I just remembered that I was supposed to post a few funny fakes in this thread, just for the heck of it. Let's start with Metal Gear: Ghost Babel for the GBC:
They did not try hard with this one - the case is made of cheap plastic and the colours on the label are all washed-out. The paper is all wrong too, but if that was not a dead give-away, the case actually says GAME rather than Nintendo (r) GAMEBOY at the top... the back featured a cross-screw which I removed to power up the dead battery. The funniest part of this one is that it... could be a functioning Gameboy flashcart. Have a look at the PCB - it's universal, with a separate "Game PCB" soldered right onto it. Swap that with a FLASH chip and you're in for a treat! Hillarious!
Now, from a different "barrel", Sonic Advance 2 for the GBA:
Typical issues you'd expect from a pirate cart, really - nothing spectacular... except for the markings on the back, clearly made with a waterproof marker, likely for the manufacturing staff to know which pre-made case they're supposed to stuff this bad boy in.
And finally, my prized posession... that I currently cannot find, thus I will supply you with a stock photo... Sonic Adventure
8. Yes, you read it right - Foxi's way ahead of the times with his Sonic games.
My cartridge happens to be light-blue, but it in any case, it can be seen that the mold used was in fact "borrowed" from Pokemon Pinball. Mind you, this game is not a typical bootleg - it's a pirate original, meaning that someone coded it from the ground up. The rumble feature *actually works*, believe it or not - it's not there for kicks. Quite impressive for a cheap pirate game. The funny thing about this bootleg is that from what I heard, *no GameBoy emulator is capable of launching the ROM without crashing*, likely due to the additional hardware on the cartridge or due to being a bad dump. Fortunately for you guys who want to try it out, Sonic Adventure 7 and Sonic 3D Blast 5 are practically the same game with only minor changes, and those load just fine on emulators, so go ahead and try them out!
I also happen to have Sonic R for GameBoy, which turned out to be Sonic 6, a ROM hack of Speedy Gonzales:
The sticker on the cartridge was *literally* just the boxart of Sonic R, minus the SEGA logo. No side bars, no markings, no text other than the Sonic R logo:
If not for the fact that the cartridge (made of suprisingly good plastic, albeit yellow...
) didn't spell out that it's a Gameboy game (in crooked italics, mind you) and you weren't familiar with the cartridge size, you'd probably never guess.
Shame that I cannot find it, as I have yet to see this particular fake case online... Perhaps my cart is unique?
Unfortunately, I misplaced the two latter cartridges, so I cannot provide you with my own photos. I also apologize for the quality of these photos - I used the laptop's webcam on its most sensitive setting (which forced me to make low-res photos) and these are the effects.
Maybe I'll grab a camera once I find the rest of my collection and snap a few photos then.
In any case, I hope you all enjoyed!