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bugjam
Registered: Apr 2003
Posts: 2594 |
Group id #1080 : Italian Cracking Service
Some questions fo the Italian veterans: according to the scroller in Afterburner +F [us version] , North Italy Cracking Service was a member/sub-group of ICS then?
Another question: the scroller mentions a member called "Filippetto". Could that be Tiger ? Like another nick?
And the scrollwriter refers to himself as part of "us" - "the godfathers". Does that mean The Godfathers was a subgroup in its own right, or is it mayberather referring to certain core members of ICS? |
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The Overkiller
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 342 |
1) Absolutly .. NO!
2) Tiger's name is Filippo, so yes, it's him.
3) Godfathers is a common term used in italian mafia, it's just a joke, not a sub-group. |
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bugjam
Registered: Apr 2003
Posts: 2594 |
1) So the "nics" mentioned as member is a scener, yes?
2) OK cool, will add it as alternative handle
3) But it definitely refers to a certain group of people, as it appears in the memberlist ("members are [...], and us (the godfathers)!") Not a subgroup, but then certain core members, as I suspected. |
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The Overkiller
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 342 |
1) I can ask to some ex-members, but NICS was active in older time than ICS
2) Don't. It's just to say "Little Filippo", probably he didn't choice an handle yet, or it was just a friendly name to call him.
3)As I said it's a mafia word, sometimes in ICS they used other words like Magic Trio because 3 sceners worked together inside ICS, but it wasn't a meaning of sub-groups. |
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Doc Strange
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 101 |
What The Overkiller said and re your other questions:
1) NICS is only a group and not a scener afaik
2) I can confirm too, Filippo is Tiger, so Filippetto would definitely refer to him
3) I presume the guys in ICS would refer to themselves as "The Godfathers" and as The Overkiller said, it is meant to be only a "joke" |
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Smasher
Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 521 |
3) they wrote "The Godfathers" but you can read it as "The Recrackers" |
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bugjam
Registered: Apr 2003
Posts: 2594 |
lol! So you think that the nics in the member list is just a joke too?
Re 3) - I understand, but they put "the godfathers" in the member list, so that is kind of confusing, even for a joke. ;) |
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The Overkiller
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 342 |
C'mon Smasher, don't be so rude. It was Wildcat that gave a bad reputation about recracking, but people like Tiger, Mat, Hitman and Mamasoft were serious |
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Smasher
Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 521 |
Mamasoft (RIP) was cool, sure. Marco wasn't part of the lameness as he disappeared too soon, before Wildcaz recracking obscenity started.
As for the others I can only say if your HQ is an insane recracker you isolate him or you leave, as a few did. Defending him wasn't serious at all I think. |
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Doc Strange
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 101 |
ICS reputation was really debated back in the day. I have to agree with ZeSmasher when he is saying that the actual ICS HQ was the problem (Mr. Fly and Wildcat). On the other hand, they had really talented people like Mamasoft (RIP) and Tiger who suffered the group's bad reputation. |
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3201 |
Mamasoft had his share of bad things done to affect his reputation aswell, like selfattributing tunes stolen here and there. Nobody is without sin. |
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The Overkiller
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 342 |
Ah yes .... Waterfall. |
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Smasher
Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 521 |
"Let the one who is without sin be the first to throw the first stone"... or something like that.
it's funny to observe that god's laws don't apply here: you can be a killer, a rapist, whatever, but the worst sin in the cracking scene is recracking :P |
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Mat
Account closed
Registered: Aug 2009
Posts: 4 |
Hi, I am MAT of ICS and I can tell you the story.
I was a lone cracker in Florence when i met Wildcat and he ask me to join ICS.
Wildcat role was a supplier, he could travel in whole tuscany and bring the original games in 0 days.
Once joined ICS, Wildcat introduced me to Tiger, a good cracker near Florence, and we become very good friends.
Toghether we have cracked every kind of protection, from the simple one to the strongest kind, and we were one of the Italian fastest team to crack. In example, we was the first to release Warm up (Italian release), a 2 disk side F1 game with addictional protection on the second side. We come 1st to the release with a +trainer option, F4CG come second but do not remove the second protection, so you could not finish the game :-).
I think F4CG was the best group in Italy, but I also think that me and Tiger were a good couple of coder/cracker.
For what I remember, we (Mat+Tiger) NEVER have recracked a game. If we have attach an intro to an already cracked game, we do not have claim the right as a cracker.
If someone recrack, we did not know. At least until we was active in ICS...then I have noticed rumors that Wildcat starts recracking, but I was already out of c64 scene. |
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jailbird
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1578 |
Always cool to read such stories, thanks man! |
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Shine
Registered: Jul 2012
Posts: 369 |
Agree! I am always curious about this stuff! :D |
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The Overkiller
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 342 |
Thx Mat to have accepted my request to write your point of view ... I also told about this topic to Tiger and Hitman, let's see if they'll pop-up :) |
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Mat
Account closed
Registered: Aug 2009
Posts: 4 |
Maybe I was wrong.. the game was F1Gp Circuit from Ideasoft :-) |
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Smasher
Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 521 |
Ciao Mat, thanks for your post. just 2 things:
- the story is not about who was the first on a particular game, who was the fastest or who was the coolest around. to be honest: we didn't care back in 1990 and we'd be mad & stupid if we care today. the discussion here is about ICS reputation. so, IMHO, you and Tiger could have been the best crackers/coders of all times but I still believe that one bad apple spoils the whole barrel. in this case the bad apple was Wildcat and the barrel ICS.
- wildcat's lame recracks were not just rumors. you can have a look in the memory of ICS "crack" of Lupo Alberto and read ARM there, or read F4CG in at least a couple of other games. sigh! just check FAW notes for this 25+ yrs old story. |
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Flavioweb
Registered: Nov 2011
Posts: 466 |
I've been in touch with Mamasoft from '88 to '90.
I thought all ICS was like Marco was: skilled people, well organized inside a group.
I -swapped- a lot of stuff with him, talking to the phone as well, because we have never met in person.
We talked a lot about how he cracked games.
I remember a time when he was angry because i asked him if he knew how to use an Action Replay...
He told me to do everything by hand, and tried to explain to me a method that at the time, unfortunately, i could not understand.
He sended me a lot of "work disks", containig among other things, some sources (in Turbo Assembler format) of intros (like the -starfield- one) and tools selfcoded by Mamasoft.
I also recived some "music disks" originally made to be presented at Systems Editoriale (the editor of "Commodore Computer Club", the official Commodore Italian magazine), which contained some tunes made by Marco but never published. I was convinced he was a great coder and a good musician, at least as long Ian told me that tunes in "Waterfall" are lame rip-off of other tunes...
I was surprised to find here the game "Waterfall" cracked from something "oficially released" because, i recall, Marco was working on the game when he died.
My doubts increased when i could not find any picture of the original game package.
Maybe someone assembled an "non official" game with ripped musics, just to release it -on the wild-?
I think i can talk without being contradicted if i say people like Tiger, Mat and Mamasoft are Talented Sceners, even though the group was managed by people like Wildcat, which contributed only to giving a bad reputation.
Unfortunately i lost all my old disks so i can't check things now, but i'm still hoping that someone, somewhere have a copy of Mamasoft disks, at least just to see again the sources written by him. |
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Doc Strange
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 101 |
Some interesting stories about Wildcat here FAW Is Back and the rest of the infamous "cooljobs" here Federation Against Wildcat. |
