- Star-Spangled Shazam
- Jul 15 2013, 12:48:36 PM
For me it started when I found out about Jurassic Boy 2 and Sonic 7 at the Secrets of Sonic Team website, since I was a huge classic Sonic fan at the time. After that, I found Brydo's channel which introduced me to other games like Digimon 02 Jade and it grew from there.[/quote]Same here. ;)- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: Robyn on July 15, 2013, 01:08:47 PM- There was this website which had about pirates. I can't remember the name. (I think it was TORP?)
Anyway, I found it after searching about a multicart that my Dad bought me and my sister, and the knowledge grew for bootlegs.
And then I found Nanashi, SpaceNinja and Awesome Panda over here. ;)- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: fcgamer on July 15, 2013, 01:42:23 PM- I guess I am dating myself here. I remember when the internet first started coming into popularity and mainstream towards the mid/late 90s. Around 1997 or 1998 I began surfing the net, albeit for limited periods of time, and came across a few NES fansites, including two of the big names from that time, NES World and tsr's NES Archives. At that time I then began reading all of the information about the games, and there was a ton of weird stuff on those sites. Learnt about Mario IV and 14 then, Somari, the Paneasians, and all kinds of other amazing games. Some of the aforementioned stuff was unlicensed, others were just plain pirates, but I immediately became hooked and tried to do as much research as I could into that stuff.
My first unlicensed game cart was probably either Captain Comic or Silent Assault for the NES; and I remember a few months later searching the used bins at Babbages (anyone remember them?) and walking out with F15 City Wars, Tiles of Fate, Dudes with Attitude, and Venice Beach Volleyball, the latter 3 were boxed. Good times and good memories. And from there I just built a knowledge and a nice collection of games over the years, via trading, and the like.
As for my first *true* pirate game (not unlicensed), I believe it was a generic Supervision 72 pin multicart, 350 or 360 games in one, something like that. I had paid about $10 - $20 for it at the time, and although the games were mostly just common multicart fare, I remember being really tickled with that purchase.
I remember later when a Russian friend would hook me up with some really cool Famicom bootleg stuff from that region, and of course how could I forget getting a set of new old stock Sachen games back in the day. It was only a few titles, as that was all I could afford, but I was just happy with having that. For a high schooler without a job most of the time, I had a damn fine collection of games back then, if not even better than my collection today. All it took was sweat, blood, tears, time, and dedication --- traits which many seem to lack these days.
Wow, the memories. Those sure were different times.- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: KAGE-008 on July 15, 2013, 04:27:37 PM- History begins about late 2009 or so. I found about NES ports of SNES/GBA titles on a blog, then I thought they were reals (especially with Jovial Race which I discovered on 23.10.2009) and since I had no patience to dissect them by myself, I found SN88's channel in December 2009 (on day 15) and the first vid I saw from him was the Minish Cap NES ending (skipped most of it btw). Then I continued finding about more... And in mid-2010 I started to do them on my own.
15 months later, those SNT games I knew from that guy went to my ending backlog, however I had to hexhack stats just to complete them. So far, ~20 of them are already down by me, but I'm hoping there will be more for my backlog.
And about Waixing games, the first game I played was Super Contra 7, which I knew in early 2010. It was average at first, but in 2011 I got used to their programming.- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: MLX on July 15, 2013, 04:45:43 PM- I was looking for smb1 level hacks. And eventually found Super Mario World port by Hummer Team. Played a bit and quickly forgot about it. Then in early-middle 2009 I found again that Super Mario World port. I was very interested to know more about it and slowly started to search about it.
- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: Picrodus on July 16, 2013, 01:39:50 PM- About two years ago, when I was thirteen, I came across Pokemon quartz on eBay and got it for my birthday. And since then I've been looking for more obscure games related to Pokemon. Then I found you guys last year, and I've been collecting fake/pirated games ever since.
- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: Azathoth on July 17, 2013, 12:02:34 AM
- fcgamer
- Jul 15 2013, 01:42:23 PM
My first unlicensed game cart was probably either Captain Comic or Silent Assault for the NES; and I remember a few months later searching the used bins at Babbages (anyone remember them?) and walking out with F15 City Wars, Tiles of Fate, Dudes with Attitude, and Venice Beach Volleyball, the latter 3 were boxed. Good times and good memories. And from there I just built a knowledge and a nice collection of games over the years, via trading, and the like.[/quote]Babbages, EB, Software Etc...what a blast from the past.
