Gaming Hacks by Simon Carless is the newest in a series of Hacks books from O’Reilly Media, Inc., one of the leading publishers of technology books. This is an anthology of guides and tips for various ways to get more out of your video games. What exactly is “more”, you ask? Most of us know that games can be hacked with devices like the Action Replay and GameShark, and that game saves can be transferred to PC with special devices. But the possibilities for hacking your games go far beyond those well-known procedures.

Gaming Hacks covers numerous platforms, from the Commodore 64 to GameCube, plus handhelds and PCs. That means only a fraction of the book is applicable to Nintendo systems. What is there is quite interesting, though. Here are a few examples of hacks that apply to Nintendo games and hardware:

Hack #1: Legal Emulation

Hack #20: Mod Your Game Boy

Hack #38: Choose the Right Audio/Video Receiver

Hack #47: Play LAN-Only Console Games Online

Hack #49: Play Import Games on American Consoles

Hack #62: Programming Music for the Nintendo Entertainment System

Hack #68: Speedrun Your Way Through Metroid Prime

Hack #95: Beat Any Shoot-Em-Up

Hack #100: Overclock Your Console

One of the most useful hacks is #97: Play Japanese Games Without Speaking Japanese, which was contributed by Chris Kohler of Power-Up fame. It includes tips on figuring out menus and gameplay based on context, as well as a katakana guide and a list of common words and phrases in all three of the Japanese alphabets. I was not surprised to see some of the same techniques I have used in the past when playing import games.

Of course, many hacks are just silly or interesting, rather than useful. Did you know that you can dramatically boost the Game Boy Color’s bass output with a simple wire solder, or that you can overclock the N64 to boost frame rates in Perfect Dark? Such mods are risky and best reserved for people with experience in electrical work, but the reward may be worth it.

Other hacks aren’t dangerous at all. The book can teach you how to sequence-break and/or speedrun in Metroid and other games, or how to download tools that let you compose your own music for the NES sound chip. You’ll learn how to download pictures from a Game Boy Camera and transfer them online. There are also many hacks about emulation and ROM modding and hacking, which may be legally risky. The entire first chapter is devoted to the issue of emulation legality and ways to tell whether it’s safe to emulate certain systems and games.

This is a Nintendo-focused site, so I should make it doubly clear that only a handful of the 100 hacks in this book specifically apply to Nintendo games and systems. Much larger sections are devoted to the Atari 2600, MAME, and the Dreamcast. Personally, I found some of the other material interesting even if I never owned those systems. There are hacks that go very in-depth, with pages and pages of programming code, so the book is probably best used for browsing and as a reference. It’s also worth nothing that most hacks copiously refer to documentation at various websites (PGC is actually sourced at one point, to my surprise), so you may need to go surfing for extra information.

Gaming Hacks is a handy guide to some of the craziest stuff you can do with video games. If you’re the type who likes to meddle around in games or hardware, it’s well worth reading.