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Hardware Hacking Books Media Classic Games (Games) First Person Shooters (Games) Real Time Strategy (Games) Book Reviews Entertainment Games

Gaming Hacks 139

Posted by timothy from the blame-gamegal.com dept.
Bjorn writes ""Gaming Hacks" by Simon Carless dives into a spectrum of topics, ranging from emulators to MMORPG lingo to playing LAN-only console games online. If you're looking for something that covers topics like these, but don't want to waste your time searching the Internet for answers, this book is for you." (Simon, formerly Slashdot's Games editor, is now Managing Editor for the online arm of Game Developer Magazine, Gamasutra.com.) Read on for the rest of Bjorn's review.
Gaming Hacks
author Simon Carless
pages 462
publisher O'Reilly Media, Inc.
rating 8
reviewer Bjorn Holine
ISBN 0596007140
summary Cool things gamers can do to create, modify, and hack videogame hardware and software.

I must start out by thanking Carless and the O'Reilly publishing company for continuing in the effort to protect the real meaning of the words "hacker" and "hacking." The news media constantly sullies the word "hacker" by portraying a young, white male living in his parents' basement, socially inept and overweight. For the technically challenged: the real and original meaning is a person that likes to tinker around with technology and change things (not in a maliciously) to get them to work better or differently.

I normally review games and post news over at 2404 - PC Gaming, LLC, a site created with PC gamers specifically in mind, which is why O'Reilly and company decided to send this book to me. Unknown to O'Reilly, I am also a 2600 subscriber, so I am used to reading about different sorts of hacks and tinkering. Even though I'm not a big programmer, I find it fascinating.

The questions I thought about most when reading the book were: "Who would it be good for?" and "Where might be the best place for it?" The first thing that popped into my head was an internet or gaming café. It will also appeal to hardware gurus, game developers, mod modification developers, home theater buffs who like to play games, and the very hardcore gamers who own every system and console available.

Because so many topics are covered, not everyone will find all of the one hundred "industrial-strength tips & tools" useful. It all depends on what kinds and how many gaming systems you have piled up in your closet, and how much you are willing to tinker with them. It also depends on your knowledge of the platform and genre you enjoy using/playing. For example, say you have always wanted to get into an MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game) but have never had the time to understand the basic concepts of what goes on in this type of game: Gaming Hacks has an MMO dictionary for getting down the basics, and also provides tips and strategies on how to do well in this type of game, something people that are new to the MMORPG world would find very useful as they learn their way around the game.

The book begins with a foreword by Marc Laidlaw, a writer for the Half-Life series, which is very inspiring and would probably make any gamer want to start creating mods for games. After the foreword and the preface, the book is organized into eight chapters: Playing Classic Games, Playing Portably, Playing Well With Others, Playing with Hardware, Playing with Console and Arcade Hardware, Playing Around the Game Engine, Playing Your Own Games, and Playing Everything Else. This isn't the kind of book that you're going to read cover to cover. It is more of a game hacks dictionary. As the cover says, there are one hundred "hacks" total; in the chapters, the hacks are listed by number with thermometer icons next to them (see picture above.) These indicate how difficult the hack is to execute, letting the reader know if he should attempt it or not. Along the way you'll also find thumbtack and screw icons. The thumbtack indicates a tip or a suggestion and the screw signifies a warning.

The book does a good job of targeting a variety of people from different technical backgrounds and gives plenty of warning before you leap into something that will be difficult.

Here are brief descriptions of each of the chapters:

The first chapter, "Playing Classic Games," focuses on emulators and how to play homebrew games on consoles. Again, for the non technical reader, an emulator is a program that runs older games, or "ROMs," on newer consoles or on computers. It's a great way to enjoy the classics without having to dig up that old Atari 2600 or Commodore 64. Plus, you have the ability to hold many games on one storage medium. For example, you could store hundreds of SNES games on a CD that you could pop into your Dreamcast; eliminating the annoyance of hundreds of cartridges.

"Playing Portably" has some very interesting hacks which include playing games on your Ipod, taking and printing photos with your Game Boy, and installing a Playstation 2 in your car. There aren't as many hacks in this chapter but it should appeal to the portable gamers out there.

"Playing Well With Others" will be most useful to gamers who are new to the MMORPG genre, but also to other multiplayer beginners. The major focus is on the MMORPG, perhaps the most confusing game genre around for new players. Besides the dictionary and playing tips previously mentioned, it also discusses online courtesy and etiquette, things which apply to any game you happen to play online. This chapter ends with a section on how to catch Half-Life cheaters red-handed. Yes, that might be a little random, but the book is a collection of tips and "hacks." You have to keep that in mind.

