˙˙O= ˙/) FLIPPERSMACK 009 ˙`= culturemag for a penguin generation http://www.flippersmack.com x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x This must be the computer geek issue of Flippersmack. Gaming and phone stuff. Thanks Bob and Clone for contributing so faithfully =) Flippersmack is starting to take on a life of its own, and a sense of community. I'd love to get some feedback. Tell me what you like, what you don't like, and what you'd like to see more of. Send me articles and reviews- share your mind with the world around you. pinguino [pinguino@comicartist.com] Flippersmack Archives: http://www.penguinpalace.com/ http://www.nettwerked.net/ http://www.ghu.ca/ tABLE oF cONTENTS *FRESH* Pre-Scavenger Hunt Clue #3 .................Flippersmack Final Fantasy X.........................................Pinguino Harry Potter: Become the Legend ........................Pinguino Contriversial Games - All talk? [Rant]..................Bob Lull Canadian COCOT Unrestricted Line Exploit...............The Clone FRESH articles were written day of zine release- June 11, 2001 .x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x PRE-HUNT CLUE #003!!!! http://onix.net/~pinguino/fsmack/ Eventually there will be a website for the pre-hunt. For now, keep reading flippersmack. -.x.x.x.- Final Fantasy X - Squaresoft's PS2 Breakthrough by pinguino [pinguino@comicartist.com] Square Electronic Arts will be breaking new ground this year with FINAL FANTASY X and the upcoming FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN movie. Previews of both were shown at E3 this year, as well as enhanced re-releases of popular Super Nintendo games: FINAL FANTASY CHRONICLES: FINAL FANTASY IV & CHRONO TRIGGER. The FINAL FANTASY series has sold over 31 million copies worldwide and has been acclaimed by critics and gamers alike for pushing the envelope in terms of gameplay, graphics, sound, and story. Utilizing the graphic and performance capabilities of the PlayStation 2, FINAL FANTASY X is one of the most highly anticipated titles for the PlayStation 2 and is expected to be another milestone for the role playing genre. We had a chance to play the Japanese version of FINAL FANTASY X at E3 on a Playstation 2. This is the first version to use voice-overs on characters, thanks to Square's "Facial Motion System." Characters will be able to rotate in and out of the party even in the heat of battle, allowing a “tag team” approach to fighting. The game is also mostly polygonal compared to previous versions, giving extra flexibility to camera angles and movements. High-polygon, motion-captured player characters, designed by Tetsuya Nomura, bring lifelike realism to the screen. It is this type of realism in gameplay that sets Square apart from other game developers. The game is scheduled to release in North America in early 2002. Inspired by the FINAL FANTASY game series comes FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN, a new movie by Columbia Pictures and Square Pictures due out this year. THE SPIRITS WITHIN will raise the standard for Hollywood animation; it is a cinematic breakthrough where the most sophisticated effects imaginable are invisibly woven into an unforgettable story about adventure, survival and the eternal spirit of mankind. Rendered completely in CGI, the entire movie is done completely in the classic FINAL FANTASYstlye gamers have come to expect from Square. Hironobu Sakaguchi directs THE SPIRITS WTHIN from an original screenplay written by Al Reinert and Jeff Vintar. Story by Sakaguchi. Motonori Sakakibara co-directs. The film features the voices of actors Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Peri Gilpin, Ming-Na, Ving Rhames, Donald Sutherland and James Woods, among others. FINAL FANTASY opens in theaters on July 11. -.x.x.x.- Harry Potter: Become the Legend by pinguino [pinguino@comicartist.com] Books let the reader passively experience the story. Film is an interpretation of the story. The only way to truely experience the story, and BE Harry Potter, is to immerse yourself in the video game. Harry Potter is a wizard boy who has brought sensationalism back to the literary world. He's got a movie coming out this fall, as well as four games by Electronic Arts. The four games are targeted towards kids, as the books are, but hold a timelessness to be enjoyed by everyone. They follow the books very closely, and Electronic Arts has worked closely with the author, J.K. Rowlings, to ensure faithfulness to the story. Harry never dies in the game, because he never dies in the book. He just ends up in the school infirmirary and his house (like a frat house) loses points. "The kids reactions are overwhealmingly