15 Essential Homebrews that run on Half Byte Loader
People keep asking for lists of homebrew games that work with HBL. I believe making a full list is an impossible task, especially since we fix bugs on a daily basis, but today I want to showcase 15 homebrews that work great in HBL. These homebrews are of great quality and will give you hours (if not hundreds of hours) of gameplay. I’ve tested them myself on a 6.20 psp go. These games are presented in no specific order.
Please keep in mind that emulators usually require bios files and/or roms that I cannot legally provide. Don’t ask for those here, thanks.
1. Wagic 0.12.1
Ok, I lied, there is an order… at least for the first game 🙂 . Wagic is an heroic fantasy card game in which you fight against the CPU. As you win battles against your opponent, you earn credits that will allow you to improve your army, unlock sets, and play new game modes. Highly customizable (you can create your own cards, even your own rules and campaigns), Wagic can easily bring you hundreds of hours of gameplay (heck, I’ve been playing it on a daily basis for the past 3 years!), and has already won several homebrew contests.
2. Doom 1.4
Do I need to introduce this game? As mentioned on hackaday.com, Doom is a “prerequisite for any cracked device”. This game is a legend, and you can play the shareware version for free on your PSP through HBL. Works flawlessly once you get used to the controls (triangle+select to show the menu, don’t forget this one!)
3. Picodrive 1.35
With HBL R95, sound is finally available in this great Sega emulator. You’ll love to see Sonic running on your portable device! (Note: version 1.51 has also been reported to work)
4. T.O.M.E. 2.3.5
Tales Of Middle Earth is a PSP port of a famous RPG on the PC. The graphisms are not what you are looking for here, but rather, a deep RPG experience with lots of possible customizations and quests. Think of it as a Diablo… with way more customization. Old school people like me who used to play RPGs with a pen, a piece of paper, and a pair of dice (errr… ok, a pair of cars filled with dice if you were playing the Starwars RPG) will definitely enjoy this game. Historically, T.O.M.E was the first “big” game to run on HBL, so it holds a special place in my heart 🙂
5. CSPSP 1.56
Although this is not the latest release (which requires Kernel access), CS PSP is a nice 2D version of Counter Strike. We still have hopes to enable network on this one (hopefully the programmer of the game will come back from the deads and update the sources of the latest version to be less restrictive with Kernel access), but for now, even the single player mode is very entertaining, and an extremely nice way to spend my time on the train. Excellent for casual gaming. Stupid bots, DIE! DIE! DIE!
6. Gpsp Kai
Newer versions of this emulator might work, I must admit I haven’t tested them. GPSP is a brilliant Game Boy Advance emulator, but so far only this unoficially modification (the “kai” versions) seem to work with HBL. The GBA has some very decent games, and if you’ve never tried Advance Wars I highly suggest it! A known issue with this emulator is that HBL crashes when you exit Gpsp…hopefully we’ll fix that soon.
7.Snes9xTYL
What, another emulator? Yes, but for the Super Nes this time. Some of the best games were made on this console. I can still remember full afternoons playing Street fighter 2…aaah…It was so good to be a kid in the 16bits era!
8. ScummVM 1.1.1
ScummVM feels and tastes like an emulator, but it’s a project specifically aimed at old-school point and click adventure games such as Monkey Island. A great thing about scummVM is that some of the games it allows to play are now freeware. I highly recommend Beneath a Steel sky that you can legally download for free on scummvm.org.
9. Bookr
Bookr is an ebook reader that supports pdf and text files among other formats. A must have if you read a lot and are not lucky enough to own a Kindle… I don’t recommend to read pdf files on a pspgo though, I think the screen of the psp go is way too small for this…
10. Daedalus (R13?)
I have mixed feelings about Daedalus. Sure, the emulator starts, but I can’t say I’ve seen any game running at full speed on this with HBL. Lots of people requested it, so I’m adding it to this list, but if you know of a more recent version (from the deadalusX64 team) that runs on HBL, please let me know and I’ll gladly test it. For Daedalus, you might want to try and set the override_scePeekBufferPositive to 0 in the hbl/hbl_config.txt file.
11. Cave Story
Probably the most famous platform freeware game, cave story is the result of 5 years of work by an independent developer. This is the psp port.
12. Spider Solitaire
The definition of casual gaming! This game has a graphical glitch in HBL, but it doesn’t prevent it from being playable.
13. Geometry wars
By far the most adrenaline-packed homebrew there is. If you can survive more than 5 seconds you probably beat my personal high score. You probably know the original game that inspired it, or its psp clone polygun war.
14. EmuMaster/Masterboy
It seems we broke compatibility with the Game Boy emulator “Homer’s Rin” in a recent update. But fear not, Emumaster is here for you. This is a great emulator for both the Sega Master System and the Game Boy color. So, technically, while we try to understand what happened to Homer’s rin, you can still play your favorite GBC games! (emumaster seems to crash on me when I exit the game).
15. Zombie Crisis
A gore FPS based on the Duke Nukem 3D port for the PSP. If you like 3D and zombies, you’ll like this game 🙂
There are of course many other good homebrews available for the PSP that run on HBL. The ones above are a mix of “often mentioned”, “personal favorites”, and “I tried this one randomly, it works and I like it”. If you know other cool homebrews that work with HBL, don’t hesitate to share links!
wololo hello how are you?/ you speak spanish?
