- Hey, y'all Scott here and I've just been promoted at my job to the title of state home son, suffice to say I've had a
lot of extra time on my hands and I've been discovering the legends of lost video games. Someone please hire me. Games are a medium in which
preservation can be tricky, thus, some games can't be
played in their original state. These are games that
have basically been lost, not games that were canceled, but games that existed and were playable, but are inaccessible nowadays. These are the games that time forgot. NBA Elite 11, a crowning
achievement in the canceled, but not canceled industry. EA initially developed Elite 11 as a reboot of the NBA Live series. 2010 was a crazy pro elite anti-live time. After a lame demo was put out for the game showcasing various problems and glitches, EA realized the product just wasn't up to snuff and thus canceled
the release of the game. Or did they? Copies of the game were
shipped to retailers but EA requested them to be sent back. Most obliged, but some copies
were sold to consumers. Due to never officially
releasing, but technically officially releasing, NBA Elite 11 is incredibly hard to play. If you want to grab the game, well, the demo that initially released was completely ripped from online stores, making this one of the hardest EA sports games to experience. Thank God you made the cut. Hey, remember Download
Play on the Nintendo DS? It was a way for you to
temporarily download content from another DS, without
an internet connection. Mainly for things like
playing a multiplayer game without your own copy of the game. It's pretty slick. Download play was also used
to issue demos to players. The main way I remember
this was through the Wii. You could boot up the Nintendo channel and download demos for
DS games to your DS, but you could also get exclusive demos by using Download Play in
specific areas like retail stores. However, we have an
exclusive game that was only available via DS Download Play. Visiting the PokePark, a
Pokemon theme park in Japan, you can download an exclusive
DS game to your system. PokePark, Asari Takai DS. It's a Pokemon fishing game, that's it. The way DS Download Play works is that after your system is shut
down or after 12 hours, the game is inaccessible. And the fact that this
game was only available in a theme park that's totally dead now, Pokemon's triumphant leap
into the fishing genre just refuses to be played nowadays. Here's a plethora of
games that were delivered via online services in the early nineties. Back when the internet was delivered via railroads or whatever. Yes, various game systems in this era kind of sorted supported
online but in different ways compared to how online
support is handled nowadays. The Satellaview and Sega
Channel were online services for the Super Famicom and
Sega Genesis respectively. The Satellaview was more of
a satellite broadcast modem offering games to be
played at specific times. Almost like the games
were a radio broadcast you had to tune into. In fact, the way the
games were delivered was basically like a radio broadcast. The games offered on the surface varied from ad-ons to remakes, to remixes of previous games, to just full on new games. But this method of games
delivery came with a caveat, most, if not all, of these
games would not officially be re-released in any physical way, and thus, fans had to step up to ensure these games could be played for generations to come, by
backing up the files online. The only way to get
these games legitimately nowadays is to grab a Satellaview with the cartridge and memory pack, hopefully with previously
broadcasted game data on it. A good majority of the
Satellaview broadcasted games can be played now via emulators and unofficial reproduction cartridges exist of various games, but many are not in their original state. For example, an expansion to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was released, entitled
Ancient Stone Tablets and featured a narrator
speaking to the player alongside orchestrated
music being streamed. While Ancient Stone Tablets can be played on an emulator nowadays, it's never been officially
re-released by Nintendo and the narrator and orchestrated
music is completely lost. Another one is Kirby's Toy Box, a collection of games
broadcasted via this service. They were many games, basically an expansion of Kirby Superstar. Most of the mini games have been found, backed up, and can be played
online right now, except for one the game entitled
Ball Rally is still lost and can't be played unless
you just so happen to have a Satellaview with the game on it, which is something that has yet to surface. Just a few years ago a good chunk of the Kirby's Toy Box games
that were believed to be lost did end up surfacing. So don't completely count
this one out just yet. But get ready for the
most heart wrenching lost game broadcast of them all. Garfield Caught in the Act lost levels. The Sega Channel for
Sega Genesis was kind of Sega's version of the
Satellaview, and similar to it, Sega offered some exclusive
games on the service like Mega Man: the Wily
Wars and Alien Soldier. Garfield Caught in the
Act was offered to play but also saw release as
a physical cartridge. However, a handful of
levels didn't make the cut in the final release, and were finished for the second channel
version of the game. Many have nicknamed this as Garfield the Lost Levels as they
are completely lost. However, these levels are available on the game gear and PC
versions of the game. It's not confirmed,
but it's safe to assume that while these versions may be similar, they probably aren't one-to-one,
the same level of designs as the levels on the Sega Channel version, which are gone and will
most likely never resurface. No! The dependency many games
have on online stores scares the piss outta me. So many games are digital
only and can be taken off of the stores at any
moment, making it almost impossible to play them. A good amount of the time, these games are taken off