positive," said Chris Grey, executive producer for the Harry Potter games. "We've made it as authentic as possible, creating a new game universe." There is a fine line between easy accessibility for new players, and enjoyability for hardcore gamers, and these games are it. Each game platform has an entirely different Harry Potter game and is a competition between four houses. The PC game is a puzzle-based RPG. The Playstation One game is an advanced action-adventure RPG with Quiddich. The Gameboy Color game is a card game, similar to how Pokemon works. The GameBoy Advance is an action-adventure game. "[The games were] visually inspired by the film. Where we can, we use digital assets from the film," added Grey. "The game was created in 3D Studio Max and Photoshop, utilizing the Unreal engine in some, along with some custom 3D animation. Over 70 developers worked across the four games." The seven books in the series match seven grades in the UK school system. Four books have been released so far. The video games seen at E3 focus soley on the first book. The games will be available November 16. -.x.x.x.- Contriversial Games - All talk? [Rant] by Bob Lull [r_lull@hotmail.com] I saw a news brief on TV the other day that got me thinking (which rarely ever happens). This story was about a new game that involves never-ending violence and bloodshed, and stage after stage after stage of beating the crap out of enemies, windows, cars, mailboxes, innocent bystanders, and the like. Sound familiar? Maybe even stale and cliche? Well, it may be, but there is a subtle difference between this game and the many hundreds of other games that boast the same gameplay: this one happens to be based on a recent large-scale riot, and the baddies are the cops. For this reason, and ONLY this reason, this game is getting tons of press and recognition. Is this game any good? From what I saw, I wouldn't play it twice. Will it sell like hoola-hoops? You betcha. It always makes me laugh when I think about it. You've got the Super-Catholics out there, saying that a game was sent from the devil himself, you've got the Surgeon General warning parents of the serious consequences of extended play of the game, your local governor is trying to get every Walmart in the country to ban sales of that one title, and all the while, the only thing these various roadblocks accomplish is giving this game a record-breaking (although temporary) noteriety. Sales sky-rocket, because people want the game that every news anchor in America is talking about. Meanwhile, the game company pulls out of a 3-million dollar ad campaign, because the press is doing all the work for them. Then little Johnny finally gets this new game he's been hearing about, pops it in, and slogs through about 10 minutes worth of play, before he realizes that the game is complete crap. I have yet to see a game that garners such amazing press coverage and fame that was actually any good. Here, this is a list of some of that games that fall under that category. See if you've been fooled into buying a few of them. I know that I have. Game: Grand Theft Auto (1 and 2) Company: Rockstar Genre: Gang-related car theft The idea is interesting: Steal cars for cash, dodge the cops, kill your rivals. Then I actually played them. If any of you remember these games, you probably remember the horrid controls of the cars, crappy graphics, repetitive gameplay, and all-around clunkyness of this title, not to mention almost impossible difficulty. Game: Mortal Kombat (Pick one) Company: Acclaim Genra: Tournament Fighting Good ol' Boon and Tobias. Imagine the chuckles that they still have when they think about much cash they've sucked out of you. The first MK came out in the early nineties and a string of "improved" sequels contiuously followed quickly. Think about it for a minute: besides tearing your opponent apart in a fatality or smacking them upside the head in order to see an explosion of blood (apparently every character's face shots hit with the force of a hydraulicly-powered sledgehammer), was there anything really fun about ANY of these games? Oh yeah, and the movies sucked too. Game: Bio Freaks Company: Acclaim Genre: Tournament Fighting Following the success of the MKs, Acclaim decided to add a more futuristic take on the whole ultra violent fighter genre. Every fighter in this game comes with at least one way to cut off every limb of their opponents. I've never seen so much blood in my life. I would think that after one fight, your character would be completely dried up. Never mind that every fighter moves like zombies made out of wood. Never mind that I never would have even heard of this game if not for the