10 Classic Video Game Hacks Everyone Should Play
February 7th, 2012 by Benj Edwards
Fans of my old VC&G column Hacksterpiece Theatre will enjoy my new slideshow on PCMag.com that profiles 10 amazing classic video game ROM hacks. Not surprisingly, the piece is titled, 10 Classic Video Game Hacks Everyone Should Play.
I’m sure you can suggest some great hacks too, so I’d like to know — what are your favorite ROM hacks?
February 7th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
No Super Mario Crossover? Surely it deserves at least an honorable mention…
February 7th, 2012 at 1:42 pm
I didn’t include Super Mario Crossover because it is not a ROM hack — it is a completely new simulation of Super Mario Bros. done in Flash.
February 7th, 2012 at 4:46 pm
my favourite hack has always been the super mario impossible, after watching that video and playing it for myself, all I can say is, Practice makes perfect! lol
February 7th, 2012 at 6:29 pm
Oiroke Mario is most certainly the best Mario hack ever.
February 7th, 2012 at 11:08 pm
While I’m glad that ROM hacks have been allowed to exist so far despite the legal issues, there always remains the threat that video game companies will eventually become more aggressive in pursuit of “protecting” their intellectual property, SOPA or not. I think a better idea would be for companies to hire particularly creative ROM hackers and retro-inspired programmers and assemble small retro game divisions within their companies.
Seriously, how cool would it be if Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, etc. all had dedicated retro teams producing new 8- and 16-bit style games for digital distribution on a regular basis? We know there is a market for it, and look how well received Mega Man 9 and 10 were, for example. The ease of making those types of games nowadays means fast development cycles and low overhead, which translates to affordable games for a hungry market. All the better if those games are made by passionate, skilled, creative, and dedicated fans, who have proven that they care enough to do that kind of work for free, let alone for a paycheck. Fans are going to make these kinds of games anyway, so Nintendo and others would be wise to try to profit from that work. Everybody wins in that scenario.
February 8th, 2012 at 3:22 pm
The immortal “Megacrap” remains a work of art to this day.
February 8th, 2012 at 3:22 pm
I always feel like I’m 12 again when I play Bryan’s Megacrap, a somewhat legendary toilet humor hack of Megaman 5.
February 9th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
I’m going to make the effort to play a few of these, thanks to the article. My experience with ROM hacks is either the impossibly hard or just incredibly random–like all those SMB hacks: the punk one, the one with juvenile humor, the MST3K one, Super Peach Sisters, etc.
I did like a few hacks of that old Sopwith game, like Sokwith and Blockwith.
February 9th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
I’m not a big fan of ROM hacks, but playing ROM CHECK FAIL was fun.
February 19th, 2012 at 5:14 pm
JackSoar: That actually happens sometimes. People making add-ons, hacks, plugins and other new stuff to old games have ended up hired into the game industry as long as the industry has been around. But I wouldn’t complain if it happened more frequently.
February 24th, 2012 at 3:06 am
For my money, the best hack out there is “Super Mario World: The Second Reality Project Reloaded”. It is indescribably good.
http://www.fpi-productions.de/tsrp1.htm
There’s also “An SMW Central Project”, “Super Pika Land Ultra”, and the English translation of “Brutal Mario”, all of which I’ve personally played and fully enjoyed.
For Genesis, I’d recommend “Sonic the Hedgehog Megamix” (a Sonic 1 hack that changed so much that it had to be moved to Sega CD) and “Sonic 2 Heroes” (which puts the player-switching mechanic of Sonic Heroes into Sonic 2).