Books, films and music can be pirated and mislabeled as purported sequels to existing titles or as something else altogether. But the uniquely hackable nature of playable electronics opens up a whole new fascinating realm: bootleg video games. Bootlegs often went a step beyond simply creating an illegal, low-cost version of an existing retail product; many were hacks of existing games that remixed the contents into something entirely different and, often times, bizarre.

Video game bootlegging truly came into prominence as a practice with the Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo’s extremely strict business practices and control only served as a conduit for pirates interested in breaking the Big N’s monopoly, largely in creating Clone Consoles. Clone Consoles were units built from the ground up that sought to mimic the functionality of the PAL/Japanese NES with various degrees of actual compatibility. Fairly prominent in the still-culturally- closed China of the late 80’s and the former Soviet Union, the scene birthed an unlikely success story in the form of the Dendy: a Russian NES clone so accurate and popular that the ever-controlling Nintendo actually granted them permission to continue selling units, as well as distributing the Super Nintendo within the Soviet Union.

Sega Six Pack and Super Mario All Stars are probably the two most well known, widely-owned multicarts: cartridges packed with multiple games. More prevalent, however, are the multicarts in the world of pirate games, some with outrageous 99-games-in-one claims. Pirate multicarts are a strange beast; often times, they hold a combination of licensed NES or Game Boy games squeezed down and “fake” games. As in, entirely playable (but often times, ferociously difficult) fake games that purport themselves as Mario or Pokémon sequels. While these multicarts are by-andlarge hard to find these days, you’ll find them on eBay as gamer curious. Taking a trip to Asia or the Middle East, however, will lead you to a still-thriving pirate multicart market.

I well can’t keep gabbing about bootlegs of yesteryear, so where exactly should you go to get your fix of hilarious, idiosyncratic bootleg games?

Bootleg Games Wiki tinyurl.com/lxecd7t

While far from complete – due to the sheer number of pirate games in existence – the Bootleg Games Wiki has catalogued an impressive number of titles. It’s a great place to get lost for days.

Ashens tinyurl.com/5s253x

For most of you unfamiliar with the original Cynical Brit, Stuart Ashens is an incredibly dry, sarcastic reviewer of, well, things. He reviews a lot of cheap junk and hilariously misshapen bootleg merchandise and, of course, bootleg video games – lots and lots of bootleg videogames. Ashens even took things a step further with his low-budget feature film epic Ashens and the Quest for the Game Child, chronicling his fictional quest seeking out a bootleg Game Boy called the Game Child. All in all, it is worthy of an afternoon killed.