Welcome to Tales of h4x0r, a little thing that I hope will become a regular feature here. But what are the "Tales of h4x0r"? Well, as most of the people who even visit this site know, I used to hack and translate games as a hobby. I stopped doing that because most of the games that deserved a translation already got translated, either officially or unofficially... and I couldn't really go any further than what I did. That and the jerks who sell our stuff for profit turned me away from the whole thing. But, as you might expect, that didn't last very long...

Enter The Cutting Room Floor. BMF54123, an old friend of mine, had a small section on his site where he documented unused and hidden stuff found in video games. More than ten years later, the site is now a wiki. A wiki I ended up joining and contributing to. Quite a bit. I intend to document the stuff I've found here in different detail than what is described at the wiki. Partly because I can explain how I did some things here (since most of that information doesn't really belong there), and partly because I can insert a bit more humor into things. Yes, that's my excuse. Making people visit my site is not an ulterior motive, no sir. (Well, they're getting the biggest chunk of the info, so I don't think they'll mind.)

So let's start with...

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Genesis version.)

(more...)

A very very long time ago, before Garth Ennis became well known for his run on The Punisher, he wrote a one-shot issue called The Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe. Try to guess what it's about!

This was actually an okay story, and it switches up some bits of the Punisher's origin, so I'm going to talk a bit about it. (more...)

A long time ago, my old friend BMF54123 (whose you might recognize from some of my game translations - he helped me quite a bit with technical stuff) had a section on his web site called "The Cutting Room Floor". He wrote about all the unused stuff people found in games. He had quite a bit of content, but he didn't update the page very often - probably because he was too busy with real life. I ended up forgetting about the page for quite a few years, but I stumbled upon it fairly recently, only to find it wasn't a page anymore - it was now a wiki.

And I figured, BMF helped me a lot. So why not return the favor? And so, I have.

Some of the more interesting stuff I've contributed is the unused text in Yume Penguin Monogatari (as well as an explanation of the anti-piracy features, as explained to me by a hacker who never told me who he really was), unused music and sound effects in Art of Fighting (Neo-Geo), and how to play Jackal in Konami Collector's Series: Castlevania & Contra! Well, sorta. I still have no idea if there's a real code to play the games.

I'm currently working on a bombshell of an entry for The Punisher. Well, three entries. I originally found some unused stuff on the PC version, then I found some more stuff on the PS2 version, and then I found some really awesome stuff on the Xbox version. I'll post this content as soon as I'm finished.

Oh yeah, I was supposed to talk about comics too, wasn't I? Well... how about some Punisher stuff, since I'm already messing with the games?

So a couple of weeks ago, I got this message:

Hello,

How much you would charge to translate games for me? mostly snes?

I blinked, then I saw who sent it - and I laughed. For ten straight minutes. Now, who sent it? I'll keep his true identity a secret, but he was one of the people who offered to host me after I announced that Parodius Networking would close. I turned down his offer almost immediately because of what he does.

And what does he do? He sells SNES game reproductions - games that friends and acquaintances of mine have hacked. This idiot has the balls to ask me to translate games for him despite all my translation pages saying that everything I do is not for commercial use. By now I think he's probably brain damaged or worse... so I send him an email.

From: Foxhack
Subject: No

I would never do this kind of work for hire for something that is not legally allowed by the copyright holder.

ESPECIALLY not for a guy who makes money off of free translations.

In short, go fuck yourself.

Have a nice day. ^_^

I guess this hit a nerve because he sent a reply shortly after:

Sorry to hear that you fin this kind of offensive, but the gaming community love it.

they love to play games on the console not on the computer.

I dont charge for the game, but for the parts that are used and labor to make a game.

the games are free online, which it is also "illegal", and translating it is "illegal" too.

Besides, I am also supporting the homebrew development with the money made.

Sorry to see you are that close minded.

sorry to have bothered you.

Thank you.

Hey, guess what - I know romhacks are illegal. I've known this due to the twelve or so years I made them. But you know what else? I'm proud to say that I never, not once, asked for money to do these things. Not a single cent. And I'm damn proud of it.

