Top Ten Most Collectible Video Games

Obiwan Kenobi writes "Gamespy has a new article up on the Top Ten All Time Rarest Video Games. This wacky list includes such gems as Chase the Chuck Wagon and Bubble Bath Babes, the only NES game with nudity (square nipples, anyone?). Makes me wonder what the top ten rarest PC games are..."

WARNING: Noisy flash ad

[Anonymous Coward]

For those of you who, like me, are stupid enough to have flash enabled. I got a nice noisy flash advert popping up and screaming sound when I loaded the page. Those of you at work be warned.

Re:OMG!!!

[jlower]

Find a completed auction on eBay that did very well for the same or a similar item and emulate that auction as closely as possible.

What about rare PC games?

[Toasty16]

I have a retail, boxed copy of Out of This World [the-underdogs.org], released by Interplay in 1991. It's in mint condition, complete with 5.25" and 3.5" diskettes and the bizarre security wheel used to enter the correct images on the installation screen. Any takers? ;-)

But the real find would be the European version, called Another World.

NWC

[Mike Schiraldi]

More info on the Nintendo World Championship ROM available here [disflux.net].

Anyone got a copy of the ROM?

Re:Never Grew up!

[NineNine]

NES and SNES before PC gaming? Are you crazy? The NES came around about, oh, I don't know, about 10-15 years after games first appeared on PC's.

Quake III Arena

[CoffeeJedi]

I have a metal-boxed copy of Quake III for Linux! I guess it can't be that rare, about 2 months ago i actually (i'm 100% serious about this) bought it at the Dollar Store, for a dollar!!! They had all the usual crappy $1 Store games there, and a stack of Q3A for Linux sitting on the bottom shelf. I should have bought 5 and kept them shrink wrapped!

Re:few rare games i own

[schnell]

anyone remeber a series of games for the 2600 all with world at the end of the title ? 'waterworld, fireworld, earthworld' etc? i had these as a kid and loved them.. i remeber them as being mostly puzzles of some kind.. can someone help me out with the name of these?

They were part of Atari's "SwordQuest" challenge [google.com]. The idea was to hide Easter Eggs in the four games that gave you hints towards winning a $25k "treasure." It was (at least initially) a great marketing gimmick, and each game came with a mini DC comic [digitpress.com] furthering the plot. Alas, despite all the excitement, the games sucked rather hard, as they were purposely inscrutable (like the Atari 2600 "Raiders of the Lost Ark" [ozyr.com] game) and sales of the last couple games in the series were dismal.

Underdogs website.

[nlinecomputers]

This site here [the-underdogs.org] has a lot of links to old games that aren't published anymore. Not the same as owning the orginal but if your dying to play an old game of Jumpman this is a place you can find it and a lot of other old games.

Re: MULE

[bracher]

I'm pretty sure you mean M.U.L.E.

http://www.eidolons-inn.de/mule/
http://weber.u csd.edu/~amany/mule.html

I wasted _many_ an hour playing this game as a kid...

Re:Note that 'Collectable' don't exactly mean 'Goo

[Osty]

Actually, the FPS grandaddy would have to be Wolfenstein 3D.

Actually, you're not quite right, either. The real FPS grandaddy is actually Hovertank [idsoftware.com], with Catacomb 3D [idsoftware.com] coming shortly after that. Catacomb 3D evolved from Hovertank's engine, and Wolf3D evolved from Catacomb's.

Now, I'm sure you can find some other first-person shooting game prior to 1991 if you really dig (Battlezone, perhaps?), but that's the history of the FPS and id.

Re:Chuckwagon is not all that rare

[Schnapple]

Part of what led to the video game crash was the proliferation of poor quality, quickly produced games that were flooding the market. Chase The Chuckwagon came to typify exactly the type of game that was being rushed out to "cash in" on the video game craze.

You're right about the reasons for why the video game industry crashed. However, this particular game, due to its distribution method, low number of produced cartridges, and known ending (that many of them were destroyed) does make it rare.

What did more to crash the industry circa 1982 was the horrible port of Pac-Man for the 2600 and of course E.T. for the 2600. In 1982 only 10 million of the 20 million 2600 systems were in active use, but Atari made 12 million Pac-Man carts, meaning they expected every single active 2600 user to buy the game, plus 2 million more (either new users or old users with new interest). It didn't work. And as for E.T., they spent $25 million to get the rights to E.T. and paid some programmer to get the game done in six weeks so they could shove it out the door. The game is literally impossible to finish and only sold 1 million of the 5 million cartridges made - most of the rest made it into a landfill in New Mexico.

This is what killed the game industry in the early 1980's.

Re:Huh?

[joshsisk]

Um, sorry but you don't know what you're talking about. The first Castle Wolfenstein game was made by id Software and was called "Wolfenstein-3D."

Don't shoot your mouth off if you don't know what you are talking about. [mac-archive.com]

Wolfenstein 3D (1992) was the THIRD Wolfenstein game, following Castle Wolfenstein (1983) and and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein (1984). Those games were indeed 2D.

Re:Huh?

[RobL3]

"Um, sorry but you don't know what you're talking about. The first Castle Wolfenstein game was made by id Software and was called "Wolfenstein-3D."
Um, sorry, but maybe you're just not as old as the rest of us. There was a 2-d Wolfenstien, It shipped in a clear plastic bag, and featured German soldiers shouting at you in German. In fact, the instruction manual even had a translation guide (like you could understand what was coming out of the Apple ]['s crappy little speaker.) This was the real precursor to W3D, and allowed you to pick up bulletproof vests, shoot nazi's, and steal gold. The objective was to find the secret war plans and escape from the castle.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, sorry but you don't know what you're talking about...

