Game Jackal is a PC application developed by Antiguan-based company

SlySoft The red fox is a small dog-like animal. Red Fox or Redfox may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Redfox'' (comics), a late 1980s British comicbook series * ''Red Fox'', a 1979 crime novel by Gerald Seymour **'' ''Red Fox'' (film)'', a 1991 Br ...

that allows users to play PC game titles without the need for the game's media to be in the CD-ROM or

DVD-ROM The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

drive. The program functions similar to a

virtual drive Virtual disk and virtual drive are software components that emulate an actual disk storage device. Virtual disks and virtual drives are common components of virtual machines in hardware virtualization, but they are also widely used for various p ...

; however, instead of making use of large disc images, Game Jackal uses a proprietary format which takes up considerably less storage space by working to only capture data the game requires to run. Game Jackal is advertised to work with around 90% of games on the market, including games such as '' Sid Meier's Railroads!'', ''

Neverwinter Nights 2 ''Neverwinter Nights 2'' is a role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Atari Interactive. It is the sequel to BioWare's ''Neverwinter Nights (2002 video game), Neverwinter Nights'', based on the ''Dungeons & ...

'' and ''

Need For Speed Carbon ''Need for Speed: Carbon'' is a 2006 racing video game and the tenth installment in the ''Need for Speed'' series. Developed by EA Canada, Rovio Mobile, and EA Black Box, and published by Electronic Arts, it was released on October 30, 2006, ...

''. While the authors admit not every title is bound to work with Game Jackal, support is gradually improving and regular updates which combat various bugs and blacklisting, as well as expanded functionality in the building of its profiles. Game Jackal works by establishing a game profile which is used to store all of the game's relevant data. To begin, an original copy of the game is needed to allow Game Jackal to successfully 'capture' the game for use later. If a first attempt at capturing a profile does not succeed, it may be performed again: anything else Game Jackal picks up will simply be added to the profile.

Legality

The legality of the usage of Game Jackal is still constantly being discussed. Its authors claim that the program is completely within legal boundaries because: *The profiles are designed to be created from original copies of game CDs. *The profiles can not be publicly distributed. *The program does not modify any of the game's contents or data. In January 2007, Jacal Consulting announced that Game Jackal would no longer be available for sale due to circumstances beyond their control. They subsequently closed the official website. According to several press releases, this was due to changes in Australian copyright legislation that came into effect on 1 January 2007. Game Jackal was eventually acquired by

in March 2007, and a new version, dubbed 'SlySoft Game Jackal Pro', was released on 2 June 2007.

External links

Game Jackal Guide

Club CD Freaks, a support forum.

Game Jackal 2.0 Review
Video game emulation {{Videogame-software-stub

Legality

See also

External links