Geist Force general discussion

[Chaotic Mind]

Figured I would make the thread for this. Who remembers when ASSEMbler bought the rights to it and had a few thousand pressed copies made? I still have mine close by that I have made sure to keep in good shape.

 

[StevO9389]

I remember he was "gauging interest" in getting a corrected version made due to some loading issues and a lot of people were interested. I'm guessing that never happened?

 

[Chaotic Mind]

I remember he was "gauging interest" in getting a corrected version made due to some loading issues and a lot of people were interested. I'm guessing that never happened?

Nope. Never did sadly.

 

[Chaotic Mind]

Figured I would post this here. Still got my pressed copy of the game and even a bonus blank GD disk. Sadly I have opened it up...

 

[pool7]

I remember he was "gauging interest" in getting a corrected version made due to some loading issues and a lot of people were interested. I'm guessing that never happened?

I seem to remember one or two versions with improved loading times; not sure if that was the "official" corrected version, or someone who got tired of waiting for it. I'll see if I can find it/them, though I'm pretty sure it was posted at AG.

 

[Chaotic Mind]

I seem to remember one or two versions with improved loading times; not sure if that was the "official" corrected version, or someone who got tired of waiting for it. I'll see if I can find it/them, though I'm pretty sure it was posted at AG.

I seriously doubt it was ever made into a pressed disk like the one I showed above. Still would be good to find the improved image and archive it.

 

[pool7]

Oh, not a pressed disc, that's for sure. I meant a GDI (or was it an ISO?)

 

[1]

I think the pressed version was edited? And I don't think he ever released the untouched version which sucks from a preservation point.

 

[Chaotic Mind]

I just call all disk images an ISO as that is what we typically use. Should be a .gdi for best results. Either way having the file on hand will be helpful as well as my pressed disk above. I'm gonna donate that to help get a museum of rare and obscure stuff going. I have no need for the disk and good luck fiinding someone willing to sell one much less donate for history.

I think the pressed version was edited? And I don't think he ever released the untouched version which sucks from a preservation point.

Yes. The game file needed to be fixed as it was built on a dev system that was not finalized hardware and thus the game would not play on any systems at all. Needed to be modified somewhat to make it boot on the final hardware revision that was released.

 

[darcagn]

I still have my sealed copy

No GDI was ever released.
The improved version was created by community members (MILF and atreyu187) using the pressed version as a source.
I don't know all what went into the 'fixed' version but I do know that atreyu187 fixed the file sort order, so that likely means at the very least Kevin did not use the proper sort order from the GD-R.

This is why I cannot stand when betas are not released in a clean GDI format. Creating good CDIs is an art, and most people who try to do it create a vastly inferior copy.

For the record, the only version that floats around the net these days is the fixed version. It's what Hidden Palace hosts. In fact, I would have no idea how to obtain the original pressed version without opening my sealed copy.

 

[Chaotic Mind]

I can attempt to do a clean dump of my disk as it is opened. Not sure if it would work or not.

 

[darcagn]

The best way to do it would be to download the DiscJuggler trial version from Padus's website and make a CDI image of it.

 

[Chaotic Mind]

Regular CD drive work? I have plenty sitting around. I believe it should work as the pressed disk is a regular CD.

 

[darcagn]

Yeah, just a regular CD drive is all you'd need.

 

[pool7]

I opened mine as well, and will gladly dump it as well.

 

[Chaotic Mind]

I have a clean dump of the disc in .cdi from Disk Juggler. Uploading to Mega now to make available for all to do as you please with.

 

[Chaotic Mind]

Dump done uploading. Put it in a dedicated thread.

Geist Force pressed disk dump.

So who remembers that limited run of pressed discs that ASSEMbler had made of Geist Force? No? Don't worry. I got you covered. Here is a full dump of one of those discs as I have one. I dumped and uploaded to Mega for all to get hands on. Granted this is not a dump of the original game files as...

www.obscuregamers.com

 

[Slayer2k8]

Can anyone help with who exactly the internal SEGA of America was that carried out development of Geist Force or the name of the team that took over development duties when the game was needing a rework? I've been unable to find any confirmed source of what these teams who worked on the game were actually called. Slightly off-topic but can anyone help with the names of SOA internal development teams apart from Visual Concepts.

 

[FamilyGuy]

I still have my sealed copy

No GDI was ever released.
The improved version was created by community members (MILF and atreyu187) using the pressed version as a source.
I don't know all what went into the 'fixed' version but I do know that atreyu187 fixed the file sort order, so that likely means at the very least Kevin did not use the proper sort order from the GD-R.

This is why I cannot stand when betas are not released in a clean GDI format. Creating good CDIs is an art, and most people who try to do it create a vastly inferior copy.

For the record, the only version that floats around the net these days is the fixed version. It's what Hidden Palace hosts. In fact, I would have no idea how to obtain the original pressed version without opening my sealed copy.

I did create the CDI for Geist, but it was over vnc and I couldn't really test-play or optimise for sorting. Just testing if it worked on nullDC over vnc proved challenging. If it was from a GD-R (I don't remember) I probably just used the original sort order. We were happy just to make it boot on retail.

I can't provide the original CDI as even if I created it I never had the actual files.

I still got two sealed copies! Might sell one of them one day when I move and get rid of my superfluous DC stuff.

 

[Wombat]

It's a shame the .GDI/untouched files never made it out there. However I do have parts of the untouched data which was being posted (with as goal to collectively figure out how to get it to boot) before the pressed disc was released. Perhaps with that + the pressed data there can be a un-hacked frankenbuild realized....

Update:
Here you can find a download (link valid until 23th of June) for a .RAR that has the complete disc however with a lot of files zero'ed out(!) and untouched IP.BIN and IP0000.BIN files. This also means if you were to put these files against the pressed versions you should be able to see what has been changed. Hopefully someone over here can put this to good use and/or create a un-patched/GDI version for posterity.