Polio's Cancer Fun

Polio's Cancer Fun is a hack of Super Mario Bros by Sex Pistols members Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious, with the help of the Damned singer Dave Vanian and the Germs' singer Darby Crash. The intention for the game was to turn "a massive smash hit into nothing but cancer".

The game was released through Sex Pistols Interactive on June 15, 1999 on the Nintendo Entertainment System worldwide. The game was pulled from retail outlets three days following the release, but the game had already sold 250,000 copies.

Mario is replaced by Polio, a character infected with Polio and testicular cancer, who must save Princess Smallpox, his girlfriend who was diagnosed with AIDS and smallpox, from the Grim Reaper, who himself is infected with every type of cancer known.

His brother is Lupus, a gay Mexican male prostitute with lupus, HIV, heroin addiction, and severe terminal brain cancer.

A follow up was released in 2000, Polio's Cancer Fun 2, which was illegally bundled with the just-released PS2.

Development
In 1998, the Sex Pistols reunited, 20 years after disbanding. During this reunion, former bassist Sid Vicious, who died of a heroin overdose in February 1979, miraculously showed up.

Happy to see him again, lead singer Johnny Rotten decided to hang out with Vicious for a bit.

During this time, they brainstormed a video game that would change the face of gaming forever.

So, they decided to hack Super Mario Bros, a smash hit 1985 game by Nintendo, and turn it into the most shocking video game to ever be made.

They called Nintendo to see if they could modify the game and release it as their own, but they declined.

Rotten reportedly told them, "We're use your stupid game no matter fucking what!" and slammed the phone down.

Mario was replaced with Polio, whose name was based on Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook, and the disease polio, which the character has. Rotten thought up of this after an argument with a Cook backstage.

Luigi was replaced with Lupus, which wasn't based off of anything, but was the closest sounding name to Luigi, and was also a disease which the character has. Lupus was a gay Mexican man who worked as a prostitute.

During development, when Rotten explained Lupus, both almost died from laughing.

Rotten and Vicious enlisted the help of fellow punk friends Dave Vanian and Darby Crash to help them edit the Super Mario Bros ROM.

Hacking took six months, from June to December 1998. By December 1998, the game was built enough so it could be demonstrated at the 1998 Amateur Games Expo in Westminster, London, under the working title "The Life Of Polio".

The audience was shocked beyond belief and the four were all kicked out.

Nevertheless, after many runthroughs to fix bugs, the game was completed in May 1999, and the cartridges were pressed by Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and his company, SEX Game Publishers.

Release
The game was released by the four, under the name Sex Pistols Interactive, on June 15, 1999, on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The cartridge actually made it to stores, but was banned from all worldwide retail stores three days later.

However by then, the game sold 15,000 copies.

Nintendo took Rotten, Vanian, Vicious and Crash to court over copyright infringement, but the four won, also as Sex Pistols Interactive, and the group were able to make a sequel for the N64 as Polio's Cancer Fun 64. which was released on October 16, 1999. This 64 version was then ported over to the PlayStation on November 12, 1999, under the original "Polio's Cancer Fun" name and packaging, but with the text: "this time with Enhanced Super 3D!" on a red banner at the top.

Critical reception
GamePro called it the worst game of 1999 in its magazine, stating, "It is mind boggling to imagine these guys actually won a lawsuit over Nintendo." IGN however stated, "The game's dark humour would probably have you laughing so much you'll gasp for air.". Jane Asher of Gamespot called it "the best game ever made". She was fired for this comment a week afterwards.

Retrospectively, many critics have called it one of the most legendary video games in history. In 2012, Gamespot called it the best game ever made, acknowledging the fact they fired Asher over making that exact comment, but stating, "She was a useless bitch anyway."

In 2017, Vicious said, "We made something fucking great. In years time people will be still playing that shit and saying, holy fuck, what a good game this is!"

Legacy
Following the release of the game, many child protective service organisations deemed the game disturbing and attempted to make it an illegal derivative work under US law, but were pushed back, as Sex Pistols Interactive, now a real company, became a growing publisher in the industry, despite its explicit and controversial output.

SPI would later turn Polio's Cancer Fun into a multi-million selling franchise, with the most popular game being "Polio's Race To Remission" in 2012. SPI has also developed similar spoofs of Sonic, such as "Senile The Ebolahog" in 2004, and one of Alex Kidd in 2006, "Alan Child And The Enchanted Noose".

In 2014, the original game was released on the "15 Years Of Anarchy In Video Games" set to commemorate fifteen years in the gaming business. Rotten stated that it didn't use an emulator and that the game was purely put onto disc.