Shattered » Fri Oct 16, 2015 5:06 am

I'm not a cracker of coder, but RELOADED released some StarForce tools out in 2006. Someone out there should be able to crack the POP3 US version.

You can download the tools here:

Code: Select all
http://scenenotice.org/details.php?id=1728
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby RhymeKidder » Sat Oct 24, 2015 1:17 am

Tried those tools but different Starforce version maybe. That protection is devious and pretty hard for anyone below expert level imo. Wicked anti-debugger, anti-dumper stuff. Regmon | Filemon = Boom! BSOD. :(

Found out how WW code does its gore switch via blood. TT shares a decent amount of code with WW but not the decaps sections - blood works same exactly though. So then I worked on comparing US memory dumped exe vs Reloaded cracked exe. There's good amount of "exact" matches and there's some differences, maybe because Reloaded crack rips out + replaces crazy Starforce VM+ sections. Couldn't figure out where gore gets switched on/off. Comparing EMEA non-starforce vs RLD exe has similar problems.

My last idea is try comparing memory dump of Starforce EMEA uncracked exe vs RLD cracked exe to see exactly what changed (hopefully) since they're same base game. Then try fixing US memory dump based on their work. I found full Reloaded release (a*chiv*.org) but I'm having problem finding:
- working Alcohol image (or mini-image) of Two Thrones EMEA Starforce game. CD key 8HVCM-TJ7Q7-XCSAD-RSND9-XACGX. MIRROR (US) / GCW / megagames mini-images do not work with RLD release. Exe is strongly encrypted and won't budge without that disc.

Any help please? Can't believe spent this much time on this and I still may not get much farther even if the (mini-)image is posted. :) :lol:
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby RhymeKidder » Sat Oct 24, 2015 8:54 pm

Idea came into head - repair US import table by scanning run-time memory addresses and compare to non-starforce eu offsets. Fix OEP and let game run. When game crashes or exception, log address and lookup non-sf again for un-vm solution. Check against rld-sf if more problems happen.

Here goes.
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby RhymeKidder » Mon Oct 26, 2015 6:10 pm

Fixed US IAT and got an unpacked dump near-OEP (after fixing like 25 stolen win32 api funcs). Now Starforce guys messed up rest of the exe by replacing another 48 funcs with their own crummy caulk. This part is even harder, longer to figure out than the 1st part.

Here's hoping the 2 alt exe cheat sheets fill in most of the holes. Pac-Man World 2 is going to be so much worse than this POP3..
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby RhymeKidder » Wed Oct 28, 2015 1:39 pm

Pain log: 42 BSOD and climbing. 6 times Starforce could've physically worn down my DVD drive if it wasn't for Daemon Tools emulation - if protection sees a nearly perfect legit disc with few timing errors, it will keep re-bashing the disc for about 10-15 minutes. Then fail. My HDD took a few burnt bad sectors because of this. :mad:

And SF is written in a time-consuming (obfuscation) way to waste your time. 10x more agony if you don't have a stealth ring0 debugger that the protection doesn't catch. Found out I can use x32_dbg with UD2 breakpoints but kernel protection will halt game or crash OS if you keep running game after the debugger pause.

So~ bloody bothersome. Found part where VM unpacks its opcodes so hopefully Yates' tutorial makes this easier to understand.
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby hfric » Thu Oct 29, 2015 2:33 am

welcome to the wonderful land of PIO reads ... keep up the updates :up:
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby GigaWatt » Thu Oct 29, 2015 8:34 am

RhymeKidder, I've uploaded 3CD version, check it as well. Just want to support (or I'd better say "supply") you in your crusade. I'll continue watching the progress. Check my Attic. :)

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I can also upload DVD image from "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Trilogy", in case you or someone else is interested, but it's an US edition as well. Can't say anything about protection, haven't checked it yet.
Managed to survive several years of war, old-games.ru, but has been killed here without any pity, compassion or mercy.
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby RhymeKidder » Thu Oct 29, 2015 5:03 pm

Neat. I'll try grabbing it later when I get over-frustrated and see how it works.

Turns out I fell for one of their obfuscation tricks. Their jmp redirections are much deeper and have large self-looping calls (at least 7 deep) that make it kinda impossible using a Ring3 debugger since you cannot break-continue. Not to mention it wastes a lot of cycles for a single CPU, like GFWL memory protection. And I don't know what it's trying to do - no VM CPU registers Reloaded or Yates talk about.

So I'm inventing a tool that will auto-scan and run-time patch each jmp eax to a logger file. Of course Starforce has a watchdog to prevent such manipulation so it's going to be a timing stealth war to get my data.


I heard US DVD has censorship + non-Starforce. Don't know which exe it's based off - Starforce EU or US. I thought I saw some minor differences between SF EU vs non-SF EU related to OS compatibility or modern functions?? Don't know what that's about.

Actually if you could copy the US DVD exe and post it, I could probably find out quickly if it gives any more immediate help to this project. :thanks:


Either way, I'm going to stay in the cage with this beast to learn how it works more.
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Re: Prince of Persia The Two Thrones is censored???

Postby hgdagon » Thu Oct 29, 2015 9:24 pm

How about a different approach to the problem?

During E3 2005 Ubisoft announced their next POP title; Kindred Blades. The feedback from the fanbase was generally negative, since the new game was "dark and edgy", like its predecessor, Warrior Within, while people wanted something light and easy-going, like Sands of Time. And Ubisoft quickly mutated Kindred Blades to what we have now, The Two Thrones. Kindred Blades fan communities state that some (or all?) of the dark textures are still in the game files, but go unused.
After releasing the US 3CD version, all other versions infamously had all the decapitations removed. Ubisoft regarded that as a feature, a patch, presumably because decapitations are still "edgy", which is amusing, to say the least, since, even in the uncensored US version, you can't decapitate human enemies, decapitations are only possible after they open the portal and turn into Sand Wraiths. Apparently some Sand Wraith-oriented PETA people contacted Ubisoft...
Now, the internet is a powerful thing, and soon people started noticing that "a peculiar thing" is depicted in screenshots on some forums, but doesn't happen in the game itself. Soon after that "peculiar thing" traced to the US 3CD version. Ubisoft not only remained silent, but also made every effort to hide that fact, including deleting posts and whole thread discussions on their forums.
Now, to the point. I've read somewhere that those "edgy" features are still there in every version of the game, but locked out in the executable. So I'm wondering, instead of battling with StarForce, maybe it's better to try unlocking it in the GOG/RELOADED exe?
NO, I'm not sure about that fact. As you see I posted the OP more than a year ago, and since then I've read a lot of stuff about Kindred Blades/The Two Thrones on the internet. This is just the abbridged summary of it.
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