I didn't think the first hack in the chapter "Playing with Hardware," titled "Build a Quiet, Killer Gaming Rig," was correctly named. This hack only focused on how to make your computer quiet, not on building an entire computer. The rest of the chapter details hacks such as how to adapt old video game controllers to a PC, and then goes into things involving home theaters. Most of this chapter is focused on audio, home theater setups, and multimedia gaming.

Half of the hacks in "Playing with Console and Arcade Hardware" are for the Dreamcast console. In general the Dreamcast seems to be a very hackable console, the main reasons being that it's a powerful, cheap system and it has Internet connectivity. A huge community was formed around the system after Sega decided to abandon its customers. Some highlights in this chapter include playing import games on American consoles, hacking the Dreamcast Visual Memory Unit (VMU), playing music and movies on your Dreamcast, and programming music for your Nintendo.

The next two chapters, "Playing Around the Game Engine," and "Playing Your Own Games," are going to appeal to people who want to get their hands dirty with beginning mod and game development. On average, the difficulty level is higher for these chapters and will probably take some more time. Hacks include creating PS2 cheat codes, modifying PC game saves and settings, creating a vehicle model for Unreal Tournament 2004, and writing a game in an afternoon.

The last chapter, titled "Play Everything Else," has seven miscellaneous hacks. The hack that stood out the most to me in this chapter was titled "Play Japanese Games Without Speaking Japanese." The section includes a list of common words that appear in Japanese video games and gives the translations--something that could be very useful to the gamers who enjoy playing imports. Other hacks in this chapter include accessing your console's memory card offline, overclocking your console and tweaking your tactics for FPS (first-person shooter) glory.

The best advice I can give you if you are pondering whether or not to purchase this book is to look through the table of contents. If you like what you see, it will be worth the purchase. Whether it be overclocking a console, emulating an SNES on Dreamcast, writing MMORPG macros, or creating your own simple games, Gaming Hacks has a hack that every gamer can appreciate. True, you could probably find quite a bit of the information covered in "Gaming Hacks" on the internet but it is convenient to have it all in one place.

You can purchase Gaming Hacks from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Gaming Hacks

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  • Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:33PM (#12433905)
    If you're looking for something that covers topics like these, but don't want to waste your time searching the Internet for answers, this book is for you.

    Isn't the playing of video games all about wasting time?

  • Remove all doubt (Score:5, Funny)

    by Guysmiley777 ( 880063 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:33PM (#12433910)
    And with this on your bookshelf you'll be removing all doubt about your level of nerdiness.
    • I hacked a sarcasm detection routine into my NES, it is now on fire
    • And with this on your bookshelf you'll be removing all doubt about your level of nerdiness.

      Just in case the other books on my shelf - Mastering Visual C#.NET, User Interfaces in C#, Programming in the .NET Environment, O'Reilly Linux & C++ in a Nutshell books, Penny-Arcade signed book #1, etc etc etc - don't give it away? Man, I better grab one of these quick! I didn't realise I was being so ambiguous about displaying my nerdiness.
      ;)

  • Japanese Video Games w/o Speaking Japanese (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:34PM (#12433913)

    The hack that stood out the most to me in this chapter was titled "Play Japanese Games Without Speaking Japanese." The section includes a list of common words that appear in Japanese video games and gives the translations--something that could be very useful to the gamers who enjoy playing imports.

    Since I don't have a copy of the book, I'm curious -- how do you say "tentacle rape" in Japanese?

  • Woohoo! (Score:4, Funny)

    by dgos78 ( 881140 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:34PM (#12433921)
    If you're looking for something that covers topics like these, but don't want to waste your time searching the Internet for answers, this book is for you.

    You mean he's got a list of currently operating ROM sites? Bitchin!

    • You mean he's got a list of currently operating ROM sites?

      If you're looking for pirated ROMs, and you're not exclusively on a university's Internet connection, then here's all the list you need:

      • eMule [emule-project.net]

      • Re:Woohoo! (Score:2, Informative)

        by ZosX ( 517789 )
        Also.... If you look around on bittorrent sites like torrentspy.com, you will often find whole ROM collections listed. The SNES, Genesis, and NES collections weigh in at 6 gigs total. Granted there are many duplicate ROMs due to various rips coming up with different checksums, so you will see like 3 versions of Super Metroid, all virtually 100% identical save for a few bits. The Good series of ROM tools has an excellent database of probably 99% of all known ROMs. There are literally hundreds of good tran

        • Re:Woohoo! (Score:3, Informative)

          by tepples ( 727027 )

          You need a pretty smoking CPU to emulate the GBA for the most part as it stands

          Smoking as in 500 MHz to 1 GHz depending on the emulator, primarily because the GBA came along when such PCs were common, and the VisualBoyAdvance monoculture doesn't draw a lot of emu-optimization freaks.

          though why you would want to emulate a PSX when you can buy one for so cheap these days is beyond me.

