Sonic 2 HD

[Scar]

Though I want S2HD to continue, because of how promising it was, the bad publicity surrounding this event will pretty much destroy any chance of it succeeding in the future, unless the gaming press are thorough in their reporting of what's going on.

If however, the gaming press isn't filled in, unfortunately a lot more than just S2HD's future will be compromised. Sonic fangaming in general may well be buggered too.

This is really sad.

L0st has lost his job, but the earthquake that represents his actions, may well cause a much more devastating tsunami to the Sonic fangaming world.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Scar

[sonfan1984]

I haven't been keeping up with this topic for a whole week and when I finally check it everybody is freaking out. What is going on?

[Komodin]

I haven't been keeping up with this topic for a whole week and when I finally check it everybody is freaking out. What is going on?

Read this article. It pretty much sums up the whole deal behind this latest brouhaha.

[Jeffhog]

Though I won't have much of a chance to try it for myself, I really, really, really don't want to see the project left in the crapper.

[DGam'r]

I dunno if I should download it still

[Phos]

Well, I just found this on Retro from Polygon Jim:

http://forums.sonicr...ndpost&p=677996

So, does this mean that the keylogger isn't a keylogger?

Yeah, it's probably not a keylogger. The DRM actually sounds more like a digital signature on the asset files than it is true DRM, though.

[Neko Boy]

I saw it on the Sonic Show and it looks quite promising. But I'm patient enought to wait for the main version to arrive.

[Jeffhog]

Guess Who words off on keylogger scare

What Scarred Sun said, despite reporting it for everyone's best interest, turns out to be jumping the gun a bit.

[Gaming Misfit]

Welp, once again I find I can't trust a word Retro says.

As Vizzard said and "Guess Who" from Retro, it's merely a jumping the gun situation.

[Jeffhog]

Welp, once again I find I can't trust a word Retro says.

As Vizzard said and "Guess Who" from Retro, it's merely a jumping the gun situation.

Not necessarily Retro, but more Scarred Sun. Apparently, she won't change her article. I'm in the forum right now to see what else I can gather.

[Jeffhog]

Update. One of two.

Things aren't looking too well for Miss Scarred right now. D:

[DGam'r]

That's it no downloading this

[Gaming Misfit]

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/fan-made-sonic-game-triggers-anti-virus-warnings-190514162.html

Oh. My. God.

[Kiah]

Yeah, it's probably not a keylogger. The DRM actually sounds more like a digital signature on the asset files than it is true DRM, though.

That being said, should I still delete the Sonic 2 HD file or not? I'm not sure what to do even after reading the recent updates.

[Chaos Warp]

http://games.yahoo.c...-190514162.html

Oh. My. God.

Kinda late to the party, dude.......

[Gaming Misfit]

Kinda late to the party, dude.......

Oh wait, really? Well, I'm still in shock at how big this has gotten.

[Jeffhog]

http://www.sonicstadium.org/2012/04/s2hd-keylogger-no-longer-the-case-safe-to-download-again/

Spread this around guys. This as well as the Retro links in the article.

Don't let the efforts and the reputation of S2HD go to the gutter.

[Nintendoga]

Edit: Fix'd.

^@Vizard Agreed.

Just in case some people are still confused, there is no keylogger in Sonic 2 HD, and it is safe to download.

Here's the entire post by "Guess Who" from Sonic Retro who explains it

Let me start by introducing myself. I'm Guess Who, a long-time member of Sonic Retro, the Sonic the Hedgehog fan community that birthed Sonic 2 HD. I've been kind of in the middle of the whole Sonic 2 HD debacle; I discovered the hack-prevention code within the game and wrote

an editorial for the Sonic Retro homepage detailing the project's troubled development and recent security problems. I highly advise you to read that article before you proceed. It contains valuable background information about the project, and its accuracy has been vouched for by both Sonic Retro staff and the Sonic 2 HD development team.

Last night I discovered a comment left on the editorial by a MrVestek, a commenter claiming to work for an antivirus company who did some investigation into Sonic 2 HD's behavior after reading my article. He revealed that the game accesses the registry and monitors keyboard strokes even while the game is not in focus. I brought this comment to the attention of the Sonic Retro IRC channel; we debated the possibility of the game being a keylogger. After I discovered the locations Sonic 2 HD accesses in the registry, Retro founder Scarred Sun (who was present in the IRC channel) posted an article on the site warning users that the game is a keylogger.

However, when this was posted, we had not actually investigated MrVestek's claims. Since last night, no one has found any evidence to suggest that Sonic 2 HD stores your keystrokes anywhere, be it locally or remotely. Wireshark analysis confirms it does not access the internet in any capacity. I did confirm that the program does, in fact, respond to keystrokes even if you have another window in focus - say, you alt-tabbed to Chrome or Firefox or whatever. So, for example, if you have "jump" bound to spacebar and you have Chrome open, each time you press spacebar in Chrome will result in Sonic jumping in the background. Terrifying security flaw, I know. This only occurs if you use DirectInput for input. Opting to use the raw keyboard option eliminates the behavior, hinting that the problem may be an oversight with DirectInput.

Moreover, the game also responds to button presses on a controller configured with DirectInput even when another window is in focus (if anyone can come up with a malicious reason for a program to log your 360 controller button presses, please, let me know). It's also important to note that this only occurs while the game is running. It does not install a service or add anything to your startup programs. This evidence coupled with the lack of any proof of any actual logging of keys - a required trait for a keylogger - heavily suggests that the problem is merely poor implementation of DirectInput. As my editorial should tell you, programmer incompetence is nothing new to this project.

As for the registry entries, the only things stored in the registry are your video and controller settings and a "Stat" entry that is believed to track what you have unlocked in the demo. Normally these sorts of things would be confined to a config and save file, but, again, programmer incompetency. While using the registry to store game settings is incredibly dated and discouraged, it's essentially harmless.

