Playstation 2 soft-Region Faker v1.00

[SP193]

This program allows you to fool some games into thinking that your console is a Japanese console, hence allowing you to have access to otherwise restricted content.

Such games include the SEGA Gems Collection, which has been reported to have more content available to only Japanese gamers.

Simply pop in your game and launch this program. The program will adjust the OSD parameters within your kernel and boot your game directly. If something goes wrong, it'll boot the Playstation 2 browser.

Note: THIS PROGRAM DOES NOT ALLOW YOU TO PLAY IMPORTED GAMES!!
Please take note that this program is experimental and has only been tested on PCSX2. It should work properly on real Playstation 2 consoles.

On a side note, I should probably mention that I've found PCSX2 to not load the OSD parameters from NVRAM into the kernel if you were to either perform a fast boot or launched an ELF directly. That might explain why my tests of GS mode 0 didn't seem to work.
(For developers: What this means is that if mode 0 works, you don't need to determine the video mode on your own. The EE kernel will do it for you).

What does this program actually do?

It changes the language field within the OSD parameters block that gets stored in your Playstation 2's kernel to Japanese. Games check that field to determine what language to use and for region-locking purposes.

The parameters are not saved to your console's Non-Volatile memory, so everything should be back to normal if you were to reset your console or exit back to the OSD (Since the OSD will reload the OSD parameters from NVRAM).

Please give feedback and comments!

Downloads/Links
Region Faker v1.00: RegionFaker.7z

[l_oliveira]

You mean "experimental" ?

Great work there, btw !

[SP193]

You mean "experimental" ?

Great work there, btw !

Oops.

Thanks!

[ace99]

This is pretty interesting, I wonder what other games this could be used with?

How would this be run on a real PS2? Is it something you have to burn to a disc, or run off of Free McBoot?

[SP193]

This is pretty interesting, I wonder what other games this could be used with?

How would this be run on a real PS2? Is it something you have to burn to a disc, or run off of Free McBoot?

I know that Metal Slug Anthology will be affected by this program too, and it'll display the menu options in Japanese (And if I'm not mistaken, the MC slot 2 bug will suddenly disappear as well).

Yes, to run this program, you need a way to launch homebrew. You could launch it directly off FMCB, but I believe that the usual way would be to launch it from uLaunchELF.

You have to insert your disc and give your console some time to read it first, before launching this program.

[LocalH]

As I'm reading this, it won't currently work with any game loaders or ESR, right? Would it be possible to make a version that instead of booting from CDVD, would launch uLE from the standard locations? Then one could launch ESR, OPL, etc. while still keeping the OSD parameters? Or will leaving the CDVD drive empty and allowing it to load the browser allow one to back out to the hacked FMCB OSD and run a game loader?

[kadorna2]

As I'm reading this, it won't currently work with any game loaders or ESR, right? Would it be possible to make a version that instead of booting from CDVD, would launch uLE from the standard locations? Then one could launch ESR, OPL, etc. while still keeping the OSD parameters?

this would be indeed interesting.

[SP193]

As I'm reading this, it won't currently work with any game loaders or ESR, right? Would it be possible to make a version that instead of booting from CDVD, would launch uLE from the standard locations? Then one could launch ESR, OPL, etc. while still keeping the OSD parameters? Or will leaving the CDVD drive empty and allowing it to load the browser allow one to back out to the hacked FMCB OSD and run a game loader?

It could work with anything other than original Sony Playstation 2 game discs, but the program will have to redesigned. That might be done later on, after I get proper confirmation that this program does what it was designed to do.

Right now it boots whatever Playstation 2 game you left inserted in your optical drive, but it could be modified to boot uLaunchELF off your memory card instead.

Now I'm thinking of making a tool that can configure the OSD of Playstation 2 consoles - giving the PS2 something like the PSP's CFW Recovery menu.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, but the changes could be permanent as well. If they were written to your console's NVRAM, it'll get retained even after resetting the console.

EDIT 2: Forget about making anything like a recovery menu like the recovery menu for the PSP - since it's not a standard firmware across various systems that will be dealt with. I thought that it would be possible to set the language option for the OSD to something that is not offered (E.g. Japanese on the 'Overseas' consoles), but the OSD was designed to not allow that to happen. Japanese consoles will only allow English or Japanese, while the 'overseas' consoles will support every other language other than Japanese.

[lee4]

Only Sonic Gems Collection (J) have both (Japanese / English) language packs
Metal Slug Collection / Anthology the most all Neo Geo games always have multi language data file

Sonic Gems Collection (SLPM_660.74)
Master code [by lee4]
902AFC58 0C0ABEBE
Enable English Mode [by lee4]
20103AA0 24020001

Metal Slug Complete (SLPS_257.62)
Enable Code (Must Be On) [by lee4]
902222B4 0C08EB81
English Mode (Metal Slug 1-5) [by lee4]
2018E134 24020001

Some games have sceScfGetLanguage label.

0 = Japanese Language
1 = English Language
2-5 = Other Languages (mostly European games)

Bio Hazard / Resident Evil 4 does have multi language data file but does not use sceScfGetLanguage unlike two games mention above
I use cheat device to change language in BIO / RE 4

[SP193]

Only Sonic Gems Collection (J) have both (Japanese / English) language packs
Metal Slug Collection / Anthology the most all Neo Geo games always have multi language data file

Sonic Gems Collection (SLPM_660.74)
Master code [by lee4]
902AFC58 0C0ABEBE
Enable English Mode [by lee4]
20103AA0 24020001

Metal Slug Complete (SLPS_257.62)
Enable Code (Must Be On) [by lee4]
902222B4 0C08EB81
English Mode (Metal Slug 1-5) [by lee4]
2018E134 24020001

Some games have sceScfGetLanguage label.

0 = Japanese Language
1 = English Language
2-5 = Other Languages (mostly European games)

Bio Hazard / Resident Evil 4 does have multi language data file but does not use sceScfGetLanguage unlike two games mention above
I use cheat device to change language in BIO / RE 4

If those games use the language option set in the OSD, they use the GetOsdConfigParam() syscall. I don't know which SCE library sceScfGetLanguage() belongs to, but I have this feeling that it belongs to the library that osd_config.c in the homebre PS2SDK belongs to.