You may have already read about this Super Mario Kart prototype before, but were you aware that there are far more changes besides a couple of different music tracks? Johan, the current owner, has kindly given me a comprehensive list of differences that will shed some more light on this intriguing beta build.
Site reader R.W. McWilliam has submitted several fascinating pieces of ephemera regarding the 1990 Nintendo World Championships. The 12 megabyte lot includes Mario-signed participation certificates, backstage working crew passes, event fact sheets, Nintendo Game Counselor tip sheets, and original press releases from the event’s PR firm Rogers & Cowan. The great wealth of information in these scans sheds a ton more light on the famous competition, from its early planning stages to the final execution. As a bonus, the unreleased Nintendo knitting machine accessory even gets a special mention in one of the documents! You can view the images at the NWC spotlight page.
“Hot Rodding Teenagers” Preliminary Drawing (9 3/4″ X 16 1/2″)
I just received word that the immensely talented illustrator Greg Martin unexpectedly passed away on May 21, 2013 at the age of 57.
A 1980 graduate of the prestigious Art Center of Design, Greg began his professional career as a production designer and layout artist for Hanna-Barbara where he stayed on for five years before joining the Walt Disney Feature Studio as a background stylist. After a year at Disney, he left to enter the TV animation department at Marvel Productions as a key concept artist.
Greg will probably be best remembered, however, as the freelance artist responsible for the famous American Sonic the Hedgehog game box illustrations done at the peak of the blue blur ball’s popularity (Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic CD are just a few of his creations). By his own estimation, he made around a thousand covers and other promotional material in total for SEGA and a slew of other video game companies including Capcom, Disney Interactive, Fox Interactive, Hudson Soft, Namco, and Natsume, as well as video tape cassette artwork for major animation studios like Hanna-Barbara and Warner Brothers. To put it another way, if you grew up or gamed in the ’80s or ’90s, you already know his work well.
Most dear to my heart, Greg composed the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles VHS jackets before the cartoon series ever premiered on TV (he would paint them big, with each measuring around two and a half feet tall!). Working from only crude model sheets and storyboards, he conceived, designed, and executed everything. Heck, he even did the mutants’ early fast food tie-ins!
His involvement with the Turtles franchise was how I happened to meet Greg last April, and I was soon blown away when he started listing all of the other properties he had worked on. I was fortunate enough to have obtained an original piece from him at that time when he realized how big of a fan I am (see the above photo), and I was all prepared to set up an interview to finally give him some much deserved recognition when my e-mails started bouncing. The next thing I heard he was gone. It’s a great tragedy that most people are only finding out about him now because of his death. This is a man whose paintings have been admired by untold millions.
His art lives on, though, a sampling of which can be viewed at his Cartoon Originals online gallery.
Source: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/pe/obituary.aspx?n=Gregory-Martin&pid=165268935
I know I promised mutant turtle coverage in the last update, but I decided to postpone all that crazy ooze I had planned to drop on you to instead focus on a couple of more pressing prototypes–beginning with Dr. Mario for the Game Boy.
While healthcare’s on everyone’s minds these days, I’ve only been thinking of one doctor lately, and his name is Mario. That quack doc has drugged me all over again with a newly found prototype of his classic 1990 handheld puzzler.
Will the results be any different this time around? Or will Mario strap on the rubber gloves and proceed with another involuntary colonoscopy? To the prototype page, post haste!
Today I have something to momentarily distract all you flapping mad Batman buffs from The Great Batfleck Apocalypse: a newly dumped prototype of Batman: Return of the Joker for the Famicom! Sunsoft originally released this game in 1991, back when Gotham City was a far safer place with Michael Keaton behind the wheel of the Batmobile.
In other superhero news, if you love the Ninja Turtles, you won’t want to miss the next couple of updates. Even if you’re not a fan, you’ll at least get a glimpse of how incredibly geeky and insane I am for the heroes in a half shell, and that should be worth at least a few judgmental laughs.
Former Nintendo fansite webmaster Sean MacKenzie has generously shared with the world a prototype of the NES classic Tecmo Super Bowl. Download the binary and read up on some of its differences in the site’s newest article.
NBA Jam XXX, an in-house version of the Super Nintendo classic that features raunchy voice-over calls, made waves online after I unearthed the game on a development prototype board last summer. The subsequent article that I wrote and corresponding YouTube video that I recorded has since resulted in over 100,000 people hearing Tim Kitzrow, NBA Jam‘s iconic announcer, shouting outrageous lines like “He’s on fucking fire,” “Grabs his johnson,” and “Get that shit out of here.”