Yes, the game triggers an antivirus alert. No, it's not because of keylogging. As I mentioned in my editorial, the game's executable is packed and obfuscated to deter reverse engineers. Trojans often utilize the same tactic to hide malicious code. The fact that this compression sets off antivirus software is confirmed by Avira. AntiVir detects the game as "TR/Crypt.XPACK.Gen", whose description reads:

In order to aggravate detection and reduce size of the file it is packed with a runtime packer.

VirusTotal, an online service that checks a program against multiple antivirus programs, vouches for this - not a single antivirus program detects the game as a keylogger. If you're wondering why the executable is packed and obfuscated to begin with, it's not because it is malicious. The programmer, LOst, has a severe case of paranoia and does not want Sonic Retro members to reverse engineer his engine (refer to my editorial for the absurdity and hypocrisy in this).

So, to summarize: your personal information, as far as anyone can tell, is not in any danger if you played Sonic 2 HD. The game is safe. Any antivirus warnings you get are indeed a false positive.

I'm a bit tired as I write this - it's 4:08 PM, I had three classes today, and I got no sleep last night due to this whole ordeal - so if I missed anything or you have any questions, please let me know.

Whether you download the game or not because of DRM, it's up to you, but at least it's known that it's a safe game to download. And as stated many times before, Lost is no longer apart of the project. What happens next though, is currently unknown.

But in lighter news, here's a video I found showing Tails, How to access Debug Mode and Hill Top Zone, and a few other silly things. Tails we all knew about, but I don't think anybody has mentioned the last two yet.

Instructions

To get Tails, Beat the game then at the title screen Hold B as you start the game on the title screen.

To get Debug and Hill Top, Collect every ring within Acts 1 & 2.

To access Hill Top, Hold C as you start the game on the title screen

Edited April 18, 2012 by Jack Slate

[Phos]

That being said, should I still delete the Sonic 2 HD file or not? I'm not sure what to do even after reading the recent updates.

It doesn't seem to be dangerous. It triggers trojan warnings because LOst was obsessed with making it unhackable and made the program obfuscated against inspection by antivirus programs and the like, and it looks like a keylogger because of a strange direct input implementation. There are a lot of suspicions that the requirements are so high because of the obsfucation, it would make the program less efficient.

[Jeffhog]

Now I can only wonder who will take the programming helm now that LOst has been booted.

[TimberWolf]

Now I can only wonder who will take the programming helm now that LOst has been booted.

Someone competant, hopefully. I want to try this out once I have my computer back, but as it stands even with the Keylogger thing debunked I'm not going to feel comfortably downloading the game.

[mikeblastdude]

This was just posted by the Sonic 2 HD team on Facebook:

Last month we proudly showed off a demo of what we've accomplished with S2HD.

Needless to say, more work has been done on the game; unfortunately, the odds of this work every seeing the light of day is slim to none. We gave the project's Lead Programmer, LOst, a week to provide us with a DRM free build of S2HD.

We've heard as much from him as you have, so it's safe to assume that's not going to happen. Given his complete lack of communication and cooperation, it falls upon to LOst to assume full responsibility for his actions as, up until the demo was released, the project's leadership was unaware of both the DRM and the now infamous DirectInput bug. This was the last straw for us. He had ignored direct requests for the past two years, effectively holding the project ransom by refusing additional help or review on his private engine. If he didn't think a piece of artwork matched his vision for the game, it was not included, or worse, was replaced by assets of his own creation. The same thing happened with the excellent multi-format sound engine our Tools Programmer Saxman created. Ultimately, LOst is no longer a part of the project.

That's the good news. The bad news for the project far outweighs it unfortunately. We cannot replace our lead programmer as LOst kept the source code for himself, making it impossible to the coded source material to be updated or used as a base for newer builds.

Additionally, two key staff members, scanline99 and Cerulean Nights (both of whom were chiefly responsible for the many animations, spritework, and overall polish seen in the demo) have resigned from the project to concentrate on independent works and careers. While we wish them the best in their endeavours, what this means to the project is that they will no longer be producing any artwork for it. Without them we are not able to guarantee the same level of quality seen in the alpha. At the moment, with ongoing careers and kids to look after, both myself and Canned Karma don't anticipate that we'll have a great deal of time to devote to S2HD either, which means we're forced to announce that

Sonic 2 HD is officially discontinued.

Certainly the DirectInput bug and the blogosphere fallout over it didn't help matters, but by the time that had taken place we had already made the decision to discontinue the project almost two months ago, well ahead of the demo's release. Internal conflicts between the project leadership and its main programmer which reached critical mass, and the only thing holding it together was the collective determination to put our frustrations aside and get a playable build into the hands of everyone who waited years for it.

Hopefully, another group in the Sonic community will pick up the torch and go forward with the vision we had over a year ago -- not just creating a Sonic 2 remake, but creating entirely original content.

Thanks to everyone who supported the project, especially to the passionate classic Sonic fanbase.

The appreciation thousands of fans expressed to S2HD as a game made "by fans for fans", represents a landmark where SEGA has to look at for a profitable use of the -highly demanded and beloved Classic franchise.

-Vincent

Team S2HD

Project Leader

It's a shame really. This project had so much going for it. :\

[Guest]

Can't believe that............

Fucking LOst

Why did he had to be so selfish and utterly protective like that

[Solkia]

Not surprising in the least.

[Penny]

Sonic 2 HD is officially discontinued.

NO! After 4 years, this is what it comes to? One of the original reasons I got into the Sonic Community was Sonic 2 HD! C'mon!

...

FUCKING LOst, you selfish prick!