NES Pickups - April 22, 2015

April has been a whirlwind month for NES Pickups and even though I would never be able to afford to keep up this pace it is nice to say that for the last 3 weeks anyway I've averaged just over a game a day! It's bears repeating, however, that this has been a perfect storm of a month in terms of contacts coming through, visiting my first ever Gaming Expo on the West Coast and having a few extra dollars in my pocket to buy a few lots from a seller I have bought from in the past.  The next big milestone in my collection is looming close:  500 carts.  I hope to reach that point within the next few months but we'll have to see how it goes.

This entire handful of games are standouts for me. First off, you have Dizzy which is one of the Gold unlicensed carts, created by Codemasters (the company responsible for the Game Genie) and published by Camerica.  Even though sales of the game were not what had been forecast (as it missed it's slated Christmas release in 1991) it still garnered a few industry awards.  This game came near the end of the NES's reign in the home console market.  To put it into perspective it was released just a year before the last official Licensed NES release of Wario's Woods.  Next game is the American Video version of Impossible Mission II.  There were two versions of this game released, one by the aforementioned American Video and one by another company, SEI.  Of the two, my collector APP lists the American Video version as the less common of the two. The third cartridge helped me to finish the Back to the Future series of games with the addition of Back to the Future 2&3. Next was Clash at Demon Head which, to be honest, I haven't ever played before.  First looks at the game remind me of many of the other popular platformers of the day: Kid Niki, Megaman, Metroid, etc.  I'll admit to being a little intrigued by the apparent cameo of Professor Plum in the game.  Didn't he kill Colonel Mustard in the Billiard Room with the candlestick? This game also appeals to my love of pop culture references as it is the namesake of the band in the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  Last, but certainly not least, is Mutant Virus.  This purchase was made solely on the fact that I don't tend to see this game in the wild and it really has an undeniably original cover label.  The previews I've seen of the game show cinematic cutscenes that are reminiscent of the Ninja Gaiden series; let's just hope the gameplay is more forgiving.  Feel free to comment on these games and let me know if they are diamonds in the rough or duds.

Nes Carts:  493

Licensed games: 455/687

Unlicensed games:  38/90