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Top Ten Most Collectible Video Games

Posted by michael on from the duck-hunt dept.

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..."

24 of 566 comments (clear)

  1. Original Castle Wolfenstein by Kymermosst · · Score: 4, Redundant

    The original 2-D Castle Wolfenstein, and others from the 8-bit famed Apple/Commodore/Atari machines.

    The Zork series on 5 1/4 disks.

    Original Ultima series games.

    Those are the true collectables.

    (first post?)

    --
    "Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
  2. Sierra games! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Police Quest I, Kings Quest I, Space Quest I, and Leisure Suit Larry!

    Original EGA versions, not that mouse-controlled VGA shit! I'm talking about typing commands at the ] prompt.

    1. Re:Sierra games! by nogoodmonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      i'll never forget how long it took me to figure out the command at the end of heros quest:

      ] use candelabra

      i was only 9, i had no idea what a "candelabra" was. ;-) but i agree that these games shouldnt be overlooked. <flamebait>they were much more entertaining than the flashy fps-type games of the current generation. i guess the industry is just trying to cater to the short attention span of the current gamers.</flamebait>

    2. Re:Sierra games! by NotAnotherReboot · · Score: 4, Funny

      I would have read your flame, but I got tired of reading.

  3. The games that shipped with Windows 1.0 by JJAnon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh wait, they haven't changed since then, so I guess they don't qualify as rare. Unless you are talking about the number of people who play them. :)

  4. Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy... by docbrown42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...on cassette tape, for a TI 994a!

    --
    Ed Wedig
    Graphic design services
    docbrown.net
  5. Great read by Mupp252 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can see collecting vintage video games becoming a hobby much the same as people who collect vinyl and record players.

    Sure, you can always get the emulated version of the game or the mp3 version of the album.. but it's just not the same.

  6. WARNING: Noisy flash ad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  7. OMG!!! by Exmet+Paff+Daxx · · Score: 5, Interesting
    A gold NWC cartridge recently sold for $6,500! Will their value increase in the future? It seems a safe bet.
    Holy Crap!!! My brother won this in 1990 and has one of these, I just called him! He's freaking out, he always thought it was garbage (though he apparently still plays it). Does anyone have any suggestions on how to sell this thing?
    --
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    1. Re:OMG!!! by Dr+Caleb · · Score: 5, Funny
      Does anyone have any suggestions on how to sell this thing?

      Send it over to me. I'll take care of it for you. (does evil pinky finger thing).

      --
      "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
    2. Re:OMG!!! by Mike+Schiraldi · · Score: 5, Funny

      If only there were some sort of Internet auction site... :)

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    3. Re:OMG!!! by jlower · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

  8. Chuckwagon is not all that rare by freeweed · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is sort of an urban legend type thing amongst game collectors, but the cart itself isn't all that rare. Thankfully, the article even points this out:

    It is neither the rarest nor the most enjoyable Atari 2600 game


    The article isn't so much about the 10 rarest games, as it is the 10 most collectible/sought after games. And considering "Prototypes" is #2, it's not even much of a top 10 list at that :)

    Oh, and for anyone interested in that Gold NES cart - yes, it's been dumped. I know I won't be shelling out $6k+ anytime soon to play the real thing.
    --
    Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
    1. Re:Chuckwagon is not all that rare by richlb · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Chase The Chuckwagon is not only synonymous with hunting for rare games, it's synonymous with the Great Video Game Crash of the early 80's.

      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. Owning it is like owning a piece of Enron stock. Not exactly "rare", but it has a story all its own.

    2. Re:Chuckwagon is not all that rare by Schnapple · · Score: 5, Informative
      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.

      --

      Schnapple

  9. darn it... by greechneb · · Score: 5, Funny

    1. 1990 Nintendo World Championship Cartridge (Nintendo Entertainment System)

    I just sold my copy last week for $.25 at a yard sale... I thought it was funny the guy took off laughing after I took his money. ;)

  10. A wise investment? by Bigboote66 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    A gold NWC cartridge recently sold for $6,500! Will their value increase in the future? It seems a safe bet.
    I doubt it. For technology items like this, the value of the collectable is function of the earning potential of buyer and the nostalgia value of the item. For example, classic cars slowly go up in value as the demographic that remembers them from their teenage years reaches the age of massive disposable income, then drop in value as the same group slowly dies off.

    With geek items like this, the half-life is even shorter. Magic The Gathering cards are already past their prime in terms of collectable value; once the people who played the NES in their youth are past the age of buying this stuff, watch the prices plummet.

    -BbT
  11. Note that 'Collectable' don't exactly mean 'Good'. by Bonker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'Chase the Chuckwagon?' WTF I would have thrown that game away with other favorites like 'Avoid the Noid' and '7-up Spot'. Seriously...

    Top Ten Games that Don't Suck and I'd still willingly pay money for:

    Doom - PC - FPS Grandaddy.
    Battlezone - 2600 or any other platform since.
    Super Mario Bros. 3 - NES, SNES - Miyamoto's best work, IMHO.
    Metroid - NES. I once saw a prototype/display cartridge at Sears Roebuck in which Samus had a heart meter instead of a power meter.
    Burgertime - Colecovision? Arcade classic, at any rate. I can still play Burgertime for hours at a time on Mame.
    Galaga - Ditto.
    Legend of Zelda - NES - Excellent game design by Miyamoto before there really was such a thing.
    ChronoTrigger - SNes - All kinds of RPG Goodness from Square.
    Sonic the Hedgehog - Genesis. The first 'Twitch' game I ever played. Sonic rocked my world.
    Excitebike - NES - One of the first games you could truly edit. My friends and I would spend hours making nasty, yet well designed tracks to race through. We went so far as to write the letter/number track parts down because the save feature never worked quite right. I always assumed it was for the floppy-endabled Famicom.

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  12. Top 10 MOST collectible? by medscaper · · Score: 5, Funny

    I would want to collect these :
    - Unreal Tournament 2044
    - Doom CXVII
    - Ultima Online '72
    - Grand Theft Aircar 16
    - Age of Empires 13 - the 20th Century
    - Quake IIIIIIIIII
    - LOTR 12 - The return of the grandson of the guy who heard about the king (Live 5-d action)
    - Wolfenstein 16-d (Now with time-travel gameplay)
    - Medal of Honor 9 : Assault the Allies

    Oh...and Starcraft 2, for crying out loud.

    --
    Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
  13. Re:Huh? by joshsisk · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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

  14. Re:Huh? by RobL3 · · Score: 5, Informative

    "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.

  15. Sarien is your friend.... by dmaxwell · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://sarien.sourceforge.net/

    This is not an emulator. Those old Sierra games were developed with a system called AGI. Pretty much the same data files were used on all supported systems with an AGI interpreter tweaked to run the data files. Sarien is a GENERAL AGI interpreter and works quite well. As a matter of fact, I finished Leisure Suit Larry on my Debian box last week. I also tried out but haven't seriously played Kings Quest I and Space Quest with it as well. If you still have some old IBM PC versions of these games laying around (or aren't above some abandonware digging...) then Sarien will take care of you.

    One pisser is that it only has one save game slot but there is a workaround. The saved games can be copied and renamed elsewhere allowing arbitrarily many games to be saved albeit in a PITA fashion.

    Oh yeah, If you try this be sure to get the ID database file. It is a separate download for some reason and Sarien won't correctly run most games without it.

    Cheers!

  16. Re:Huh? by Kymermosst · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

    --
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  17. Re:Bubble Bath Babes, the only NES game with nudit by Jace+of+Fuse! · · Score: 5, Informative

    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).

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