> >> I'm curious about something: is this game truly a bootleg? > > > >> The reason that I ask is that it was released by a licensee of the original > >> (Gremlin/Sega). Wouldn't that just make the game an update of sorts, rather than a > >> bootleg? Midway did something similar with Space Invaders 2 cocktail, where it was > an > >> in-house project rather than a release of Taito code. > > > > well the set in MAME is definitely a bootleg, the 'POR' you see in the corner > actually > > points at an earlier bootlegger before Gremlin got it. > > > specifically, it's originally part of the Spanish bootleg by Sonic where it says > 'Por > > Sonic' which translates to 'By Sonic' The rest of the string was blanked out. > > > I suspect Gremlin just bootlegged it from another bootleg to be perfectly honest, a > lot > > of companies had shady beginnings. You'll find people swearing blind it's original > > because it came from an original PCB or whatever, but it isn't, not even slightly. > > > Any chance that whoever sent that Gremlin set in and was supported many years ago, > may have come from a modified/poorly repaired pcb that had a mixed set of roms on the > pcb? > > With Gremlin Industries already established in mid 1970s with their wall games they > first marketed, I can't picture the company even after being acquired by Sega around > 1979 doing something of using a competitors work to make their own version. True that > things were not corrected until about 1980 with US laws involving copyrights also > including videogames to the copyright protected list besides movies, music and > literature. > > I can't imagine Gremlin Industries, by the time it was acquired/merged with Sega in > 1980 doing any kind of partial bootlegging of some videogame. > > If we're talking pong clone type games during mid 1970s where companies (Fun Games > cheating off of Atari with Tank example) did copy from each other, then I can see it > happening....but not by the time 1980 and following years after where an established > Gremlin/Sega would do something like that.
Apparently 'Ali Baba and 40 Thieves' which claims to be a 1982 Sega game is full of code lifted straight from Pacman with various hacks applied.
I haven't verified that myself, but, you know...
there's still a bit of a mystery surrounding the protection on that one too.
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