(ambient music)

Today on Game Life, I'm presiding over

a retro game showdown between Chris Kohler

and legendary game collector, Mike Mika.

I am ready!

He is not ready.

Bring it on!

(upbeat music)

So, I asked the both of you before we came today

for each of you to bring three games that weren't available

in retail stores, and we're gonna put 'em up head to head.

Best of three wins, I'm gonna judge,

and I don't have a gavel, but I do have an actual,

literal hammer.

So, Peter, these games are very valuable,

and I want you to be careful when you're waving that thing.

I promise to bludgeon them gently if you lose.

So, let's begin.

(lasers shooting)

The honorable Peter S. Rubin is presiding.

I would like to begin with, let's begin with the visitor.

Mike Mika, what's your first specimen?

So, I brought something that's kinda close to me

because when I was younger, this was a game

that I always dreamed of having,

but it never really got released,

it's Sword Quest Water World for the Atari 2600.

Now, it's not the most pristine version of the game,

this is a game that had come out, and it was announced

in the Atari Age Fan Club magazine.

And I had played the first two games,

and then ultimately there would be a fourth game

to come out, but Atari put the kibosh on the whole program.

They got the first two games out,

Earth World, and Fire World, and those are very,

very common, right?

I mean, find those anywhere.

Yup, but this one, not so much.

No. An I remember seeing this

at a closeout store when I was younger,

and begging my parents for me to get it,

and it was like five dollars, and they were like, no, no,

and I'm like, In my mind, I knew like,

I'll never see this again.

And so, a good friend of mine actually,

I met him when I moved out here, had a few copies of this,

and he was kind enough to give this to me

when I first came out to California.

So, it's been in my collection quite a bit.

Now, if you get a shrink wrapped version,

you can see that for like, up to $400.

[Narrator] Oh, yeah.

Loose cartridge, 100, 150, 200.

It's actually been coming down a little bit.

Atari, loose, not to, you know,

disparage the Sword Quest Water World here,

Atari loose cartridges have been coming down

in price recently, but the boxes and the manuals

have been kind of staying up there.

So, it's good that you've got the complete version.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, well, let me answer that.

Yeah, what do you got?

A fine entry, with this.

So, you might say, Chris, Mario's Tennis

for the Nintendo Virtual Boy, the rudimentary 3D

aborted game system that Nintendo put out

for less than a year before killing,

you might say Mario's Tennis came packaged in

with the Virtual Boy, everyone has this,

and you're absolutely right.

The difference is this has the box,

because the game that was packaged in with the Virtual Boy

was just the game and the manual, no cardboard box.

This box was only made for Blockbuster Video,

and if you rented this game from Blockbuster,

they had this box sitting on the shelf.

And then when Blockbuster and Nintendo got rid of all

of their inventory of the Virtual Boy,

Blockbuster would actually get rid of these boxes as well,

and sell them to people.

How did you come across that?

This particular copy, I think I actually got in a,

you know, video game store.

I probably paid like, $25 for this,

but the box itself is worth about $150 right now.

Nintendo boxes alone, for even NES and Virtual Boy,

I know, the box itself is going for so much money now

for all these games.

Oh, totally, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so.

Boxes and manuals, man.

That's the first round.

And I like Sword Quest a lot,

but I like the rental exclusive even more.

So, I'm gonna give this round to Kohler.

Yes!

However, round two, I'm gonna give,

whoever lost the round get to begin the next round.

Okay, okay.

And try to draw first blood for that round.

So, let's see what you got on this next one.

(lasers shooting)

Obviously I'm an older gamer,

and Atari's a fetish of mine, and obviously,

with like, all the games that I've produced for Atari

and whatnot, this... What?

What is this? Oh, come on now.

So, this is a lab loaner cartridge from Atari,

a division in Atari, of a game called Donald Duck,

which is actually Donald Duck Speedboat.

Now, if you can't see the date on this,

that is April 12, 1983.

Yes.

From the prototype lab.

And so, these were what they used internally

when they were creating and testing games,

and playing them. That's right.

And they would hand these out externally to game magazines,

which there was only like, one or two at the time,

Atari club magazine, that sort of thing.

And then they would ask for them back, it would say,

please return to prototype lab.

Sure, of course.

There's the thing about this game is...

So, this is technically property of Atari?

