Mad Ducketts: Stadium Events for NES

Worth more than you.

Here it is, the extremely rare NTSC version of Bandai's Stadium Events NES cartridge complete in box and worth a fortune sitting right there on eBay for a whopping $75,000 (or "best offer" lol, yeah how about a trade for my old Xbox? A whole game system for one measly cart, that's totally fair!). For those of you not in the know, Bandai's Stadium Events was a game released in 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System and one of only two officially licensed North American games to support the use of the Family Fun Fitness accessory, later purchased by Nintendo and reintroduced as the PowerPad. The rarity of this game stems from the fact that very few units were produced to begin with (something like 2,000) and those that made it out to the public (around 200 or so) were only sold during the 1987 holiday season and only at a few select retailers. Thus, Bandai's Stadium Events has earned the distinction of being the rarest licensed Nintendo cartridge available for purchase in North America with only about 20 complete copies verified to exist, two of which are actually still sealed. Don't have $75,000 to drop on the game right now? No worries, the NES Rarity Guide sets the max value of the game at $38,000 so you might try and lowball the seller. Good luck!

CLICK HERE TO BLOW YOUR ENTIRE PERSONAL FORTUNE ON A VIDEO GAME

Nintendo Still Hates Atari

Good clean fun, or a vicious theft of someone's intellectual property?

OK, so that post title is a bit misleading, but it's based on fact. Well, based on speculation, anyway. What happened is this: Likely inspired by the huge number of incredible Atari 2600 homebrew games hitting the retro-gamer's market, a developer, oh let's call him Bingo, decides to put his coding skills and creativity to the test and designs an excellent version of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. for the long-defunct Atari 2600 gaming console sneakily titled, Princess Rescue. Obviously a lot of time and care had gone into this project as Bingo managed to faithfully recreate many of the now-iconic elements of the classic platformer on a 1970s machine that had about a tenth of the power of the NES --- the familiar music, the red overalls, even the spritely little tune that we all know so well (and gets stuck in my head all the time) are all there in some form or another. Bingo even produced a classically-styled cartridge, manual and box to go along with this amazing little collection of bits and bytes.
Sales of the game were handled through AtariAge.com and seemed to be going splendidly until one day, a few months later *POOF* Princess Rescue was suddenly nowhere to be found in the AtariAge store. The retro-gaming forums were soon running wild with speculation and theories as to why this game was no longer available. Although it was never verified, the consensus seems to be that Nintendo's lawyers sent a cease and desist to AtariAge and Bingo, immediately and unintentionally boosting the game to Super-Duper-Rare status. So Super-Duper-Rare, in fact, that there's a copy on eBay that, as of this writing, is going for $250 US. It seems pretty ridiculous that a gaming company as huge as Nintendo is even aware of the existence of Princess Rescue let alone feels threatened enough by it to take legal action. Perhaps if Nintendo spent as much time actually releasing games for their new Wii-U system instead of picking on a niche community of retro-gaming enthusiasts, they might actually have a chance of becoming a relevant player in the console world again. For those of you who've never seen the game in action, check out the video and get ready to be impressed...and then sad because you will NEVER, EVER GET TO PLAY IT!

Mega-Mario-Contra-Vania

Mario. The very name conjures up memories of me sitting cross-legged for hours in front of an aging Zenith chugging cans of Coke while my thumbs went numb from relentless button-mashing and my brain formed tiny little dents from the incessant repetition of the Mario theme song. Good times, good times. Well for those of you who also share a kinship with the NES and its unique franchise of video game characters like Link, Mega Man and, of course, Mario, there's now a way to get all of your Nintendo jollies in one place. "Where" you ask? Why right here on the internet, of course! Head on over to Exploding Rabbit and try your hand at Super Mario Bros. Crossover 2.0, a complete rewrite of the original Super Mario Bros. game, but with the very special option to play not just as Mario, but as one of your favorite classic NES-game characters like Samus from Metroid, Simon from Castlevania or even that dude from Ninja Gaiden. Whichever one you decide to play also features the powers of that particular character, so for instance, if you play as the Contra guy, you can use your rifle to blow away Goombas and pick up coins. What more can I say? Go check it out!