Also, you're charging $65 dollars per cart. $65! CHARGING MONEY FOR LABOR IS STILL CHARGING MONEY. You want to know why so many of us got away with making translation patches? We don't charge money for them, or sell anything. Our work is derivative. We never claimed ownership of the game. We have no real rights over what we do. And the minute you start making money is the minute they start paying attention to you. Because you're making money with their hard work, not them. Supporting homebrew development with the profits? Like hell. You're probably paying for your Cheetos with it or some shit.

People who make money off of freely available patches are scum. You're just as bad as those douchebags that freeware computer recovery programs on eBay. So yes, you moron, you can go screw yourself. People like you are the reason why I stopped translating games.

*sighs*

Agh, I rambled. Sorry about that. The balls on that guy...

Well, it IS Olympic season, so why not post some stuff involving everyone*'s favorite Olympian?

(* Not including Northstar fans.)

You just know this won't end well.

After a bit over ten years, this site is no longer being hosted by Parodius Networking (due to its upcoming shutdown) - I'm now hosted by SuperFamicom.org.

Also I'm not sure why I never posted about it here. I fixed the layout to mention them a while ago, I've had this post in the queue for a while, too. Whoops? Ha ha.

So yep. :p

Thanks to Sam Delaurentis, I have been notified that the patch does not work on the "newest" version of Samurai Pizza Cats, the verified rom in GoodNES 3.14. After checking out the game and finding only minor differences (two bytes, one of which was changed by MottZilla's modifications anyway), I created a new patch based on that version of the game, which should be easier to locate. I also updated the readme to mention the CRC of the game, and added a link to the tutorial page.

As before, you can get the patch here. There really shouldn't be much differences between the older patched game and this one. But better safe than sorry.

You read right, it's my birthday and I'll release patches if I want to!

First off, the game everyone's wanted done for years, Sengoku Densyo for the SNES! ... what, you didn't want it? Well tough luck, you're getting it anyway! And oh yeah some weird game about armor using, feudal era, italian food eating robotic felines. It's done, in two flavors of awesomeness! So go on and play it RIGHT NOW!

Also of note, I'm taking this moment to announce the obvious: I'm officially retiring from romhacking. I know, I know, everyone thought I'd retired years ago. Well, not so. I couldn't do it until I finished Samurai Pizza Cats... and now that I have, I feel it's time to move on. There's other fields of entertainment I want to explore. Writing, video, audio... truth is, I like to entertain people, and I want to do it again. It's one of the things that got me into romhacking to begin with.

So an era of my internet life is officially over. I have no intention of releasing another translation patch in the future. I may still do it, there's a few things I never announced... but don't expect anything.

I've been at this for close to 13 years now. So, time to move on. It's not like I don't have enough of a backlog already...

Thank you for your patronage. *bows*

And keep an eye out for other updates. Be sure to subscribe to my site via the RSS feed at the bottom of every page. You won't regret it.

Edit: I updated the Pizza Cats' readme file slightly since a few people were surprised at the aggressive tone of some comments I made about the patching utilities. These people have been apologized to, and I added a link to the patching program to it. No offense was meant towards anyone. Guess I'm just cranky in my old age.

Edit again: I added a page explaining how to use the XDelta patching utilities to patch the game. You can see it here.

Welp, Parodius.com is closing down because the owner has decided (with good reasons, mind you) to stop his free website hosting service, so my website will be without a host at the end of August. Does it suck? Yes. Do I hate the owner of Parodius? Maybe a little. But he hosted me for free for around 11 years so it's no big deal. I'll be eternally grateful to him for being so generous with me and tolerating my dumb ass for so long. I'm currently looking into new hosting. I have a bit over five months so there's enough time for me to shop around.

What does this mean for my site? Essentially, nothing. The site will go on. I have no intentions of closing down Foxhack.net for the foreseeable future - and if I do decide to shut it down I'll make sure the contents are backed up in a public manner. On my own terms. So please don't go around making backups of my site's contents. Doing it without permission isn't cool.

I didn't manage to finish this by Easter. I'm so bad at making deadlines. But I came REAL close to finishing, since I'm editing the last two stages and the ending credits now. And then I have to work on the title screens again since I seem to have misplaced some of my work in progress (the actual logo designs are safe, it's the reinserted data that needs to be rebuilt.)

So, pretty soon.

Also, I officially canceled the Nettou King of Fighters '96 translation patch since the game was actually released in Europe. And Dunk Heroes too because someone else released a decent translation patch for it months ago. Yep. Sorry.