Not exactly a collector, but anyway

[Krishty]

Hi there!

I’m not much of a physical collector, but I’ll try and present my “collection” anyway.

I like to crack open data formats just for the sake of it. Some call it data mining, but for me it’s more of a puzzle I like to solve. Makes me relax.

In the past years I had a look at Ace Combat 2 & 3 for the original PlayStation. AC3 contains two unused levels. While it was long clear to hackers that something was there, I was probably first to see them in their entirety.

An early draft of Expo City with different textures and without the iconic underground airport.

http://krishty.com/acecombat/2017-05-01%20Expo%20City%20alpha.png

An early draft of Megafloat with a slightly different modeling.

http://krishty.com/acecombat/2017-05-01%20Megafloat%20beta.png

In Ace Combat 2, I found the unused prototype of an aircraft:

http://krishty.com/acecombat/2018-12-21%20XFA-27%201%20beta.png

… there’s much more; take a look at my Ace Combat page (http://krishty.com/acecombat_en) if you’re interested.

I’ve also had a look at the PSX Driver games. Here’s a part of Driver 2’s Chicago (I have a dedicated page (http://krishty.com/driver_en) for that as well):

http://krishty.com/driver/2014-07-22%20Chicago.png

I originally started doing this in 2011, when I was trying to mod DID’s Total Air War (the PC flight simulation from the 90s). There was so much great stuff hidden inside it, and it has since grown into the hobby project of my own flight simulator (http://krishty.com/taw/tfxplorer_en).

Extracting the games gave me so much insight into the development process … tieing unused assets to specific press releases; learning about the developer’s struggle to find their game’s own style; changing premises months before release. Driver and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. were great in this aspect; you could fill books with all their leaks and beta versions.

Why I’m here? Love for the never-before-seen; for betas and bootlegs; for the trivia that every true fan of a franchise needs to know from heart. Maybe one day find unreleased versions of my favorite games with even wilder stuff hidden in them!

Thank you for having me here :wave:

[Spect3r]

Hi and welcome :)
Interesting indeed and im pretty sure that unique to the forum.
There's a couple of threads in the market section you will probably find interesting

[Umbrellachef]

I love such passion for the detail. I saw an interesting YouTube video a few months ago concerning this topic.


https://youtu.be/cZLed1krEEQ


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[Krishty]

Exactly – I used to compare save files from another game to check the coordinates against the extracted level :D

Some weeks ago, I found out Ace Combat 2’s playable planes have no noses because you only ever see them from behind. And why invest processing power into something that’s never on screen?

http://krishty.com/acecombat/2019-12-21%20AC2%20Su-35.gif

These tricks never cease to amaze me. Now looking at hexdump again to figure out where exactly plane rudders go …

[Spect3r]

Exactly – I used to compare save files from another game to check the coordinates against the extracted level :D

Some weeks ago, I found out Ace Combat 2’s playable planes have no noses because you only ever see them from behind. And why invest processing power into something that’s never on screen?

http://krishty.com/acecombat/2019-12-21%20AC2%20Su-35.gif

These tricks never cease to amaze me. Now looking at hexdump again to figure out where exactly plane rudders go …

I dont know why, but i found that detail really cool!

[Umbrellachef]

Once again I love your passion and skills - for me updating my computer is a big problem [emoji23]

If you are interested these are the 2 Japan exclusive Ace Combat 7 steelbooks:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200213/9c560ea34b8583658d15f0bc2dcf119c.jpg


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[Krishty]

If you are interested these are the 2 Japan exclusive Ace Combat 7 steelbooks:Thanks but no thanks :) I’m primarily interested in unique data, not in unique physical objects. The game in the steelbook edition is, as far as I can tell, the same version as other copies.

Debug/prerelease builds are more interesting for me. I got my hands on a dump of the rare Chinese version of Ace Combat 3 (which predates the Japanese version by one week).

In unused space between textures, it revealed some details about Namco’s development environments: They used Windows 3.1 as well as Unix; Python was part of the build chain. Models were in the PSX SDK’s PLY format. This leaked data had been removed from the Japanese version one week later.

There were also some changes to one of the levels, but I haven’t gotten far enough to analyze it yet …

[Umbrellachef]

Thanks but no thanks :) I’m primarily interested in unique data, not in unique physical objects. The game in the steelbook edition is, as far as I can tell, the same version as other copies.

Debug/prerelease builds are more interesting for me. I got my hands on a dump of the rare Chinese version of Ace Combat 3 (which predates the Japanese version by one week).

In unused space between textures, it revealed some details about Namco’s development environments: They used Windows 3.1 as well as Unix; Python was part of the build chain. Models were in the PSX SDK’s PLY format. This leaked data had been removed from the Japanese version one week later.

There were also some changes to one of the levels, but I haven’t gotten far enough to analyze it yet …



Don’t want to sell - just wanted to show you [emoji6]


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[Krishty]

Don’t want to sell - just wanted to show you [emoji6]Stupid me :D

The steelbooks are pretty damn cool. I realle appreciate Bamco’s merchandising for AC7*– the soundtrack, the jackets, the models. It’s such an amazing gift to the fans and we had to wait for that for so long.

[Krishty]

Someone owns a prerelease build of Driver 2 and was so nice to share it.

The build is an English PAL version, dated October 1st, 2000 – two weeks before the official PAL build.

It is not much different from the final build, so I was able to apply my standard tools and take a look at the levels.

Most differences concentrated on the Vegas map. It’s impressive how much they changed in those two weeks – they replaced not only textures, but the actual walls on all highways throughout the entire map!

Beta vs final for comparison (view image for full resolution):
http://krishty.com/driver/2020-03-16%20vegas%20beta.png
http://krishty.com/driver/2020-03-16%20vegas%20final.png

There’s also an unreleased police car and the texture of an unreleased playable car (its model has been overwritten, sadly).

If you’re interested, check out these two threads at Driver Madness:
http://drivermadness.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5339
http://drivermadness.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5336

I’ll keep you updated for more.

[Krishty]

Great news for Driver fans!

MattJ155 was so nice to share his Driver 4.11 PSX build from about a month before the official release. More information here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsq5dU63B7I

I can’t wait to extract the cars and levels!

An Xbox development build of Driv3r has surfaced as well.

What a day!

There’s more information and lots of datamining going on at the Driver Madness Discord, but of course I’ll keep you posted here with whatever I’ll find …