List 'em: "Holy Grails" and "Hard to Finds": 1980's

[Tan]

Once again we have a List 'em thread for personal Holy Grails and hard to find games. This time it's the 1980's. The decade of Arcades, cheesy commercials and mullets. So feel free to post as many or as few as you wish! Here's mine in no particular order:

Tetris (PC, C64, Tandy, Apple) - I'm a huge Tetris junkie, no doubt about it. So when I saw an original 80's computer version of this CIB, you can imagine my surprise and joy at finding this. It had both the 5.25 and 3.5" disks and everything. It was also compatible with just about every major system available at the time, a trend only coming back to PC gaming after 20 years of Windows majority.

CANADIAN TIRE Complimentary Game Pack (VIC-20) - My favorite retail chain who at one time, sold games and hardware until just a few years ago. When the VIC came out up here, Canadian Tire gave these cassette compilations away with their VICs. Incredibly rare nowadays and valuable to a Canadian VIC fan, this wasn't a Grail at first, but it has grown to become one of my conversation pieces that even among VIC owners is something special.

Astro Warrior (SMS) - My favorite overhead shmup, you'd be surprised how hard a CIB of this game can be to find. Cheap sure, just uncommon it seems. When I have my SMS hooked up this practically lives in it. It took a good year and a half to find just the right copy for my collection. But hey, for a Grail, isn't it prudent to be picky about condition and completeness?

Legend of Zelda, The [Gold] (NES) - You think this game is easy to find CIB? Try finding a nice Canadian one. Little known fact is that Mattel was the distributor and publisher of Nintendo 1st party titles for a time here in Canada, same for the hardware as well.

Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES) In much the same matter and reasons as Zelda, this was hard to find in the wild. I was lucky to grab this for $10 CIB, and having the Canadian version meant a lot to me.

Night Stalker / Le Chasseur De Nuit (INTV) - This is the game that got me into collecting in the first place. I had mistakenly thought the game I played so much as a young child was the Atari 2600 version until I fired it up in the emulator. For those of you that haven't had the pleasure, the INTV one blows the 2600 version away. Buying a Intellivision and getting this game is what has lead me to where I am as far as gaming and collecting are concerned.

I suppose in some ways this makes it the most important game I own, not only because of the snowball effect it has had in getting me here to RFGen and having a small but proud collection, but for the nostalgia and memories of being so young and enjoying it on a TV that used to take 2-3 minutes to "warm up" and loving every minute of playing this system. Something that after a quarter of a century or so hasn't diminished in the least.

[OatBob]

Tetris (PC, C64, Tandy, Apple) - I'm a huge Tetris junkie, no doubt about it. So when I saw an original 80's computer version of this CIB, you can imagine my surprise and joy at finding this. It had both the 5.25 and 3.5" disks and everything. It was also compatible with just about every major system available at the time, a trend only coming back to PC gaming after 20 years of Windows majority.

Holy cats!  I actually have this floppy.  I really wish I could play it, but I need the manual with the passcode to play it.  It sounds lame but software piracy (and computer viruses) were present before most computers were connected to the internet.  People just copied things on floppies instead of hitting up the latest torrents.  Anyways I picked up a monster stack of 5.25 floppies from a garage sale for like $2 a couple years ago.  Most of it was copied stuff, but a few originals were there that are still worth playing like Arkanoid and Bubble Bobble.

Another note, for the end of the cold war era, the multinational publishing and outstanding success of Tetris was profound for the time.

[Tynstar]

Night Stalker is an awesome game. Too bad you suck at it Keith.

I remember played Lock N Chase, Circus Circus and Super Challenge Baseball with my grandma so to me those are my grails of the 80's.

[Tan]

Night Stalker is an awesome game. Too bad you suck at it Keith.

I remember played Lock N Chase, Circus Circus and Super Challenge Baseball with my grandma so to me those are my grails of the 80's.

Yeah 40k+ on a good day is the best I can do, I'll never touch DarthKurs score. I'm really not that good at high scores on the older games, but I enjoy them regardless.