PSX and PS2 game modding/hacking

[Heihachi_73]

I don't know if this forum allows for this type of talk as there is so far no dedicated forum for PS1/PS2 game modding around where people actually post regularly (e.g. where the last post wasn't 6 months or even 6 years ago)... To me, modding games is no different to making cheats, just on a larger scale (for example, you can give Mario 99 lives and invincibility in Mario World, but why not also make your own stages in Lunar Magic for a bit of fun? Or, the various GTA mods that appear on a daily basis, new cars, skins and even whole cities and missions made from scratch).

Most places either dismiss modding CD-based games entirely as warez or are 40 year old Pac-Man loving preservationists who just say 'play the game and be happy it existed' - I have only been doing so without any other choice since 1998! The strangest part is the fact that most of them don't mind solid state ROM hacks (SNES etc) and PC game mods, but get all grumpy when you mention PlayStation game hacks... It doesn't help that the only few programs (example is for PS1, not PS2) out there are obscure, command-line or even true 16-bit DOS programs which haven't been updated since 1996 and only work with one or two games or even homebrew demos!

Recently, I have been looking at making/tweaking 3D models from the Tekken series; I presumed there would only be two formats throughout the two consoles, either in Sony's format or a proprietary Namco format. Even site removed has hardly anything about modding PSX and PS2 games (although they seem to be more interested in SNES games and older rather than 3D). The only site which has done any real modding with any of the games (Tekken 3 PSX only) is Polish based, and they stuff it up by putting a huge warez link for the ISO right on their home page! Just as dumb as typing 'PS2', 'gamename' and 'mod' into Google and all you get back is 3 million results for 'ps2 mod chip', 'download ps2 isos for free!!!oneone1' or something else equally retarded.

I know that almost every game manufacturer has made their own proprietary formats for each game, but you'd think I would at least have come across someone in the past 10 years who has been equally interested in ripping/decoding models for some fun hacks and costume mods or even new stages. So far, the only thing that's been done since I've been thinking of hacking them has been basic text and simple palette mods in Tekken 3 and practically nothing else.

After all that, any thoughts or interest or is everyone quite happy with the same old games?

[dlanor]

The tricky bit about legal hacking of commercial games is that most people who claim to be doing it sooner or later end up swapping hacked-code binaries with each other, which is definitely illegal, and just as definitely forbidden on this site.

Personally I have no problem with the hacking of games as such, and neither does this site. The current FF12 hacks to make that game run with HDLoader are just one example of that, and those hacks were developed as a cooperative project right here at psx-scene.

But in order for such work to be accepted on this and other serious-minded sites, the hacking must be performed in a fully legal manner, with only the hacking programs, scripts, and instructions being distributed, but never the hacked binaries of the games. Thus each user can perform the hack on his or her own legal backup of the game.

Best regards: dlanor

[Bootlegninja]

I would be tempted to add subforums for game hacking in both the ps2 and ps1 sections, but there's not a high level of interest on that subject. most people that come here these days are mostly into getting their systems modded/exploited and running copies of their games. it's only on rare occasion that we get any help requests on actual game hacking itself.

[TnA]

What about a Poll again?

Even Game-Translations are Game-Hacks/-Mods.
I believe, there are still a few projects out there (Okami comes to my mind,... Maybe Frontmission...).

Also we can throw all PS2-Game-Mods into one place, so people could find it and how more game-mods/-translations they see, I believe how more they could be encouraged to do something on their own.

But it´s hard to encourage people there, I believe.