See GTA IV with 8-bit graphics...

We’ve seen some great remakes this year. The success of Bionic Commando Rearmed on Xbox LIVE and Final Fantasy IV on the DS shows that playing old games on new hardware is still fun. But the good folks at The Independent Gaming Source have turned the idea of remaking classic titles on its head with their recent Bootleg Demake competition.  Instead of making old games look new, competitors were tasked with creating unofficial remakes of newer games with retro twists, which made them look like they were developed for older hardware. The competition has yielded over 60 creative, fun and hilarious spoofs of some of our favorite games, so we thought we’d share our favorite entries. You can learn more about TIGS’ Bootleg Demake competition by heading here, and we encourage you to check out the other great entries and vote for your favorites.

We demand that all Team Fortress 2 fans try this demake. Gang Garrison II is guaranteed to make you grin when you hear its cover of the TF2 theme song with MIDI-fied bleeps and bloops. And it’ll keep the smiles coming when you start scrolling through the game’s super pixilated takes on TF2 classes, like “The Runner” and “The Rocket Man.” So far, the game only has one capture-the-flag map. It’s a 2D version of 2Fort, which the authors are dubbing “2DFort.” But on the plus side, you shouldn’t have too much of a problem finding other people to play with. We were actually able to find several active servers at the time of writing, and even found someone playing as “The Healer,” which helped us score more kills with “The Firebug.”

Download the latest version

  Above: The Pyro becomes “The Firebug” and 2Fort becomes “2DFort” in Gang Garrison’s loving demake of Team Fortress 2 

Above:  See Gang Garrison II in motion

Have you ever wondered what Dead or Alive’s bouncy breasts would’ve looked like on an Atari? We haven’t. But we’re glad that someone else did. Sexy Seaside Beachball lets you buy sexy presents, make sexy friends, gamble in sexy outfits, and play lots of super sexy volleyball on a sexy seaside shore. Don’t download this game to play it. Download it to laugh at everything that’s ridiculous about the Dead or Alive Xtream Beach Volleyball series.

Download the latest version

Above: This game features breast physics!

Above: Meet Kasuki, the cover girl for Sexy Seaside Beachball 

Healthy Wave takes Audiosurf’s trippy visuals down a notch with Game Boy-styled graphics. But that’s part of the point with these demakes. Like Audiosurf, Healthy Wave’s fun factor kicks in once you start adding your own songs to the game’s tracklist.

The only trick is that you’ll probably need to convert your song files so that Healthy Wave can recognize them. We suggest you download ACE-HIGH MP3 WAV WMA OGG Converter. It’s free. It’s easy to figure out and you can use it to convert any MP3s you have into the OGG files Healthy Wave needs.

Download the latest version