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LGR Oddware Follow-Up: PC GameShark (Patreon)

Published:
2018-12-20 04:31:41
Edited:
2018-12-21 03:19:03
Imported:
2021-03

Content

EDIT: First few uploads were stuck at 360p due to YouTube being... YouTube.
Fixed now though with this version, enjoy in full 4K60 as intended!

When I covered the PC Action Replay on Oddware recently, I mentioned there was a US version sold under the GameShark branding. I've since received a complete in box example that we can test out!

And eh, the results really aren't too surprising.

Also, RIP Lazy Green Giant: 2018-2018. I'll have it repaired promptly :P

Files

Oddware Follow-Up: GameShark for Windows 95 PCs

Datel released the PC Action Replay cheat device in 1998, complete with VHS tape and parallel port dongle. It was awful. Didn't stop them from bring it to the USA in the form of the PC GameShark! ● Here's the LGR Oddware episode about the Action Replay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY54vZlgfx4 ● Other LGR links: https://twitter.com/lazygamereviews https://www.facebook.com/LazyGameReviews https://www.patreon.com/LazyGameReviews ● Music credits go to: http://www.epidemicsound.com #LGR #Retro #Oddware

Comments

Anonymous

I had no idea GameShark made a dongle for the PC, I saw plenty on consoles like PS2 and Xbox but never PC. It just seems weird they would do that especially considering most games have built in cheat codes anyway. Oh well, at least it makes for an interesting LGR vid.

Anonymous

Oh no, Lazy Green Giant!

Anonymous

I'd love to see a video on the troubleshooting/repair process for the Lazy Green Giant!

Robert Butler

Yeah those are basically useless.

LazyGameReviews
>>18177816

If it ends up being anything more than just the power supply as I suspect, I may just document the process! Hoping it's nothing more than that :)

Carey Brown

"Can you swim with the sharks? Oh dear....." XD The commentary kills me!!! Your sense of humor is just one of the many reasons I watch your channel. Also if you need some spare parts, I have an ATX-AT power supply adapter and other Socket 7/Slot-1 era parts I'm more than happy to share with you to get the Lazy Green Giant back up and running. I'm not bad at cap replacements either.

Anonymous

oh no. Sorry to see the Lazy Green Giant is out of commission - hoping it is just the PSU on it. Always the worst time for tech troubles when working on stuff :( Not at all surprised to see the US version of this end up being just as much of a lame duck as the UK one - I guess there are still too many variables with trying to runtime patch those games.

Anonymous

I recall seeing this at several stores in the late 90s, never bought one though - and after watching your Oddware video Clint I'm glad I never did. So utterly useless. Sorry to hear about the Lazy Green Giant, at least you had a backup ready to go. Unfortunately this is the fate of vintage computer hardware, sooner or later Time itself takes its toll - yesterday I had to open my P166MMX PC to replace a faulty CD-ROM and found a couple of pregnant caps near the CPU socket; I'm now making plans to remove the Socket 7 ATX motherboard and do a full recap, should be as good as new once its done. Hopefully a replacement PSU will do the trick in your case.

Anonymous

The Lazy Green Giant dies and hardware DRM failure? We need a Christmas miracle!

Anonymous

In my experience with trainers in old PC games, these things used to only work with very specific versions of each game. The smallest difference would throw everything off. This probably depends on the usage of relative vs absolute values. You can see that with software like Cheat Engine. Find a few values to give yourself lots of extra/unlimited health and ammo and it'll work, but save the profile and load it the next time you launch the game and suddenly those values are useless. That's because you chose the wrong kind of value, so it was only useful for that particular session. Something similar might be at play here. They tried the values ONCE and saved them, and then they never bothered to test them again under different circumstances (such as different hardware, different versions or just different play sessions). I feel for the people that wasted money on this. I think the reason we hadn't heard of these things has become patently obvious now.

BastetFurry
>>18180302

You had way more luck back then with good old GameWizard32 or, under Windows, with ArtMoney. But as we mainly played strategy titles back then our best bet was using a plain old hex editor. We used Norton Disk Edit from the Norton Utilities, don't forget to UNLOCK first under Win9x. ;) Hey, Clint, in the hope that you read this, how about an episode about cheating games savefiles with a hex editor?

ogspeace

oh man, rip lazy green giant. hope you get fixed buddy!

