As a child of the 80s, the desire to collect was instinctual; almost intrinsic. There were comic books, Star Wars figures, trading cards of all description but most notably hockey cards. The beautiful thing about collecting in those days is that the collections themselves were defined. What I mean is that each series had a beginning and an end. It made completing a collection attainable. They further made it easier by including a card with a checklist either as separate stand alone card or on the back side of a card(s) in the collection.
With game collecting there is no checklist on the back of a cartridge. We rely on the collectors we follow and those in the know to compile what they believe to be the most complete and accurate list of known game titles, variations etc. The danger in that is it becomes difficult to know who's list should be followed, which list is most complete. I have an app on my idevice that has been invaluable out in the field when I'm buying games both as a quick reference for approximate value of a game and as a checklist for which games I have and do not have, but it does not include some games.
After countless hours scouring forums, blogs, and youtube channels, (I found Pat & Ian's podcast on the subject particularly helpful), I have come to the conclusion that a collection guide (for use by hobbyists such as myself) should include only those games that could realistically be obtained. The most complete guide I would choose to mold my checklist from is from Geekbox's NES Collection guide. In the guide they list 687 licensed NES games. After looking at the list, I would make certain deletions at least where my personal list is concerned. First off I would remove games from the list such as Flintstones: Suprise at Dinosaur peak and Stadium Events. The first because it was a Blockbuster exclusive rental game not for sale in the commercial market and the second one because it was recalled from store shelves and later reintroduced to the mainstream market as World Class Trackmeet. I would strike from the list both of the Nintendo World Championships cartridges because there is only a little over 100 of them in existence (combined). I would remove games that there was no change to the rom itself to improve gameplay or change anything about the game. These would include the gray variation carts of Legend of Zelda, The Adventure of Link, and the label variations of the games: Metroid, Blades of Steel, Wayne Gretzky Hockey and Gunsmoke.
With the unlicensed games I would remove 7 titles from Geekbox's list including: Cheetahman II as it was never official released, 6-in-1 by Myriad as it is identical to the Caltron release except for the label as well as any of the Aladdin Deck enhancer titles that they also had a separate version of that didn't require the enhancer (i.e. Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, Micro Machines, Quattro Adventure, Quattro Sports and Linus Spacehead). These deletions give us a total of 90 unlicensed titles that are unique (though some may still be near impossible to find).
Now that being said, if any of these games were to fall into my lap I would most certainly keep them with my other games and treasure them every bit as much as those I would include in my collection totals (some even moreso). What this little spin puts on a collection is a seemingly more realistic approach to collecting these games which helps to give novice collectors such as myself a sense that a complete collection could be possible.
So in terms of combined game titles I currently site at 451 (this does include both Adventure of Link carts). I have 418/677* Licensed games or 62% of the collection. 25/30 Blackbox games (for those unfamiliar these were the original launch titles for play on the NES system. They all featured pixelated (sprite art) and, as you'd expect, came in black boxes. Some also include three titles that were released about the same time entitled the Graybox releases: Metroid, Kid Icarus, & Rad Racer.
I currently have 32/90* unlicensed games. I do get some gratification from the fact that one one of the other appendices on Geekbox's site is a list of 100 NES essentials (game titles that are must-haves either because of collectibility or playability) and of these I have 88%.
In future installments of this series I will delve deeper into the titles in my collection and discuss where I am at with some of the mini-collections in the nes library.
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