          An PS1 emulator can play imports and homebrews while you save up for a modchip for your real PS1, and some games actu

          • Not on my 900mhz box. Visual Boy Advance is slooooow. I would recommend an older PSX with a Pro Action Replay. Plays most games flawlessly unless of course there is mod protection, but I'm pretty sure there are gameshark codes to work around this, which convieniently the pro action replay will take as well.

            I'd love to run VBA, but alas, its too slow. Maybe at low res its ok, but I like my GBA games interpolated on a big screen.

            • Did you miss one of the point of his post?
              VBA == Not optimized. Check out other GBA emulators. They exist. VBA might be the big name, but... The big names aren't always the best.

              http://www.zophar.net/gba.html [zophar.net]

              From that list, No$GBA, Boycott Advance, and the OPTIMIZED version of VBA on the bottom of the page seem like they'd help you..

      • eMule is good for downloading tons of weird stuff if you're not in a terrible hurry. Two minutes of googling is far better for finding actually working websites with ROMs...

        eMule is great for finding all sorts of Weird Pirate Crap(tm) like "not as much homebrew as brewn-in-shady-store-backroom" games and multicarts. And it's a perfect illustration of the intellectual property rights degradation inherent in the system! (Petty P2Ping emulator-using) pirates pirating from (real-world cheap-plastic-hawking) p

    • You mean he's got a list of currently operating ROM sites? Bitchin!

      in unrelated news, the book has already sold out to defence lawers looking to find probable new clients
  • I must start out by thanking Carless and the O'Reilly publishing company for continuing in the effort to protect the real meaning of the words "hacker" and "hacking."

    Anyone who would take time to expound on the definition of hacker clearly does not deserve any attention as a reviewer and is clearly an insecure dork.

    • I don't know about "insecure" but it sure is stupid to get so uptight about mere semantics... as if there is something sacred about the letter permutation H-A-C-K-E-R.

  • Wasting Time (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:36PM (#12433933)
    " but don't want to waste your time searching the Internet for answers,"

    Yes, when I play video games the last thing that I want to do is waste time.

    • Re:Wasting Time (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah, because searching Google is just as much fun as playing video games.

      Sure gaming is a waste of time. So is flying a kite. So is playing golf, basketball, or even watching TV. So what? Life is for enjoyment, not productivity. If being productive makes you happy, so be it. If playing a video game does, then fine. If training to compete in an iron man competition strikes your fancy, go for it. Just because you don't think the enjoyment gaming provides is worth the time you put into it doesn't me

  • *typing* (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sagara Sozou ( 726002 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:37PM (#12433936) Homepage
    WTB [Gaming Hacks] for 25s

  • Slashdot whores their own (again) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:37PM (#12433939)
    Also, why not just link right to the BN.com page for the book? Gee, I wonder who is going to get referrer hit credits for the people who buy the book thru the bfast.com link!

  • Why are hackers thought of as overweight? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Enigma_Man ( 756516 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:37PM (#12433947) Homepage
    I've never thought of hackers as overweight, whenever I think stereotypical "hacker" I think a skinny geek who's slightly stained white t-shirt hangs off his bony frame.

    Anybody else feel the same way about that?

    -Jesse
  • It seems like it's more a general/historical overview than much of a guide. But that's what you get with covering such a wide spectrum, I suppose. And yes.. I fondly remember my Atari 2600 gane console :-)

  • Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by M.C. Hampster ( 541262 ) <M...C...TheHampster@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:44PM (#12434009) Journal

    "Playing Well With Others" will be most useful to gamers who are new to the MMORPG genre, but also to other multiplayer beginners. The major focus is on the MMORPG, perhaps the most confusing game genre around for new players. Besides the dictionary and playing tips previously mentioned, it also discusses online courtesy and etiquette, things which apply to any game you happen to play online.

    What does this have to do with hacking at all? An introduction to playing MMORPG's has no place in this at all. And the fact that the reviewer says nothing about it probably reveals some of the bias he brought into his review.

