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12 BOOTLEGGED 16-BIT GAMES FROM THE GOLDEN ERA OF PIRACY

1/3/2016

10 Comments

 
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Piracy isn't what it once was.

Back in the 80s, 90s and Noughties we constantly had the anti-piracy message rammed under our eyelids.

We've no idea whether piracy is less of a threat, given that The Kids all do streaming, or whether everyone's just gotten bored of talking about it, but you don't hear as much about it these days.

Piracy was theft, of course, but it did at least give us some unique artworks - as valid, in its own way, as the official cover art offered by the legitimate publishers.

​Here are 12 such cartridges from the golden age of video game piracy.

12. SUPER SIMPSON IV
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Remember Super Simpson 1 - 3? Remember those? With all the Super Simpson things? The Simpson, and all the other Simpson-y things? Well now he's back, The Super Simpson - and he's Super-er than ever!
11. SUPER BROS. 4
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There's a pizza restaurant near us that hasn't changed since the 1970s. On the wall is a mural, faded and still nicotine-stained from the days when smoking was allowed in restaurants, depicting a ravenous workman consuming a pizza so large it can only be eaten with a shovel. That workman looks eerily similar to the main character in the Super Bros. series...
10. NO IDEA...
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The one on the left can't be Mario - he doesn't have a moustache, and is enormous. The tiny one on the right definitely isn't Luigi: his blue hat appears to have a 'V' on it (Vuigi? Vario?). Also, they appear to be poncing around in front of the World's Fanciest McDonald's.
9. SUPER BROS. 11
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He'a back, look - as manic of stare and grin as ever.
8. SUPER WONDERFUL MARIO
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Super Wonderful Mario is so super and wonderful that everyone wants to come and see him! There's Snow White, Pete's Dragon, Cap'n Crunch there, a llama, somebody's smiling testicle...
7. SUPER MARIO WORLD 9
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We don't ever recall one genuine sequel to Super Mario World - Yoshi's Island doesn't count; it was a prequel - let alone another seven. Still, it's good to note that Mario's fashion sense evolved over time: by Super Mario World 9, he's taken to wearing a candy-stripe cap.
6. SUPER MARIO & SONIC 2
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Remember when Super Mario and Sonic hung out on the desert island with Tails, and Chip from Chip n' Dale burst out of the foliage and threw an apple in Tails' face so hard that it broke his jaw?
5. PIZZAPOP MARIO
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That's not Mario. That's Luigi. And he's never looked more terrified. Evidently, he really doesn't want the cool cats to steal his pizza.
4. SUPER BROS 10
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Standard martial arts nonsense. With a Mexican walking past in the background.
3. WRECKING CREW
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A semi-accurate depiction of what actually went on in Wrecking Crew, one of the more obscure entries in the Mario canon... A game in which Mario drifted around in zero gravity, apparently, flailing a mallet about in the hope of killing caterpillars and turtles, or smashing open a floating safe. 
2. 9999999 IN 1
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Can you imagine the menu screen? It'd be almost worse than trying to find something to watch on Netflix.
1. SUPER MARIO BROS.
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Super Mario Bros. on the Mega Drive no less. And as if to add insult to injury, Mario is doing Sonic's trademark "with attitude" V-sign. No doubt Sega's lawyers had some V-signs of their own to offer in return...
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
18 BIZARRE BOOTLEG TOYS
10 BRILLIANTLY WRONG BOOTLEG DVD COVERS
11 LITERALLY CRAP STATUES


10 Comments
Voodoo76
1/3/2016 01:35:11 pm

If only they could have got 10000000 in 1 I'd have bought it.

Reply
Clive Peppard
1/3/2016 02:52:31 pm

Having never been allowed a console as a child (they werent middle class enough or something) I had an Amiga 500. The only games I had that were in a packaging of any sort were Back to The Future and Shadow of The Beast - the games it came with. EVERYTHING else was on shop bought 3.5" floopy discs with hand written labels and i had hundreds of them. Whoever bought the originals of these i dont know but all my friends also only had copied games. did the originals even exit?

Reply
Damon link
1/3/2016 05:16:04 pm

I know in the US you could copy software checked out from the library.

Reply
Kelvin Green link
1/3/2016 06:43:10 pm

My Amiga games library was made up of three shop-bought titles, the six games I got with the computer, endless Amiga Format and Amiga Power cover disks, and the umpteen battered shoeboxes packed full of generic blue disks that my brother brought with him whenever he visited.

Reply
Clive peppard
1/3/2016 08:19:17 pm

Ah I forgot about good old Amiga power.

Bear or bust
1/3/2016 04:20:10 pm

Love how Super Mario World 7 is just some Susumu Matsushita artwork with Mario's severed head pasted over the hero.

Reply
Scott C
1/3/2016 10:13:28 pm

I remember when my mummy and daddy bought me a ZX Spectrum +2 back in 1987 from Comet (I was 7 years old). It came bundled with 100 games contained on a handful of generic white cassettes as a "store special". I suspect that Comet didn't pay any of the game publishers any cash, or realised that they might even need to. Most of the games were shit, but many of them were definitely recognisable full retail releases.

Reply
Kelvin Green link
1/3/2016 11:09:55 pm

In the dying days of the C64 there was a high street shop that, instead of stocking the games on the shelves, had an Argos-like system where you'd pick the game you wanted and they would go and record a copy to tape for you then and there.

I never saw one of these places but I remember it being reported in Commodore Format or Zzap.

Reply
Chris
2/3/2016 03:12:27 pm

Yes, I've heard of these - they did Spectrum games too. It may even have been available in John Menzies or Woolworths. Never saw such a thing myself, mind.

Apparently, though: totally legit.

Dan link
6/3/2016 09:40:49 pm

These are true works of art deserving of a physical exhibition. Let's make it happen in 2016! :)

Reply



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