I was recently reading reading a post about the world’s rarest video games in relation to an individual who collected every, single Sega Genesis cartridge. It drew up an old memory of participating in one of the competitions in which one of these rare cartridges was used.

In the summer of 1995, I believe, Blockbuster sponsored the second and last of its World Video Game Championship competitions. Somewhat appropriate for my age, I was video game obsessed so I was excited at the opportunity to try my luck at this. Besides two years of free rentals (two per month) were on the line.

The contest was set-up to give each competitor the opportunity to play the special cartridges 3 times over a four or six week period, if I remember correctly. An official from the Blockbuster store observed you while playing and acted as scorekeeper for the contest. Players had to choose between playing Donkey Kong Country on the SNES or two pack of Acclaim games, Judge Dredd and NBA Jam TE, on the Sega Genesis. Being a devoted member of the House of Sega, I picked the Genesis side of the competition.

I remember not doing extremely well in my first two trials. NBA Jam TE I think I did very well in since the original game was one of the few non-baseball sports titles I actually enjoyed. The competition tabulated score based on how many points a player could score in one quarter (2:00) of play. The trick was 3 points also tabulated an additional 9,000 points for each one hit. So when I played, I picked a 3 point heavy team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and managed to score consistently high the both times I played.

Judge Dredd, as all things Stallone turn out to be, was a different matter altogether. The game wasn’t out in retail or rental yet. It was set to be tied to the Stallone summer film coming out later in the summer. As such, it was difficult to practice or know how to play the game and the 10 minute time limit didn’t give much opportunity to learn. I managed with what I could and did a pretty mediocre job with the game. I followed the tips provided in the little Blockbuster pamphlets to maximize scoring opportunities but still ended up middling in 5th place.

One day, I got a lucky break. While browsing the aisles for a game to rent, I happened upon another competitor playing through the Judge Dredd portion of the competition. I watched intently as he played through his round. Nothing seemed spectacular or out of the ordinary from the way I played. As the timer ticked away, the player found a hidden room and found a trinket adding a million points to his score. This explained why everyone else seemed to so handily topping my score.  Of course, I didn’t really have much of a clue as to where the trinket actually was.

Eventually I got to take my last stab in the contest.  I managed to pull the highest score in NBA Jam TE yet but I wasn’t on the road to victory yet.  Judge Dredd booted up and I started my play through trying to find the trinket.   Time ticked away as I fruitlessly scoured the two dimensional representation of Mega City One.  I did find the trinket by falling into a room with the worst enemies in the game.  I grabbed the trinket and scrambled to rack up whatever remaining points I could accrue.

With time up, my scores were tabulated and I found I now commanded a significant lead with a week left in the contest.  I waited and checked in on the scores every couple of days to see where things stood.  No one else managed to top my score and I was the winner at the store.  I was handed over the card with my winnings which rented many a crappy game over the next year, I mean it was 1995 and unfortunately the 16-bit era was in its twilight.  I reckon Blockbuster didn’t see much value in the competition and the second contest ended up being the last one.

Anyone else every compete in the competition or tracked down some of these rare cartridges?  Leave a comment.