    • Well to be a "hacker" means to be "elite". Perhaps one could argue that being "elite" also requires being able to play well with others?

      And I'm not refering to "3l33t" players because, obviously, they really don't get along with anyone.

      • Then where's the chapter on "Making Macaroni and Cheese". Because, being a "hacker" means you like to "tinker". You could argue that "tinker" would include playing with tinker toys. Playing with tinker toys, obviously means you have children. Having children, would imply you are a father. Being a father occasionally entails having to cook meals for your kids.


        • Yes, but cooking meals for kids does not necessarily mean that you are a father. Also, playing with tinker toys does not necessarily mean that you have children ;)

          The point is that it may require multiple, unforseen, skills to become "elite" at something and the ability to get along with others might be one of them.

      • Re:Huh? (Score:2)

        by don.g ( 6394 )
        I'm not sure what it means to be a "hacker", but I suspect the definition is probably just a tad more complex [wikipedia.org] than that.
    • What does this have to do with hacking at all? An introduction to playing MMORPG's has no place in this at all.

      Well, hold on for a sec. There's several hacks one could learn about in MMRPG's which are worth writing about:

      1st: the macros. Writing a macro can be intimidating to non-tech types (especially, if you've come over from the console genre of gaming). Even though syntax differs from game to game, it's an important thing to a) know about and b) learn if you're going to play well (and boy, does

  • "Playing Well With Others" (Score:5, Funny)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:45PM (#12434024) Journal
    "Playing Well With Others"

    No doubt, anyone playing Warcraft3 will no doubt know some kiddies need this one. This tends to be the average chat while waiting for a game to fill up.

    While waiting for all slots to fill.
    "Go fag"
    "g"
    "g"
    "g"
    "g"
    "g"
    "JUST FUCKING GO!"

    Then after the kid messes up the game and blames the team.

    "You suck asshole!" -- if not in all caps, be amazed.

    So, that recaps the first 2 minutes of warcraft3, waiting for a game to fill.
  • To sound like a respectable pundit one must always include a blurb about the differences between hackers and crackers. As for the review and the book they are omens just like those first html, A+ and MCSE books. Game development is becoming sufficiently saturated as to require the sale of skills in other venues like this one.

    I for one have left the computer science field for computer architecture.

  • bye bye (Score:5, Funny)

    by JackJudge ( 679488 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:48PM (#12434049) Journal
    If your girlfriend gives you this as present, it probably means "goodbye"

  • A great book (Score:4, Interesting)

    by johnwroach ( 624103 ) <`imjackdarippa+s ... `at' `gmail.com'> on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:52PM (#12434095)
    I'm suprised to see this review now, since I've had the book for several months. I guess I assumed it had already been reviewed.

    It really is a great book, but the reviewer only gave my favorite parts a passing glance. Chapter 7 has 15 hacks collectively titled "Playing you own games." These center around 3 main ideas: Making a vehicle for UT2004, writing a text game, and working with Pygame, the python "games" library.

    Now, my wimpy hardware won't handle UT2004 (I shouldn't really even be talking about it on it) but I got several weeks of fun out the other two. I wrote a little text game for my wife in which she had to do all the chores before she could watch TV and then began a little Python game.

    Admittedly, these two sections aren't entirely accurate (I seem to recall the code in them doesn't work in some places), but they introduced me to the concepts and I was able to go from there.

    Overall, I highly recommend this book to someone who enjoys computer and console games but longs for just a little bit more creativity. Well worth the $20.

  • write infocom games (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dayeight ( 21335 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @02:57PM (#12434149) Homepage Journal
    The very talented Adam Cadre [adamcadre.ac] and Andrew Plotkin [eblong.com] have a small hack on making infocom games. It's one of the most precise introductions to a programming language I've ever seen.
  • Sample chapters are available from this book's webpage on O'Reilly's website [oreilly.com] -- you can even read about my hacking on the sega dreamcast VMU in chapter 52 [oreilly.com] or from my (outdated) website [maushammer.com].
  • "the real and original meaning is a person that likes to tinker around with technology and change things (not in a maliciously) to get them to work better or differently."

    Yeah! and only GOOD people with goog moral sense will read that book!
    • RTF review. Nowhere does he mention "here's an undetectable ub3r-l33t wallhack for CS:Source!" It's *hacks*. In the true sense of the word. Apparently you don't understand that. R->C->P.
      • I dont want the whole review! i juts read the part i put in my reply! as to the fact that real hackers dont do malicious things! Your mumbo jumbo up there dont mean s$?$? to me unless you mistakingly replied to the wrong person.
  • 1) Choose current cool thing to do 2) Append word "Hacks" 3) PROFIT!

