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1
Air Raid (1982)
Released
Men-A-Vision's Air Raid came in a baby-blue T-handle cartridge unlike anything else on the Atari 2600, its label showing flying saucers attacking a futuristic city. That odd shape is also the first test for fakes: an Air Raid cart in the standard shape is a reproduction. Copies kept turning up, yet the first one with cartridge, box and manual all together only came up for auction in 2012. Even the name rests on thin evidence, since the cartridge label itself does not say Air Raid. Few legends start with so little paperwork.
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Gamma-Attack (1983)
Released
Gamma-Attack was programmed by Robert Esken Jr. and released by Gammation in 1983. Guinness World Records calls it widely believed to be the rarest cartridge in the world, with a single copy known to exist, and its owner listed that copy on eBay in 2008. Here is the tension that makes it interesting: the game's code has circulated for years and reproductions are easy to find, including a signed run of 100 from its programmer, so almost everyone who has played Gamma-Attack has played a copy. The original remains a story told about one object.
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Red Sea Crossing (1983)
Released
A Moses-themed Atari 2600 game that Steve Schustack wrote in 1983 and sold by mail order through a single magazine advertisement. Its existence went unrecorded until a copy turned up at a Cincinnati rummage sale in 2007, and doubters had a fair case until a 1983 Christianity Today advertisement surfaced in 2011 and confirmed the game was real. A second copy appeared in a Philadelphia shop in 2012, and only two have been verified. Red Sea Crossing is the clearest example here of a rarity being proven rather than simply asserted.
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Swordquest: Waterworld (1983)
Released
The third game in Atari's Swordquest contest series, and the one whose contest never happened. Waterworld was first offered only through the Atari Club and reached stores later. Atari, losing money fast, then canceled the contest: the national final was never held and its prize, the Crown of Life, was never awarded. Each Swordquest game shipped with a comic book, so a complete Waterworld is the leftover kit for a treasure hunt that stopped halfway, which is a better story than most rare cartridges can tell.
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World Class Track Meet (1986)
6.0/10on IGDB
Released
Stadium Events, Bandai's North American NES release, 1987
Bandai released Stadium Events in North America in 1987 for its Family Fun Fitness mat. Nintendo then bought the North American rights to the mat, pulled the remaining stock from stores and relaunched it as the Power Pad, with the game renamed World Class Track Meet. Very few Stadium Events copies are said to have reached shelves. The game underneath is the same ordinary track meet; the label is what collectors chase, which is exactly why a label alone proves so little.
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Tetris (1989)
7.3/10on IGDB
Released
Tengen's Tetris for the NES, May 1989
Atari's Tengen label released its own NES Tetris in May 1989, then lost its legal fight with Nintendo and was forced to recall and destroy the remaining copies after about a month on sale. Unlike most entries here, this one survives in real numbers, since estimates of the copies that reached circulation run to the hundreds of thousands. It earns its place for the story and for the game: Tengen's version has several two-player modes, including a competitive marathon, that Nintendo's own NES Tetris did not offer.
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Nintendo World Championships 1990 (1990)
Released
The competition cartridge from Nintendo's 1990 touring championship, which gave players six minutes and 21 seconds to collect 50 coins in Super Mario Bros., finish a custom track in Rad Racer and then score as many points as possible in Tetris. Gray carts were used at the events, and Nintendo Power later gave away gold versions in a reader contest. Accounts of the numbers disagree, with 25 or 26 golds and gray figures that vary widely, and that uncertainty is part of the legend. Each gray cart carries a unique number, so with this one the provenance matters far more than the shell.
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Nintendo Campus Challenge 1991 (1990)
Released
Nintendo made this cartridge for a run of 58 campus tournaments across the US, with special versions of Super Mario Bros. 3, Pin-Bot and Dr. Mario played against the clock, and the carts were supposed to be destroyed afterward. One escaped: an employee assigned to destroy it reportedly kept it, then sold it at a garage sale in 2006 after leaving the company. It is described as the only known surviving copy, so its whole legend rests on one cartridge and the short chain of people who have owned it.
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Little Samson (1992)
7.0/10on IGDB
Released
A Taito platformer developed by Takeru, Little Samson lets you switch among four heroes with different abilities, and it sold poorly when it came out in 1992. That is the whole secret of its rarity: no recall, no contest, just a very good NES game that few people bought. It is the cartridge on this list most worth actually playing, and playing it no longer requires hunting the original, since the game has since been reissued for modern systems.
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Nintendo PowerFest '94 (1994)
Released
The Super Nintendo successor to the 1990 championship cart, used at Nintendo's 1994 town competitions: Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels first, then Super Mario Kart, then a home run derby in Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball. The carts were not given out to winners, and only two are known to exist. Both were working tools for a contest rather than products for a shelf, and the oversized shell shows it: it was built to link with other units and send every player's score to a separate monitor.
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Cheetahmen II
Cheetahmen II is the opposite kind of rarity: unfinished, never officially released and then suddenly plentiful, after about 1,500 copies were found in a Florida warehouse in 1996 or 1997, depending on the account. Every one is a reused Action 52 cartridge, some marked only by a small gold sticker reading "Cheetamen II," misspelling included. Only six of ten planned levels were made. Its legend is how a failed publisher's leftovers became a prize, and the sticker is the detail worth checking.
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Kizuna Encounter: Super Tag Battle (1996)
Released
Kizuna Encounter, European Neo Geo AES cartridge, 1996
SNK's tag-team fighter is easy enough to find in its Japanese home version; the European cartridge is another matter. Guinness World Records lists it as the rarest console fighting game, with five copies known, though other collector counts run to about ten, and notes that it is uncertain whether the game was ever actually released in PAL territories. That doubt is the story, and it puts unusual weight on provenance: with a cartridge this scarce and a common Japanese edition beside it, a copy offered as European deserves close scrutiny.
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