Only the best video games tell stories that stay with us, and create beautiful worlds to lose ourselves in. So beautiful, that all too many of your average con artists can’t wait to rip one off for a quick buck. Such is the sad fact for all the counterfeit games littering black markets, but among the piles of knockoffs choking bargain bins, more than a few are capable of providing cringe-inducing curiosity. For some, nothing is sacred; even if it means spawning nightmares that were never meant to be.
If it’s any compensation, there just might be a special place in hell for games that tempt fate with such disastrous results as the ones in these slides. Yes, someone out there created these little photoshops of horrors for reasons humanity may never understand. Low and behold, here are the most horrifying realities counterfeit games have ever unleashed into our world…and forever they stay.
Somari the Adventurer
The Real Game: Everyone old enough to drive and under probably grew up with some iteration of Sonic and Mario, but “Somari the Adventurer” probably wasn’t one of them. An unlicensed 1994 port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, sold throughout parts of Russia and Asia on pirated NES cartridges, the unholy mashup of the 80’s icons basically saw Mario run around reused Sonic levels saving tiny animals, all while wearing Tails’s shoes.
The Alternate Universe: Sega and Nintendo were embroiled in a console war that, in this universe, spilled into their own games. Consumed with rage over countless “Ninten-don’t” jokes, Mario eviscerated Sonic and his friends with a fireball, slipping on Tails’s smoldering shoes as a grim trophy, only to have his fractured psyche take on the partial identity of his fallen blue nemesis. Thus “Somari The Adventurer” was born, the half-crazed fanatic of a console war that never ended in his tormented mind, one that would go uncomforted by all the Mario parties in the world.
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2
The Real Game: Just about every cool kid in 2004 with a skateboard knew how to grind to the tune of Tony Hawk’s Underground 2. Sure, you were never as good as you thought you were at it, but you played it with all your friends, swearing you’d pull off things like “ollies” and “axels” like you knew what they were. The game’s Syrian cover doesn’t seem to share that rebel spirit. Rather, it looks as if it’s saying, “Mom, can I go home? We have video games for this now.”
The Alternate Universe: Tired of his pointless existence jumping around on a plank of wood, Tony Hawk retired from pro-skating only to contract that Benjamin Button disease of Brad Pitt’s, slowly de-aging back to a forlorn child, unexcited about the prospect of scrapes and boo-boos. He glances meaningfully at his skatepark poised for a heavy sigh, watching as his mother posts a picture of his adorable elder years to Facebook, wondering in what universe Sega annualized his skateboarding youth.
“Miami Vice”
The Real Game: Uncharted is that super cool mashup of Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider you always knew you wanted as a movie, but just happens to be a game. You travel the world as Nathan Drake, a psychopath intent on dodging bullets, careening off of cliffs, and shooting people for ancient treasures at any cost.
The Alternate Universe: Nathan Drake finally put treasure hunting behind him and moved back to his home state of Florida to take up life as a bonafide PI. That Drake should be given a badge is frightening enough, but that maniacally gleeful smile plastered over his face was downright worrying for Miami’s citizenry. Thankfully, a court order placed only squirt guns in his holster, and Miami’s finest could go about life peaceably, thinking he was still Don Johnson in a wetsuit.
“Batman Collection”
The Real Game: Rocksteady Studios’ Batman games are, among other things, the games most known for doing what an entire industry could not: fix Batman games. A dark, gritty, and uncompromising vision of everything your friends told you could never happen in a licensed game, the Arkham duo logy (and soon to be trilogy) brought the best in free-flow combat and Batman mythos together in one, goon-punching package. With all your favorite 90s Batman voice actors in trappings of graphic novel, Arkham Asylum and Arkham city set the standard for what a superhero game could be.
The Alternate Universe: After booking a ticket to his favorite cruise liner, he gets marooned on that island of Oliver Queen’s that took up two seasons of Arrow, complete with the electrical outlet that Oliver never found to recharge his phone and call for help. Unfortunately, there was nothing to wear other than Batwoman’s suit and the three crappy, pre-Rocksteady Batman games holding up his bunk bed. Bummer.
“Max Payne 3: The Fall of Max Payne”
The Real Game: The Max Payne trilogy is all about the blood, sweat, and tears of a man on a mission to drown his sorrows in as much alcohol as a human liver can take and snort more drugs than a human brain can process all while slo-mo somersaulting into a slow-moving hail of gunfire. Because you’re likely high on drugs at any given time, you never know what’s hallucination or reality as Max, but the one thing you know is that you’d be happy if happiness is a warm gun. Otherwise? Eh….