Yeah.

This game particularly did not come out,

which follows the theme we're talking about,

it's Donald Duck's Speedboat,

it's a side scrolling action game.

It looked really nice, it was part of the whole Disney

licensing program that they had,

which had, of course, like, Fantasia,

Sorcerer's Apprentice game.

Right.

And that sort of thing.

Very difficult to find these right now,

and luckily, I was able to find this

at a flea market here in California because...

What?

Oh, come on now, this isn't fair.

[Mike] It's the home of Atari,

and like, this stuff floats around.

The person who was selling it to me

had no idea what this was, and I felt kinda guilty

because they were actually saying

they would give me a discount

because it didn't have the label.

Oh, man.

What was full price that they were asking here?

So, this was two dollars.

And they offered to give it to you for a dollar

'cause it didn't have the label?

That's right.

And I gave them the two dollars anyways

'cause I said I've been looking for it.

You were like, what an idiot!

Which was true.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I had purchased a total of 10 of these

from the same lot, and there was very interesting games,

this was one of the most interesting ones there.

And normally, something like this goes for upwards of 200,

sometimes even more, especially--

Well, this game was never released too.

[Mike] This one was not released.

And it does have, you're right,

it has cross collectibility 'cause it's also Disney.

[Mike] Snow White and other games like this

are very valuable for Disney collectors,

who will collect anything Disney.

Like, it could be a napkin or whatever,

and spend a lot of money.

So, this one is, I like it as far as its rareness,

I like it better than Water World,

I think it's a pretty good contender for our little battle.

That's pretty strong, Chris Kohler.

Okay. I'm gonna have to see

what you bring. This is gonna be tough

but here's how I'm gonna answer this.

If you like the right, you know what?

I'm playing to the judge here,

if you like the rental store exclusives.

I like the rental store exclusives.

Let me show you, this is the only John Madden video game

that is worth any money whatsoever.

You know, typically, your John Madden games,

the Madden football for the Sega Genesis,

they're worth basically nothing because they made

so many of them, nobody really wants to buy them

and play them, but except for this one.

So, if you see John Madden Championship Edition,

you're gonna notice down here it says

rental store exclusive.

So, what we're dealing with here is a version of John Madden

that you could only get at either like,

Blockbuster Video, or your local video rental store.

Really important about this, I wanna point out.

The cartridge itself, you can kinda find,

it's like 30 bucks or so, you know?

The box might be a little bit more expensive,

but this one has a beautiful instruction manual inside.

Also says rental store exclusive.

Also says rental store exclusive, and the thing is

when people rented video games, a lot of video game stores

just took the instruction manuals and threw 'em away

'cause they knew thy were gonna get destroyed,

they'd make copies of them, or they'd make like,

those sort of instruction sheets that they'd paste

onto the box.

I remember the little cardboard little sheets

that would tell you the brief instructions.

Yeah, or they would put a sticker

on the instruction manual and say, don't steal this,

or it would just get destroyed by the kids,

or thrown away, or whatever, so to find a rental store game

that still has the instruction manual in that good

of a condition is really big.

And so, this is something that, in this condition,

would be worth about $100 or so.

And I also found that at a flea market here in the bay area.

Okay, so, this is tight.

Both local finds, both steals.

I'm gonna say, given the combination of rarity,

age, and the fact that it's technically theft

because it's still property of Atari,

I'm gonna give this one to Mike

for the Donald Duck Speedboat.

Also, you know, play to the judge once is fine,

but you know, don't take advantage of my predilections here.

No more rental store exclusives!

[Chris] Okay, I promise.

All right, we're all tied up, we're all tied up.

You lost this round, so you begin.

I get to go first. The third, final,

decisive round.

(lasers shooting)

This is not a rental store exclusive, and quite frankly,

I think I'm doing pretty well with this last one.

So, this was something that was never available

in stores, it was never even available in this country.

That's right.

So, you might know Mike Tyson's Punch-Out

is one of the most popular, and quite frankly

for my money, one of the absolute best games

on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Before they released it in America,

they released it in Japan.

This happens a lot.

But this game was never sold to anyone.

This was only given out as a prize.

If you did really well on a golf game for the Famicom,

the Japanese version of the eight bit Nintendo system,

you could take your scores and send them in to Nintendo,

and the people who did the absolute best on this game,

you had a chance of winning a golden Punch-Out cartridge.