  • Konami code! (Score:3, Informative)

    by gr8fulnded ( 254977 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @03:55PM (#12434694)
    up,up,down,down,left,right,left,right,b,a,start!

    15 yrs later and I can still remember giving my Contra players 30 lives. Good times.
  • I can overclock my consoles? Sweet! Just what I always wanted, Halo 2 to run even faster so that I have even less chance of getting that fiddly reticle thing to stay on some online foe with seemingly superhuman speed.

    Wish it contained a "Talent Hack" chapter to teach me how to do well at online gaming. Then I could go out and win big bucks for being able to shoot at random strangers in HL2 without curling up into a ball and crying under my desk when I'm still in with a chance at 432-0.

    Big buck$!

  • MMORPG hacks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Illserve ( 56215 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @04:39PM (#12435229)
    I haven't RTFB but if this review is any indication, the author skips the more interesting MMORPG hacks out there. Really it sounds like this guy doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

    Example: in many MMORPG games to date, there exist tools which pilfer the stream of data flowing to your computer and can tell you things you shouldn't know. For example in DAOC, a program existed which gave you a radar-like view of the world around you extending out to twice the distance of the game's normal cutoff distance for viewing players.

    Every single person in game within a distance of about 500 feet of you was known to your computer, but your client only shows you on screen people no more than 250 feet away.

    Let me tell you that in PVP, having a double-the normal range of detecting enemy players was "great". I could maneuver an entire group of allies past defenses by keeping outside of enemy view and then ambush them from behind. Further I'd know exactly when to retreat as the reinforcements arrived.

    That was a true MMORPG hack in every sense of the word (it was written for Linux, ran in X11 and sniffed the packet stream). There was even a back-n-forth encryption war in which Mythic kept changing the encryption protocol, and the author would then recrack it within days.

    The same utility existed in EQ, I'm sure it exists in UO, and in Asheron's Call there are dozens of great utility programs written that let you detect anyone within about a mile, and apply a set of filters to them, alerting you if they are enemies, what their level is, giving you the ability to target them.

    For a book to talk about game hacks and MMORPG's and not devote several chapters to these tools... well it's clear that the author doesn't really know his own craft and is trying to make a fast buck on a good concept.

    • We didn't cover hacks like that because they affect other people. If you want to change the rules of the game for yourself, that's fine. We drew a line about hacks that might harm the game experience for other people.

      (I edited this book.)

    • Re:MMORPG hacks (Score:4, Funny)

      by JahToasted ( 517101 ) <toastafari AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday May 04, 2005 @06:19PM (#12436159) Homepage
      OMG u r so awesome, you have teh maphack!

      u r so right they should mak a whole book about maphacks. I mean there are so much to talk about. Like: How you type "DAOC maphack" in google? how to click on a link to download the file? and how to run the installer (I could never figure that part out) Maybe you can help me can you tell me how to install the maphack so I can be cool like you?

    • Re:MMORPG hacks (Score:2, Insightful)

      by KillShill ( 877105 )
      except that's cheating.

      cheating is all fine and dandy offline (no one has any right to tell you otherwise).

      but once you get online and play with others, any bullshit you pull, is blatant cheating and diminishes the value of the game for others.

      and thats just but one reason i'll be playing single player games exclusively until such a time as more mature and decent people play online (around the time Hell has a booming sno-cone industry).

    • Re:MMORPG hacks (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by FurryFeet ( 562847 )
      You are confusing "hacking" with "cheating". Now, that is perfectly understandable from reading the rest of your post.

      You are a cheating, lying, despicable excuse for a player. And that "Interesting"... well, talk about a mod on crack.

      Oh, yeah, have a nice day. Asshole.
    • And you are the reason that I will never play MMORPG's or any online game unless it is over a LAN with people I know. Why should I bother playing if you are going to cheat and wipe me out?

      Jerk..
  • Yeah, this whole internet thing is just a fad...
  • ...the hacks are listed by number with thermometer icons next to them (see picture above.)

    I really couldn't find the picture. Or is this review recycled from somewhere else?
  • Looks like I have something to get my friend for his birthday after all.
  • Put more vids up of the IGDA conferences! Two years ago you had a whole number of entire lectures up (the top ten or so). Last year you had some blogger type cliffnotes.
  • Isn't reading books for people who don't play video games?

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