@Jack
Try gpspkai 3.4 Test 3 Build 152, it has a rom buffer of 16 MB and it runs games much better than 3.2.
your great man!!!thanks for sharing everything..God Bless You!!!
@LUISDooMER
I tried it but got “error in load/start homehook module”. Any idea on how to get it to work?
ok hbl i have a psp go ofw 6.31 and i tryedrunning hbl and it says corrupted data i dont see a thing
hey, when i run patapon demo it says save data not found. what do i do?
@Brandon. When you run it, it does say save data not found, But when it asks you to create a new save file, choose “No” then choose “Yes” when it says “Continue Playing Anyway?”. Once your in the main menu of the game, select “Continue” Then it will load the save data that you should have in your Save Data file in your psp, If you have only dwnloaded just the Patapon Demo Game, you also need to download Wolo’s Savegame Data for it.
Many people have troubles with gpspkai, i can help you!
When it runs too slow, gointo the options menu of gpspkai, and DISABLE frameskip. now it runs faster.
I have a PSP Go with 6.31 and Everybodys Golf.
My Snes9x runs well at frameskip 3 and 333mhz.
My gpSP Kai 3.4 runs great for all my roms but i had to turn off the Frameskip.
Thank you wololo for all the work on the hbl.
I have a PSP GO with 6.31 and Hot Shots Golf Open Tee. The hack works but not of the hombrew works. What am I doing wrong?
Hello everybody, well I have a PSP 3001 6.31 and the hot shots golf open tee . When I try to run Snes9xTYL, my screen becomes white and my PSP freeze. Does someone know why it’s happen? thanks in advance.
final burn alpha there’s no sound with hbl r99 (why?). +99 freezes my psp 3010.
gpSP 3.4 Test 03 + Roms Pokemon (Buffer 16 MB) (Run in HBL r101)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=75E5HSSP
Pass: aaroncito12345
@shannon, Friendly piece of advice: you shouldn’t talk about the stuff you don’t understand.
You didn’t “hack your psp by yourself”, you merely used a tool created by people who understand what they’re doing. The same kind of people wrote Half byte Loader for those who are not lucky as you, and don’t have a hackable motherboard.
can i play unoriginal PSP game using it?
The n64 emulator is running very smoothly with rev107 it can play mario 64 at full speed and can play Zelda oot fairly well.
Anyone know how to use RosettaShard on HBL, or is it just not possible? I’m using a psp 3001 with ofw 5.70. If I could only have one homebrew app, this is the one i want! Thanks in advance!
@Tirachii
good news . i have tested deadalus with a few games. the games i tested were guided by the daedalus compatibility page. i have found the following work on a psp 3k ofw 6.2 patapon
waverace
forsaken
mario kart
aerogauge
spiderman
tony hawks 1 and 2
star soldeier vanishing earth
quest 64
wololo i think the entire homebrew community should converge on making the n64 emulator work properly. thats because i think it is the only homebrew worthy of the power of the psp
thx
hola wololouna pregunta mira el hbl 101 casi ejecuta el pspdisp no cres que sea checarlo y ver si hay oportunidad de ejecutarlo con el hbl una nueva vercion
anyone know of the latest daedalus version compatible w/hbl
deadalus N 64 can load a rom.
PS: for me anyway
which version and rom
@eddie
go here:
http://www.halfbyteloader-psp.350.com/emulators-nin.htm
download the second emulator of the 2 which are for N64. that is the latest version that is compatible with HBL.
for a list of compatible roms go here:
http://compat.daedalusx64.com
@wololo
a better version of dedalus compatible with hbl
http://www.halfbyteloader-psp.350.com/emulators-nin.htm
rom compatibility list
http://www.halfbyteloader-psp.350.com/emulators-nin.htm
i have tested this dedalus with the recommeded roms from
http://compat.daedalusx64.com
I have found that most of the recommended roms work as expected on cfw
on a psp 3k ofw 6.2 hbl r107
btw kudos for 107. it is undoubtedly a remarkable achievements. thx to all contributors incl wololo and everyone involved in testing and programming.
together we have made a difference to gamers worldwide:) !!!!!!!!!!!!
If you have a 1000 or a hackable 2000 why not hack and play cso and homebrews or you have psn stuff im guessing you have psn stuff
Hello wololo the final burn works
In psp 3000 6.20 hbl 109
i donot have a comment.iwould like an application /homebrew that can record from internet radio[shoutcast]. have psp 1000 and psp-3001[6.20 ofw].thanks for help.
Is there a version of psp Filer or anything like it that work.
hey….need some help with running snes9xTYL super mario….where do i find the correct roms to load and play the game?
alguien k m ayude x fa necesito el 6.31 no c como bajarlo
den me la pajina para bajarlo x fa
i got a psp 1001 with ofw 6.31 can u get the HBL without using a computer and if u can then can u post the link 4 it and how your supposed to do it
@aaroncito12345
Thanks for the link for the emulator. it works great!!
One site that is good for gba roms is http://www.coolrom.com/roms/gba/
=)
whoever developed HBL. long live u guys!!! u don’t know how many people u’ve made happy 🙂
does anyone know how to add cheats and where to get them for the gba emulator?
To all gpSP users, whether Kai or Original, whether CFW or not: Have you been able to get Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition to work? If yes, what type of FW or gpSP are you using. Please help.