Umm, sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. There were two Wolfenstein 2D games way back when. I played them both on my Apple ][e. There were little mazes you walked (or limped, if you had been shot) through. There were guns, bullets, passkeys, uniforms, and money you could collect along the way. The best was pointing your empty gun at a guy, then stealing his bullets and shooting him. The SS guys were really nasty. I can't search for links, since I'm at work, but I will look around Google when I get home and paste whatever I can on those games into this thread.

Please be kind to their website

[SScorpio]

Tierra http://www.tierraentertainment.com/

Has recreated the VGA version of KQ1. They also had the person who voice acted Graham in KQ5 & 6 do the voice for him.

Overall it's a great free game. It's not a nostalgic as playing the 16 color AGI version; however, it's the same game in a prettier package.

As for an original copy of King's Quest, your going to need to use eBay. Sierra has unfortantely stopped selling the Collector's Editions that included all these classics. You should be able to get just KQ1 for a few buck; however, a Collector's Edition can easily hit $50 or more.

Re:Sierra games!

[Monkelectric]

You forgot "heros Quest I" later renamed to "Quest for Glory" due to a lawsuit by hasbro (which had a board game called heros quest). Rare item :)

Can still buy these

[moc.tfosorcimgllib]

There is a store in Nebraska that still has old games like this on the shelf for $10 a pop. Instruction manual and everything. They are classics, but rare, lord no.

Re:Huh?

[Kymermosst]

Um, sorry but you don't know what you're talking about. The first Castle Wolfenstein game was made by id Software and was called "Wolfenstein-3D."

Man! You had me laughing so hard I spit out of my nose. (Ewww!) I've got a copy of the original "Castle Wolfensten", written by Silas S. Warner, and published by MUSE. Your statement quoted above was a joke, right, or are you really that ignorant?

I just booted it on my IIgs (it still works) and it says Copyright 1981. This is interesting, because all the screenshots and docs I find say Copyright 1983.

Come a little closer so that I can smack you around with a clue-by-four.

Oh, and look here if you want to see it for the Commodore 64: http://www.desktopgames.co.uk/wolf/castlewolfenste in.html

They missed a big one.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ultima: Escape from Mount Drash"

This is the biggest Ultima rarity in existance. A cartridge-game done by Sierra without Garriott's knowledge, using the Ultima name.

Try These

[TTMuskrat]

Quite frankly I didn't see a game there that looked worth playing.

Phantasy Star is a great rpg series by Sega. Phantasy Star 2, 3, and 4 were made for the Genesis (PS3 had you play characters and their children over three generations; PS4 was the largest game cartridge (96megs?) of its time and quite expensive when it came out - $99.99 anyone?). Phantasy Star Online was made for the Dreamcast. Phantasy Star Online 2 is out now for the Gamecube, and I think its also coming for the PS2 and Xbox as well. It was Sega's "answer" to the Final Fantasy Series and I always found it to be more entralling than the FFs.

I have also heard nothing but great things about Radiant Silvergun. Never got the chance to try it out myself since I didn't have "connections" in Japan like many of those people on a BBS I frequented.

Re:Never heard of any of these games

[Anonymous Coward]

Never heard of the Phantasy Star Series? PS1 was the first 4MB game ever! PS2 was the first 6MB game ever! Still the best RPG series. PS1 was for the Master System, PS2-4 was for the Genesis. Then there was an online version similar to Final fantasy 11 that was released a few years back from the Dreamcast.

Althought the first 8MB games went to Strider.

Either Sega put a lot into their games, or they were bad coders!

Re:Bubble Bath Babes, the only NES game with nudit

[Jace of Fuse!]

Samus Aran is a chick.

There were no nipples.

JUSTIN BAILEY
------ ------

Is the code you are refering to. Caps are required, as are the dashes.

Alternatively, this code can be used.

y19ZVz YMRU83
WB--00 0000Zg

It starts one off in BRINSTAR with Ice Beam and leaves the Energy Tank three sections to the right and hidden in the ceiling just before the large wall that can only be passed using Maru Mari. Getting this tank will refill Samus's energy allowing the player go to straight up in Brinstar to Tourin and defeat Mother Brain. (The Zeebetites are already destroyed).

Re:Extension

[Mupp252]

There was this special promotion. I believe it was called "The Star Fox Weekend" where Nintendo set up booths all over the US to see if gamers could beat Star Fox in 15 minutes. After this contest was over the game carts, with the special timers, were available to Nintendo Power subscribers for purchase. I, sadly, was unable to get my hands on one.

Same concept as the number 1 cart in this article, just different platform and a little more recent.

Re:OMG!!!

[PyroMosh]

I've seen the ROM. Unfortunatly, the actual cart had a set of dip switches on it [atarihq.com] (here's a better pic [ebay.com], too) which were used for setting the time limit on the game.

If you're interested perhaps you might find it online somewhere. Though don't ask me where. [freshcreampies.com] ( :

If you do find it, be sure to read the documentation in the zip file explaining the dip switch hack. You'll need a good emulator too. NESticle, while good in it's day, won't cut it with this.