Anonymous

I was not able to watch. Tried two different browsers and Youtube app. Each only offers 720p and 360p. 720p never loads or gives an error and 360p is 360p 😞

Anonymous
>>18184736

EDIT: The vid started loading after about 10 min in 360p. Same here :(

Anonymous

What a great example of a product that didn't need to exist. Shame, as the console ones were great! I even remember getting a similar VHS with one I bought for the PS1 about 20 years ago. Of course, it only worked on the original model. When that console died and I replaced it with a PSOne slim model, it was as useless to me as this thing was to you, as it lacked the necessary port.

Anonymous

As others are saying I think something's up with the YouTube upload won't work for me. I even got cheeky and tried youtube-dl but it returned "Got server HTTP error: Downloaded 439464 bytes, expected 127666271 bytes. Retrying (attempt 1 of 10)" Stupid YouTube :(

Anonymous

Watching the embedded video in Patron works fine for me, but when trying to watch it directly on YouTube (either by fullscreening the embedded video or clicking Watch on YouTube) it just loads forever. Silly.. I need my LGR in full screen!! Edited: Hm, appears that when I change the fullscreen to 360p it works fine (makes sense, since the embedded video is most likely 360p per default). Guess it's just an issue with the 720p version..

Anonymous

The Game Shark is so bad that it broke the Lazy Green Giant *and* YouTube uploading. Sheesh!

Anonymous

360p? ill just pretend you recorded it on a old thrifted video camera

Akselmo

I've been having problems on youtube too, the videos just break randomly etc.

Anonymous

The issue, I suspect is down to the way that add ons for consoles like the Action Replay and the Game Genie work. I suspect this works in the same way. They work by changing a value on a given memory address (for example the byte where your number of lives are stored). On a console this is always going to be the same address for any given game, because the games and consoles never really change. On a PC, you could have himem, EMS XMS, all that wonderful early 90s stuff, and the given memory address would change. I assume it also depends on the OS and to some extent the hardware too. It's probably incorrect to say the product doesn't work, but it's probably right to say that its REALLY hard and REALLY unlikely to get it working. ( I should add that if I bought this in the late '90s I'd probably get my money back).

Anonymous

Did you re-upload it to Youtube? I clicked the video about 3 minutes before I started typing this, cause I read what you said. When it opened on Youtube, it said it had been deleted. The embedded video was definitely only 360p though. When I refreshed this page, I click on the video, and now its 1080p. So weird.

Anonymous

Just pretend it's 1994 when 360p video would've blown our freakin' minds!

evistre
>>18195094

Or even 2008. That's basically what I did - was irritated for a bit at the quality, then was like, y'know, this wouldn't have bothered me 10 years ago, I'll live. Great video.

Anonymous

I have it in 1080p60 here so not an upload issue, more like a distribution to viewers. I have noticed Youtube being borked these past few days, on my iPad it seems to always play 360p by default and not switch to anything higher on its own, have to select it manually but when I do it works. Maybe they're short on bandwidth in some places? <a href="https://ibb.co/wwjnJNf" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://ibb.co/wwjnJNf</a>

Mark

No issues playing this in HD! I saw every pixel of the horrible death of the Green Giant :( But let me take this opportunity to wish you a merry Christmas :) enjoy the holidays!

Anonymous

I would like to wish you a happy birthday, Clint! I hope you'll have a great and relaxing Christmas and a happy new year. I would also really like to take the time to thank you for another year of your awesome content. Your videos have made me fascinated and interested in old software and hardware. Your way of telling the story is also very engaging and relaxing at the same time.

Anonymous

Goodnight sweet prince.

Simon Tesla

The first post had 360p, but I'm seeing the latest upload in HD now, so Youtube must've worked out its gremlins.

Anonymous

Who would have thought that the Packard bell would have the upper hand over the Lazy Green Giant? Such a short life... Dude, that really is a piece of crap. Hope no one bought that back in the day.

Anonymous

The fact that you actually have the stones to show us when something doesn't work is great, and great for my ego.

Anonymous

Getting full 1080p playback now btw.

Anonymous

360p just makes it feel like an original 2009 VHS LGR 👌

Johan Petur Klüver Dam

Poor Lazy Gree Giant. But at least it's good to know that the Packard Bell hasn't been scrapped. :)

Anonymous

those gamesharks were totally useless at the time, as some gcw site already had all the trainers without needing some dongle and uberVHS tape xD

Tktagmedia

Gameshark on PC is a fascinating release. On consoles it was extremely popular, in no small part to its "extra" features like bypassing region and copy protection, and most games worked just fine with the codes included, thanks to the static nature of games of the time not typically receiving game updates.

Terry Lee

show me the money medieval man :P