First stuff I picked up were some Tengen titles, I remember the goings on during the Nintendo lawsuit and passed on Tengen Tetris a few times (which I always kick myself in the ass for). Following the Tengen affair let me know what unlicensed carts were and how the companies operated, but I never new that I was buying games from Sachen or whoever when I picked up AVE games, I just knew they mostly sucked :dance:
First time I ever actually came across pirated stuff was back in the SFII wave around '93 or '94 and a few gaming rags had some info about Master Fighter II. Made it my quest to find it (yeah, I keep my life goals lofty like that).- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: fcgamer on July 17, 2013, 12:39:46 AM
- Azathoth
- Jul 17 2013, 12:02:34 AM
- fcgamer
- Jul 15 2013, 01:42:23 PM
My first unlicensed game cart was probably either Captain Comic or Silent Assault for the NES; and I remember a few months later searching the used bins at Babbages (anyone remember them?) and walking out with F15 City Wars, Tiles of Fate, Dudes with Attitude, and Venice Beach Volleyball, the latter 3 were boxed. Good times and good memories. And from there I just built a knowledge and a nice collection of games over the years, via trading, and the like.[/quote]Babbages, EB, Software Etc...what a blast from the past.
First stuff I picked up were some Tengen titles, I remember the goings on during the Nintendo lawsuit and passed on Tengen Tetris a few times (which I always kick myself in the ass for). Following the Tengen affair let me know what unlicensed carts were and how the companies operated, but I never new that I was buying games from Sachen or whoever when I picked up AVE games, I just knew they mostly sucked :dance:
First time I ever actually came across pirated stuff was back in the SFII wave around '93 or '94 and a few gaming rags had some info about Master Fighter II. Made it my quest to find it (yeah, I keep my life goals lofty like that).[/quote]Awesome story, great to read a perspective of someone who was introduced to this stuff waaaaay in the past. :)
Do you still have any of those mags, game rags, with the Master Fighter II articles in it? Would be nice to see some scans.- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: Azathoth on July 17, 2013, 01:12:34 AM
- fcgamer
- Jul 17 2013, 12:39:46 AM
Do you still have any of those mags, game rags, with the Master Fighter II articles in it? Would be nice to see some scans.[/quote]I'd have to check, but I don't think I saved any of them. I tossed almost all my game magazines in the trash around 2000 or so, the only one's I hung on to were my Gamefans and a few odd issues of EGM, Mega Play, and VG&CE.
EGM was the one that had the pics and information about Master Fighter II.
Something I always wish I kept were some older Gamepro magazines that had full page ads of game copiers in the back. They usually had some generic fighting game character art super imposed over the copier along with a bunch of bullet-point features that never actually came out and said it was a copier. Since most of them supported Goldfinger codes they'd usually try to pitch it as a cheat device or some other nonsense.- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: MWK on December 08, 2013, 06:33:03 PM- Lol, nice stories, but as for me I should have been asked when did I first come across original game instead, since here in Poland, back in the early 90's, when we've been introduced to the first famiclone gaming system "Pegasus (http://imgc.classistatic.com/cps/kjc/120225/969r1/63386a1_20.jpeg)" (MT-777DX to be exact), distributed by a two-guys-company called "BobMark", that already came with a pirate game, a "cult" multicart "168in1 (http://imageshack.com/a/img69/8303/n9pu.jpg)", we have (had?) absolutely NO IDEA it wasn't the original console, the real thing ;-)
- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: SpaceNinja on December 09, 2013, 05:53:50 AM- 1995. (Sheesh I must be the earliest bird then here?)
Not only because I got a 400-in-1 built-in included Famiclone, but that crap did not work. Actually, the menu kinda froze on us, so we had to take it back to the seller. He hooked it up on his TV, and confirmed it was broken. He felt sorry, so he replaced the console with a new one (but he insisted on testing it in front of us, just so it works), and he also gave me a cartridge for free. I forgot what it was.
First cartridge I can think of? A reset-selector 2-in-1 cartridge of Rockman 5 and Master Fighter 2.
Emulation-wise? 2006 or so. Tom and Jerry 3.
The rest is history, I think- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: missy-tannenbaum on December 10, 2013, 10:11:30 PM- A few years ago, I read an article on Chinese RPGs in PiQ magazine, which lasted a whopping three issues, that mentioned the Famicom FFVII, and I thought that was interesting. I didn't find out much about them as a whole until later, though, when my dad bought a Famiclone at a used record store and I was having some trouble getting it to work. The instructions didn't mention that you needed to put the games on top of an adapter backwards and *then* put them in the machine, but since the instructions pretty much said that the machine needed to be plugged into the wall, that lack of information shouldn't have been a surprise. One of the information sources that I found on the system came from this wiki, though, which got me reading more about Famiclones in general and the games that you guys were posting about. I thought that the sprite art for the demakes in particular was really cool, so that's how I became interested in the games.
- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: SpaceNinja on December 11, 2013, 09:57:56 AM
- missy-tannenbaum
- Dec 10 2013, 10:11:30 PM
A few years ago, I read an article on Chinese RPGs in PiQ magazine, which lasted a whopping three issues, that mentioned the Famicom FFVII, and I thought that was interesting. I didn't find out much about them as a whole until later, though, when my dad bought a Famiclone at a used record store and I was having some trouble getting it to work. The instructions didn't mention that you needed to put the games on top of an adapter backwards and *then* put them in the machine, but since the instructions pretty much said that the machine needed to be plugged into the wall, that lack of information shouldn't have been a surprise. One of the information sources that I found on the system came from this wiki, though, which got me reading more about Famiclones in general and the games that you guys were posting about. I thought that the sprite art for the demakes in particular was really cool, so that's how I became interested in the games.[/quote]Please, PLEASE, can you digitalize those PiQ magazines?- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: missy-tannenbaum on December 11, 2013, 11:49:22 PM
- SpaceNinja
- Dec 11 2013, 09:57:56 AM
Please, PLEASE, can you digitalize those PiQ magazines?[/quote]They're at my house and I'm at school, but my winter break starts late next week, so I should be able to do it then. I just need to remember to take my scanner with me, and it should be no problem! It was a really cool article, so it's disappointing that it ran in a magazine that wasn't more successful.- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: SpaceNinja on December 12, 2013, 04:42:42 AM- Thanks in advance!
I agree - I remember Derrick Sobodash mentioning the PiQ magazine, and it has something related to Waixing in that article I think.
It would definitely be a valuable addition of knowledge to this community!- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: KAGE-008 on December 12, 2013, 03:50:43 PM- Derrick Sobodash has another site up, and posted two (http://media.sobodash.com/2013/05/theunconsoled-1.jpg) images (http://media.sobodash.com/2013/05/theunconsoled-2.jpg) of The Unconsoled article, made by him for "That's Mags" which is a magazine publisher in China.
- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: SpaceNinja on December 12, 2013, 04:36:49 PM- Thanks, it's a 2013 article though. Seems lacking something, maybe it's a trimmed edit?
- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: KAGE-008 on December 12, 2013, 04:57:53 PM
- SpaceNinja
- Dec 12 2013, 04:36:49 PM
Thanks, it's a 2013 article though. Seems lacking something, maybe it's a trimmed edit?[/quote]Did you see both images?- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: SpaceNinja on December 12, 2013, 05:22:23 PM- Yeah, I did. Somehow it feels like a basic timeline to me. :P
- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: Duckss farm on December 16, 2013, 12:54:11 PM- in bosnia and herzegovina there was a lot of famiclones around the vilages and cities.
I used to play whole day some multicarts and so on...
when I came to the internet in 2010,I found out that consoles was fake copies of nintendo,then I started surfing on internet for more informations...
I also found out that some commmunity exists on internet so I entered here to be user...
After that things,I started to make something else from that bootleg games into fullgames with different engines (curently on mugen engine).- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: Ninja-Kun on December 16, 2013, 09:59:02 PM
- KAGE-008
- Dec 12 2013, 03:50:43 PM
Derrick Sobodash has another site up[/quote](http://ilarge.listal.com/image/4687172/968full-derrick-photo.jpg)
:P- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: taizou on December 17, 2013, 09:50:31 AM
- SpaceNinja
- Dec 12 2013, 05:22:23 PM
Yeah, I did. Somehow it feels like a basic timeline to me. :P[/quote]there's a full PDF here: http://files.sobodash.com/published/thatsbeijing-2013-03-44.pdf (http://files.sobodash.com/published/thatsbeijing-2013-03-44.pdf)
also is this the PiQ article? http://files.sobodash.com/published/piq200805-104.pdf (http://files.sobodash.com/published/piq200805-104.pdf)- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: KAGE-008 on December 17, 2013, 10:56:11 AM- According to the PiQ magazine, Shenzhen Nanjing Technology was founded in 2002.
- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: taizou on December 17, 2013, 08:47:09 PM- but according to their own website they were founded in 2003. so who knows.
- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: KAGE-008 on December 17, 2013, 09:18:04 PM
- taizou
- Dec 17 2013, 08:47:09 PM
but according to their own website they were founded in 2003. so who knows.[/quote]Another doubt we might never solve. -_-- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: SpaceNinja on December 18, 2013, 06:51:40 AM- And their English site says 2004.
So there's something really weird going on, if three sources say three (consecutive) years respectively.
Perhaps Derrick's 2002 is legit and SNT's Chinese 2003 date is just a correction, because they could have been formed in the end of 2002, as in almost 2003.- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: taizou on December 18, 2013, 07:29:50 PM- Maybe the team was formed in 2002 but they weren't formally incorporated as a company until 2003. Or something.
- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: SpaceNinja on December 19, 2013, 04:48:11 AM- This makes me wonder what their earlier games were then.
I'm pointing towards some Nice Code games, but not all are capable of being dated 2003: AVP, Tomb Raider immediately drops out of question, due to the packaging art and the graphics used in game, respectively.
Eh, I'm totally going to set up a timeline in a new topic soon.- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: Linkrulezall on December 23, 2013, 07:50:55 PM- Many, many years ago, back when I first discovered YouTube, one of the first pseudo-memes I started following was the Angry German Kid. Eventually I stumbled across this video:
Angry German Kid Plays Sonic Adventure 7 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLz3q5pyUwU)
And my interest with pirated games sort of snowballed from there. :somari:- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: Yoni Arousement on December 25, 2013, 02:48:55 PM- Back in 2004, when I first started using emulators, there was Sonic the Hedgehog for SNES which was one of the first pirated games I've seen.
- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: wario_101 on February 08, 2014, 08:17:51 PM- Well, it was first back in 1992, I was only 12, and I was at in Russia for a family vacation. I did'nt even know what gaming was! After a few nights in a hotel, we come across some Russian man selling video games. I was learning Russian in Social Studies so, I asked the man what he was selling. He said he was selling "exotic" games. I had some money left over, so i bought one with a man wearing overalls. I asked him what it was for, and he said it was a video game for the Famicom. After that, me and my parents went to find a Famicom and we found one after a hour long car ride. I was so excited to get an actual video game! At the hotel, my dad helped me plug it in and when i turned on the game, my dad said it reminded him of Tiny Toon Adventures, (my dad was a HUGE fan,) and it was called, Mario 6. I'll never forget that day.
- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: msf007 on August 02, 2014, 04:16:17 PM- A generic 'Family Computer' famiclone made in Taiwan with a 190-in-1 multicart and a TMNT3 pirate cart, all handed-down from my uncle was the beginning of my console gaming life. I think that was around 1993, just when I was 4 years old. Super NES/Super Famicom was already out there by that time but I just started with famiclone without any choice and sticked to it until I bought N64 around 1999.
Famicom/NES gaming scene was dominated by pirate carts and famiclones in South Korea when I began to start buying new games. We had an official, Nintendo-licensed version of NES under the name of Hyundai Comboy, but it wasn't that popular. Hyundai Electronics provided only a limited selection of games and just moved on to the Super Comboy(=Super Famicom) business. Comboy used NES cartridges rather than Famicom ones, which is no good when much cheaper famicom pirate carts are going around everywhere. I remember my friend with Comboy saying that he wanted a famiclone like mine rather than a Comboy, which sounded quite crazy since I realized my 'Family Computer' was not an official product looking at his Comboy.
Other Korean companies than Hyundai made their own famiclones compatible with famicom carts and they were sold beside the official one, together with the Taiwanese famiclones like Ending Man. My handed-down Famiclone eventually got broken and I could just go to a random store and buy my second famiclone - a Korean one this time(Though it was an Ending Man clone without their logo)
So that results in my every famicom and famicom cart being pirate, except for a Japan-import Rockman 6 cart. Multicarts from JY company comprising the most part(You could find them anywhere dealing famicom carts), two Korean multicarts, some single-game pirates, and a copy of Somari. Pirates just filled up my almost entire childhood gaming.- Title: When did you first come across pirate games?
Post by: Colonel Llama on August 05, 2014, 11:42:52 AM- The first time i came across pirate games? If i remember, i was about 7 years old when i found a site called 1980 games. It had flash games, abandonwares and java NES emulator called NEScafe that had about 800 games to play on the browser. While looking at the featured games, i saw one called "Sonic the Hedgehog". Since i was a big Sonic fan (we only had the Genesis/Megadrive at the time), i selected it, then i waited some time for the game to load. When waiting, i noticed that the site called the game "Sonic 3D Blast 5", but i didn't really care. When the game started up, i was greeted by the classic Sonic 1 title screen. Then i started the game, only to see that it started at Spring Yard Zone! For the rest, i remember that it sucked. Not so long after, i found myself playing Somari with my sister. It sucked. About one year later, i went to Québec to visit the MEGA PARK (Galeries de la Capitale). That's where i got my first pirate console, the undocumented "Handy Max" from JungleTac. About 5 years later, i discovered the "wonderful" world of pirated games, starting with the infamous YONG YONG (I actually had nightmares after watching footage from Sonic 3D Blast 5 on GameBoy). I started to read the Bootleg Games Wiki and the Pirated Games Central forum at this time, only to finally join 3 years later.