The public’s excitement over NBA Jam XXX soon turned into skepticism when Kitzrow called the recordings fake and the game a “hack job” created by an impersonator.
“I’m still friends with a lot of those folks from Acclaim and Iguana and no one knows who is pulling your chain,” he told Kotaku. “A good imitation to be sure, but trust me Jam was too big to have ever messed around like that.”
After his dismissive remarks, many started to brush off the game as a hoax, an attention-seeking stunt.
By accepting NBA Jam XXX from a private anonymous industry source, I had effectively adopted and taken ownership of its legacy. The game’s future rested in my hands. As its new caretaker, I felt that I had an obligation to defend NBA Jam XXX‘s integrity as a real piece of arcade and video game history that deserves to be respected and remembered.
For the sake of the game’s long-term preservation, I set out on a mission to untangle the wild mystery behind NBA Jam XXX.
You’ve probably heard of the Super Mario Bros. 2 prototype that was found in 2005 and leaked online, but do you know about the internal Nintendo of America samples that have been circulating among collectors since the late ’90s?
If not, you might want to check out this new article. Although I came up short in definitively solving the mystery behind these carts (i.e. dumping one), I still was able to uncover some new information by tracking down all three known owners and consulting Randy “Captain” Studdard, a former Nintendo Power editor and the creator of Captain Nintendo.
Be sure to look out for an interview with Captain in an upcoming issue of Game Informer.
The second most anticipated cancelled Game Boy Color game behind Resident Evil, Tyrannosaurus Tex (or T-Tex for short) would have been the one and only first-person shooter on Nintendo’s first color handheld had it been released in 2001.
Despite receiving praise from gaming critics (most notably IGN) for its smooth 20-30fps 3-D action and impressive deathmatch multiplayer, T-Tex quietly disappeared for good after publisher Eidos permanently shelved the title.
To pay my respects to Tex, I wrote a 9,000-word article all about cyborg dinosaurs, robotic aliens, and Texan stereotypes… Yeehaw!
Slitherine Software, the English developers behind the game, provided the site with all of the never-before-seen background artwork from the “final” version, and T-Tex producer Iain McNeill also helped solve some unanswered mysteries. The game’s entire charming script has been transcribed, as well. Oh, and there’s an early prototype for you to play, too!
Although Slitherine never had a chance to share T-Tex with the world, the studio went on to enjoy success in the strategy game genre. In an amazing coincidence, Legion, the company’s first completed game, has just been ported to the iPad this week!
Brent “Skrybe” Adams, a longtime champion of 8-bit Nintendo preservation, has just the prescription to get you through the end of this year’s germy flu season. He’s sending relief in the form of three Dr. Mario NES prototype binaries on the Lost Levels forums.
The first two ROM images provide a fascinating look at the famed medical mind game back when it was simply called Virus. In this abandoned version, the trademark “Fever” and “Chill” music tracks are missing and Mario is a veterinarian caring for a sneezing bulldog with the aid of his buxom nursing assistant Princess Toadstool.
“Helllllooo, nurse!”
Despite taking a leave of absence in the retail Dr. Mario, the NES instruction manual still refers to the Mushroom Kingdom’s Royal Highness as “Nurse Toadstool” who works alongside Mario in the virus research lab at the Mushroom Kingdom Hospital.
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The earliest build from 1989 was picked up at a San Antonio flea market and sold on eBay in 2010 for a fever-inducing $2,238.98.
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The EPROMs are attached to an NROM PCB.
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The second Virus, dated February 2, 1990, changed hands in 2008 after being quarantined in California. The game is strangely contained within a Tetris prototype cartridge.
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The menu has been tweaked, some colors have changed, and those pesky viruses are now pulsating.
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The third and final ROM image shows off a later beta closer to the PlayChoice-10 prototype that was discovered in Georgia last October (see Dream and Friends for more on that find). Also acquired in 2008, this Dr. Mario came out of the now closed offices of Nintendo Power. A carved-out Super Mario Bros. shell houses the board.
Prototype (left), US/JP Retail (right)
Check out Mario sporting groovy new pointy shoes!
All three cartridges were purchased from the private collection of Johan, the same Swedish collector who supplied Nintendo Player with the Donkey Kong Land III prototype. He at one point listed them on eBay for $120,000 OBO, later slashed to a more realistic $14,000 OBO. Last I heard, negotiations for these greatly desired first-party treasures were at around $8,000 (breaking down to a devilish $2,666 per game). That should give you some idea of the monstrous medical bills incurred.
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