wonderful media and never-resting army of soccer-moms that don't even really know what they are talking about. Thanks to them, this fifty dollar paper weight can be found in Playstation and N64 form. Game: House of the Dead Genre: Rail Shooter Okay, never mind. I actually like these games... (Killing zombies = fun!) So, you get the idea. Time and again we've been burned by these games that are pulled out of the depths of the obscurity that they really belong in by meddling humanity groups and over-protective parents. However, I do believe that we gamers, as consumers, are getting smarter. And who knows, this new riot game might be pretty good. I'm not counting on it though. I can only offer one small bit of advice: Rent first! -.x.x.x.- Canadian COCOT Unrestricted Line Exploit by The Clone [theclone@hackcanada.com] 06.03.01 intro: This document has been written to point out another payphone vulnerability that I recently discovered while experimenting with two types of COCOTs: the Canada Payphone Corporation / AT&T 'Elcotel Eclipse', and the Paytel Canada 'Protel'. documentation; For over two decades, payphone companies have been working ways to make their payphones more profitable, user-friendly, and secure both in the area of physical security (to protect from vandals) and line-security (to protect from phone phreakers). Starting in the late nineteen-eighties, payphone companies have started to be successful in stopping the exploitation of their phones by people using blueboxes, redboxes, beige boxes, and more recently NOS (not in service) INWATS numbers for unrestricted line dropping. In western Canada, where Telus has a monopoly over the payphone market, Telus has successfully been able to patch the unrestricted line problem. For example: you pick up the receiver on a Telus payphone, dial a toll free number (800) and the number you dialed happens to be out of service and hangs up on you; the payphone will automatically recognize this and seize the phone line. However, I've found that in the last two years that certain COCOTs have been vulnerable to line seizing exploitation. In March of 2000, I found that a large portion of the older AT&T Elcotel model 9520c's tend to have a lot of problems with seizing not-in-service calls. Line seizing exploitation on Elcotel 9520C's now looks as though it is virtually extinct because a majority of the older and all of the newer 9520C's have now been fixed by Canada Payphone Corporation (its Canadian distributor). "Just when AT&T, Elcotel, Canada Payphone Corporation, and Paytel Canada thought the days of line seizing exploitation was over..." 1. In order to make this particular exploit work, you need to call an out-of-service number such as this one: 1-800-909-0261. 2. After the call connects, you will hear the line hang for approximately 15 seconds. 3. Now wait for another 5-10 seconds, and the line you called will hang up. 4. At this point the vulnerable phone you are on will try to seize the line and make you redial the number. Instead, you will get a normal dial tone. 5. Immediately after getting the dialtone on the phone, enter your area code and any local number you wish to call. 6. Your call will connect as if you had placed 25 cents into the payphone, and directly dialed the number. Q: "What does my caller identification information show on the received party's CID display?" A: If you called from any Paytel Canada COCOT, your CID info will show "Paytel Canada" and its assigned phone number. If you call from an Elcotel Eclipse COCOT, your CID information will show "Unknown Name" and its assigned phone number. research: -Recommended COCOT research sites- (H/P) www.nettwerked.net www.hackcanada.com www.ghu.ca (Corporate) www.elcotel.com www.paytel.ca (.com) www.protel.com -Relevant COCOT images- Elcotel Eclipse image: www.nettwerked.net/eclipse.jpg Paytel 'Protel' image: www.nettwerked.net/paytel.jpg outro: This file just goes to prove that one of the many exploits that worked on the payphones of yesterday DO still work on newer payphones of today, and likely tomorrow if COCOT manu- facturing and distribution companies don't get a clue as to how their own payphone equipment works. How long is it going to be before these telecom companies start adopting some sort of a standard for properly securing POTS-copper lines? Until then, phreaks around the nation will continue to exploit this ancient form of toll-fraud that hurts these companies revenues by millions of dollars each fookin' year! contact info: e-mail: theclone@hackcanada.com irc: irc.h410g3n.com #cpu (key), #hackcanada web-site: www.nettwerked.net -endz- -.x.x.x.- Flippersmack (c) 2001 Flippersmack All Rights Reserved.