And now, you know, you can find these in like,

collectible stores in Japan.

100, 150 or so, dollars.

But this was never, ever, ever sold

to a single person, ever, it's beautiful.

How did you come upon this beauty?

I went to Japan and bought it.

Brute forced it.

Exactly, well, the thing is, it was actually,

it was a lot, it was cheap because it has

this cosmetic damage here, you see the rip in the label.

And that, in Japan, is like the kiss of death.

So, I actually paid about 50 bucks for this.

Which, you know, to have a copy that I don't mind

pulling out and like, playing if I really felt like it.

There is no Mike Tyson in here, by the way.

[Peter] Right, I was gonna say.

You get to the point where you would fight Mike Tyson,

and the game's over.

So, it is slightly different, too.

But yes, this is totally one of the centerpieces

of my collection because A, it's a game that I really love,

and it's a version of that game that is very hard

to get your hands on.

That's great.

All of that is tugging at this judge's heart strings,

and all will be taken under consideration.

This is an uphill road for you, my friend.

This is a challenge. Let's see what you got.

You know, I didn't know this one was coming out,

but I did bring something that I kinda kept off

that I think is gonna help here.

So, I have, right here, Half Life for Dreamcast.

What is this?

So, it was planned to be released on Dreamcast,

never came out, again, following the Steam.

In fact, like, the actual disc of the game

was never truly manufactured, but there are versions

of the game that are out there people can play.

And that's, this is not like, a photocopy?

This is the real Half Life produced...

(gasping) I didn't know about this

before today.

In fact, I will go even crazy,

and maybe even slide this...

[Chris] Oh, my God.

Don't do it, don't rip it. I will do it.

I will hurt you with this hammer

if you hurt that manual. There we go.

You can take a look through it, you sure can.

Oh. This is, this was planned

to be part of the release, and the disc would come

into this, and they would release it out there.

The story goes that there were probably about

500 of these made, many destroyed.

Someone managed to save a few of these, maybe even two,

and that person, who will go unnamed

because he's always said, do not ever say my name.

Okay.

He managed to give me one of them,

and it's probably one of the most prized possessions I have.

That's amazing.

And you can see, this was ready to go to store,

it was ready for like, it was ready to go to retail.

And it includes, the game included the expansion pack,

I think it was Blue Shift if I remember correctly.

And it was actually a pretty good game for Dreamcast,

it was just a shame it never came out.

And the fans really wanted this game to come out.

I'd say the only thing, the only knock

is there were some reviews for it that had come up

because they were so close to shipping it,

the only knock it really had was the load times, I think,

and that was about it, but they were normal.

[Peter] Have you played it?

Yes, I have.

Okay, okay, just, judge wants to know.

In terms of value, that is like,

that is the absolute like, highest value thing

sitting on this table, and the thing is

we would never know how much it's actually worth.

[Mike] You can't measure it, really.

Yeah, right, you would have to sell it.

You would have to put it up for auction to see.

And have there been any that have hit auction or--

Oh, no.

No, no, and certainly not recently.

Yeah, that's right, I have not seen any activity on it.

I've been looking for a long time to see

who else would have this.

[Chris] 'Cause you wanna know.

Yeah, I just wanna, kinda wanna get a gauge for like,

what is the perceived value for something like this?

You know, when you walked in today with an assistant

who had a briefcase chained to their wrist,

I didn't know what that was about.

Now I understand.

Okay, so, golden Punch-Out, no Mike Tyson,

went to Japan to get it like a lazy rube.

Half Life for Dreamcast, which, I'm sorry,

this is not even a contest, I'm calling this one for Mike.

Yes, awesome!

That was, it was touch and go for a second.

I was not aware of this.

I was not aware of this game, and when you pulled that out,

there was almost an accident.

You failed me, gold Punch-Out.

You failed me for the last time

For the last time.

(upbeat music)

(ambient music)

Thanks so much, Mike, for being here,

I'm gonna put this hammer down now.

This has been a pretty fantastic opportunity

for me to see some of these games.

I know you have a bunch, so you can subscribe

to Mike's channel on YouTube as well as ours,

which we urge you to do now.

This has been another Game Life video on the Wired channel.

[Mike] You know, I don't even know what my channel is.

(laughing)