The Alternate Universe: We know about Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, but attached to an alternate Max Payne 3 could be a different story. Here, Max Payne finally escaped his past through good ‘ole fashioned plastic surgery. Assuming the mob would never come after a Final Fantasy emo kid pack’in heat, Max settles down in the Bahamas working as an enforcer to a J-pop band. Wait – what’s the catch here? Nah, just another overdramatic video game title here.
Super Wonderful Mario
The Real Game: We’ve all played it, we’ve all loved it, and we’ve probably gamed away our very lives to Super Mario Bros. or just about any iteration. You know the story – plumber meets girl, plumber loses girl, and then plumber gets her back and stomps on her kidnapper’s entire family. You remember every warp zone, every magic whistle, every time you screamed about that darned bottomless pit you didn’t see. It’s everything that makes Mario Mario.
The Alternate Universe: Sure, you’ve played Super Mario, but what’s super wonderful about “Super Wonderful Mario”? Hallucinogens, most likely. In this dark corner of Mario’s world, the man gets cheeky with Snow White, a smiling testicle, Cap’n Crunch, and a sly-looking dragon probably moving in on his lady and or those carrots Mario’s got grown. We don’t know what the kangaroo’s doing, but he’s probably enjoying whatever smokable “veggies” Mario’s got growing here. It’s good being Mario.
“Grand Theft Auto San Andreas: Superheroes”
The Real Game: Grand Theft Auto, as its name implies, is all about carjackings but in recent entries it’s been all about any and all debauchery illegal, legal, or whatever Saints Row hasn’t done yet. Drive-bys, strip clubs, street racing, do’in a wheelie on some fool’s face – the GTA life is basically messing around the playground of your dreams at not charge. Every four to five years makes it even bigger and better, or about the time it takes for Rockstar’s online to work.
The Alternate Universe: Both Grand Theft Auto IV and V received some sort of DLC expansions after launch, but no one ever told us about San Andreas‘ spin-off. In a universe where DC and Marvel finally shook hands and made friends, Rockstar finally paired them up with the superhero team of our dreams – Batman, Spider-man, Superman, and…ZORRO AND THE MASK?!!! Well, we guess we’d rather have seen Jim Carrey ruin his career with that than Dumb and Dumber To. What we’re not sure about is whether our heroes are here to clean up crime or revel in it, but from the look of Superman’s “I’ma gonna f*** you up” gaze, we think not.
“Prince of Persia 3: The Two Theonse”
The Real Game: Nothing but your standard “time travel gone wrong” story here. The last chapter in Ubisoft’s original “Sands of Time” trilogy, The Prince of Persia: Two Thrones takes off where boy never met girl, boy never lost girl, and boy now wields a badass sword and chain-whip to reclaim the vague princedom he never really rules anyway.
The Alternate Universe: While we could simply see it as a simple misspelling of the obvious, we’ll be imaginative and say that this cover really was intentional. Logically, after the Prince wins back his throne, he set sail with his blushing bride, Theonse, and head out to the Rook Islands for an unadulterated week of fun in the sun. There, they’re shipwrecked and inducted into the Assassin brotherhood and The Prince, taking up a Party City Ezio costume, must fight the local pirate population while keeping it clean enough to keep his deposit on it.
“Matrix 2: Path of Neo”
The Real Game: That terrible licensed game you and or your sibling probably bought right after you saw the Matrix in theaters or DVD thinking it’d be as epic as what 1999 film effects could accomplish. You thought wrong after spending $5 on it Gamestop and traded it in for some lunch money, but did think the slo-mo bullet time could’ve been really fun had it been made a few years later, which is also called Max Payne. At least it had all the voice actors in it, who all looked very bored in the “behind-the-scenes” extra you got after beating the game, talking about how starring in this game part of their contract or something.
The Alternate Universe: Sometime after horror of The Matrix: Revolutions, Agent Smith survives as a virus in a dating sim as a steamy masseuse named “Mr. Smith.” That he turns out to be an exceedingly popular among Hugo Weaving fans convinces the Architect that there is no hope for humanity and the Matrix is rebuilt, albeit it without Internet Explorer.
Tell us, would you play any of these games? Sound off in the comments below and remember: Don’t pirate games. The universe will regret it if you do.