I've got a similar background of playing on the C64, pirate cassette collections and the fascination with cracktros. Although, I've never encountered XeNTaX back in the day so I had no idea about their background. I've lurked on this forum for a while, first time poster. Just wanted to congratulate everyone on the anniversary.weej wrote:Wow, who'd have guessed searching for a way to make music work in a Need for Speed game would lead to a tiny chunk of my childhood memories!
Hi all!
Long time lurker, first time poster - I signed up on Xentax a few days ago but NEVER realised the historic link till much later, Story Time!!
Back in the early 90s In my country there was no concept of a game being legal or pirated, we just got whatever we got, we still paid money and that's how it was for years till the internet made the world a smaller place and we started learning of how things were done elsewhere! Back then the machine that enamored me the most as an 8 year old, was a Commodore 64. It was great! However anyone who owned a PC (of any kind , whether 80x86 based or c64 or amiga etc) would always wonder why the following companies were the only ones who made games for it: Razor1911, FairLighT, Groo, IKARI+TALENT (and a few others I can't remember) and the most prevalent one: BASH Presents (or maybe just BASH). It never occurred to me or my schoolfriends that these were cracking/reverse engineering groups - we actually thought they were the company creating and releasing the game!
As we grew a little older we'd always discuss why these companies "didn't make the games as good as their introduction screens with all the fancy effects and text". or "How is it that these companies can pay so much attention to detail inside the game but the pretty intros have English written by a 5 yr old?" or "I just wish we didn't have to watch so many intro screens before actually playing the game!"
One Game however stood out especially on the C64, that one was Turbo Outrun - its the one we all agreed on that actually looked as good as the intro screen and played just as well ! I got my copy of the game on floppy and for a Good 8 years at least, XentaX were the people who made the game! Why? Because when I'd run the game the first screen I'd get was a Turbo Outrun one but with the trademark weird English with a message and 'Greetz' and then it'd end with Xentax by Mr. Mouse. When you pressed space you'd get ANTOHER message with PRESENTED TO YOU BY XENTAX followed by a message that "Gordon/Gambino/Gambit (I dont remember!) was a fool". Then I'd hit Enter and the game's proper intro with run!
Now...DECADES later I'm searching for a way to figure out why ea3layer.exe is making corrupt mp3 files for Need For Speed Most wanted 2012 and I land upon this forum, I look at the banner that says 1989 and notice a post by "Mr. Mouse"... SUDDENLY it hits me "No way... they CANT be the same people!" LOTS of googling later and I'm reliving my past glory days EXACTLY like I remember them! Sure enough the SAME group and the same people behind said group! So Thank you for being around Xentax ... and especially thank you for "making" Turbo Outrun for the C64
Here's to another 25 years and beyond!
Btw, I suppose this is the message you mentioned, right?