lusid1 / preservation-hiltonultimateteamplay

Research, documentation and preservation efforts related to this unusual PSP title.

Preservation-HiltonUltimateTeamPlay

Research, documentation and preservation efforts related to this unusual PSP title.

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About

Hilton Ultimate Team Play is a first-person interactive employee training program produced for the Hilton Garden Inn chain in the US between 2008 and 2009. It was built by VirtualHeroes on the ViciousEngine for the Sony PSP. A PC demo version was released in 2008, followed by the full version on PSP in 2009.

The original press release has been archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20080501094530/http://www.virtualheroes.com/newsDetails.asp?nid=31

Hilton Hotels presented at a game developer conference and talked about the background of the game, design goals, and development process. A recording is available here: https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1312/(305)-Hilton-ULTIMATE-TEAM-PLAY

The developer also references the game on their website: https://virtualheroes.com/portfolio_/commercial-2/hilton-ultimate-team-play/

Game Components

Hilton Ultimate Team Play consists of:

• A UMD Disc containing:
  • The launcher (eboot.bin)
  • The (backup) game engine (game.prx)
• A memory stick containing:
  • The data_psp folder/contents (the game assets)
  • The SALT Scores folder/contents
  • The patch installer/installed EBOOT.PBP
  • The patched game engine (game.prx) if installed.

After the game has been run for the first time, and the Game Data Installer process completes, the patch installer EBOOT.PBP is replaced with:

• The 'patch installed' EBOOT.PBP
• The patched GAME.PRX file, which can only be read on the system that ran the patch installer.

Boot process and known bugs

1. The launcher checks the memory stick for the data_psp/data.pak file to make sure the game assets are present
2. The launcher runs the patch installer EBOOT.PBP
   • BUG 1: If the patch installer or patch installed eboot is not present it will not proceed to launch the backup game from UMD
3. The launcher runs the patched GAME.PRX if present
   • BUG 2: If the patch was installed by a different PSP it will attempt to load it anyway and hang at a black screen
4. If the patched GAME.PRX is missing it launches the backup GAME.PRX from the UMD drive
5. The GAME.PRX loads the data.pak file and runs the game
6. If the data.pak file is not found, it loads the game from the data_psp directory structure on the memory stick
   • BUG 3: The provided data.pak file is a dummy file, which causes the game engine to exit the game.

Workarounds for known bugs

1. The official day0 patch fixes or avoids these bugs, but neither the patch nor the patch installer have been preserved.
2. Apply these workarounds to successfully invoke the backup game.prx
   • Ensure the patch install completed eboot.pbp file is present on the memory stick (avoids bug#1)
   • Remove the game.prx file from the memory stick (avoids bug#2)
   • replace the empty data.pak with a valid data.pak (avoids bug#3)

Preservation Status

Component	Status	Location/Notes
UMD Disc	Archived	https://archive.org/details/HiltonGardenInnUltimateTeamPlayUSA
data_psp folder	Archived	Included in the memorystick image on archive.org
SALT Scores folder	Archived	Included in the memorystick image on archive.org
Patch Installer EBOOT.PBP	MISSING	-
Patch Installed EBOOT.PBP	Archived	Included in the memorystick image on archive.org
Encrypted GAME.PRX	Archived (1 sample)	Included in the memorystick image on archive.org
MemoryStick Image	Archived (1 sample)	https://archive.org/details/HiltonGardenInnUltimateTeamPlayUSA
DATA.PAK	Reconstructed	https://www.dropbox.com/s/hy3gz4sxdjmtaeu/data.pak?dl=1
Decrypted GAME.PRX	MISSING	A decryption tool has been created, but it must be run on a working original hilton PSP to decrypt the .PRX. A functional equivilent has been reconstructed that patches bug #3 but there is currently no way to install it.

The game disc and memory stick data have been preserved, but the patch installer EBOOT.PBP has not. An example of the already installed EBOOT and encrypted GAME.PRX have been archived, but the file can only be read by the original PSP on which it was installed. A decryption tool has been created. It will need to be run by someone who has a working original hilton PSP to recover the patched GAME.PRX file.

Because memory sticks use a simple FAT file system it is possible the installer eboot is hiding in the unallocated blocks of someone's original hilton memory stick. Anyone who has one of these memory sticks should archive a raw disc image (such as a dd image) so we can look for any remnants of the original eboot.

There are known instances of someone owning a complete working set that includes the original disc, memorystick and matching PSP. One of these units will need to be used to preserve the patched GAME.PRX file.

Running the game without the missing components:

A pre-release version of the game is present on the disc, which is invoked if the user picks no at the game data installer, but this build of the game expects to find a valid data.pak archive on the memorystick. Because the data.pak in the memorystick image is a dummy file, the game exits. So to get the game running, we need to:

• Rename GAME.PRX to _GAME.PRX, to invoke the on-disc build of the game
• Replace the DATA.PAK dummy file with a valid archive.

This allows the umodified game iso or the original UMD disc to run on a normal PSP, but does not work on emulators like PPSSPP because the patch installer related functions are not implemented.