for licensing reasons. Scott Pilgrim Versus the World the game, is a huge one that was
taken off Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation network. Being a retro style
beat-em-up based on the movie, based on the graphic novels, this one has gained quite a following. So it's sad to see you can't
play it anymore if you want to. Turtles in Time: Re-Shelled
was a re-imagining of the arcade and SNES classic Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles 4: Turtles in Time, and yikes, I don't think a
ton of people dug this one. So who cares that it's gone? The Simpsons arcade game was
removed from XBLA and PSN and that was already a game
people were having a hard time getting a hold of to play. It was a bit of a miracle to see the game rereleased
on these platforms at all. So at least it did happen even
though it was short-lived. Nintendo specifically did this
with the enhanced rerelease of The Legend of Zelda
Four Swords on DSI wear to commemorate the 25th
anniversary of the Zelda series. It was always positioned
as a free, limited release and it's been unavailable
for years at this point. One of the most infamous
de-listings in recent memory, PT, a free playable teaser for the canceled horror game Silent Hills. After the game's director Hideo Kajima and publisher Konami had a falling out, not only was Silent Hills canceled, but PT was just absolutely eviscerated off the PlayStation store. The only way you can play it today is if you still have it downloaded
on your PlayStation 4. And even then if you delete it, you can't even redownload it. This one's a bit of an odd bugger. You know, the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games games right? Everybody's favorites. Well, the winter variant on the Wii and DS received a mobile phone version called Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games only featuring Sonic characters. It's been taken down and we don't have a way to play it anymore. How unfortunate, I always
wanted to play curling 3 as Vector the Crocodile on my phone. Holy shit, I need to
work on my life goals. Mario Roulette is an
incredibly rare and obscure Japanese arcade game released by Konami. It's basically what it sounds like, a Mario roulette
featuring similar graphics to those found in the bonus
stages from Super Mario World, but the only way you can play it today, is if you find one and spoilers, Jesus Christ, that's
never going to happen! This is such an obscure, rare release that not only is it
nearly impossible to find, but even more difficult to back up online because you know, it's never happened. The online multiplayer
component of many games have been shut down, looking at the games using the Nintendo wifi
connection on the Wii and DS multi-player is doneso
on a lot of those titles. But massive multiplayer online
games are completely toast. When those things are shut
down, it's completely game over. Many games are kept alive via fan servers, but more times than not
MMOs that died, die forever. It isn't always apparent just
how fragile media can be. The film foundation
estimated that over 90% of films before 1929
have been lost forever. Which is way past unfortunate. That's history right there that never got justifiably preserved. Of course, with film
books, music and the sword these forms of media can be displayed and preserved in a multitude of ways now. Video games are a different story. Games are dependent on the hardware in which they were designed for. Movies, music and books
don't have that problem. They're all generally in formats that can be displayed on any computer or any DVD or CD, or just pieces of paper. Games are trickier. The fact that they're designed for specific hardware in mind, makes it more difficult to preserve. Many point to emulation, which of course emulates a
specific video game console and different hardware, and yes, that's an excellent way to
preserve games especially, in my opinion, preferably
when it's officially endorsed by the companies who
originally made the game. Recent releases like the
Mega Man Legacy collections are emulations of some classics, which many purists may scoff at, but in my opinion, if they play and look as they should, I
commend rereleases like this as it ensures that these games
are readily available to play and won't be lost to history. But of course, not
everything can be preserved, and we just have to live with that. I would love to get my hands on a lot of these games someday, but
I'm not getting my hopes up. Honestly, the fact that
some of these games are lost to history makes them more
interesting in some cases, and potentially gives them more notoriety than if they were readily available. But it still would be nice to have hard copies of all these games. Of course, when talking
about games that are lost and can't be played
anymore, everybody has to mention Club Penguin, an
online game where you just bro out with other people,
all displayed as penguins. You see, I never played Club Penguin. I was always more of a Nicktropolis guy, which the same fate. Well with these online chatroom
kids games gone forever, I guess I'm going to have
to relive what it's like to be a kid in one of these
things, by just going into a chatroom and
posing as a 12 year old. Got to ask this person how old they are these days first off and with the age old age question being thrown out there I think I'm going to leave it at young. 18! Get outta here. Think young, go younger. Don't worry guys. We're in an online chat room. These people are wholesome
with a capital H. Scratch that. (upbeat digital music)
Inb4 the circlejerk commence. Seriously, even though I do like the guy and his content, this place sure loves to act like he's some unknown underground YouTuber with only a couple of subscribers.
Perhaps I am just too old. I can't get behind Scott the Woz's weird style of humour. Did 24 year olds back in 2007 feel the same way about the Angry Video Game Nerd?
Def thought this was idubbbz
Good stuff!
What is a woz?