[KingMike]

Found this on NESWorld.

Looks like somebody is selling repro carts.

Interesting because this is an unreleased game.

[TheRedEye]

There were also repro carts on ebay months ago and, yet, no ROM.

[handofg0d]

I guess whoever runs retrozone (bunnyboy or something?) worked out a deal with one of the cart owners to make some cash before the ROM gets eventually released. I must admit, it's a pretty smart way to recoup some of the cash spent obtaining the cart before decreasing it's value with a dump (for those people who worry about such things). And $35 for a custom cart + box + instructions, actually seems pretty fair priced.

[Skrybe]

[GDRI]

[ArnoldRimmer83]

I'd like to know if the game is actually beatable or not. Weren't there a few protos of Airball surfacing around over the years that weren't completed? (Or near completion I should say?)

[I am Christina Aguilera]

I have nothing to add except damn, Tengen really took an interesting approach to the NES pallette, didn't they?

[linlhutz]

[rbudrick]

I dunno Christina, but it looks better than SO many NES games, let alone, Tengen, because Tengen games usually sucked in the graphics department. That title screen is surprising for sure.

The game looks like Solstice in that level one screenshot.

I bought one. Why not.

-Rob

[Sardius]

I would totally buy this if it didn't look like the kind of game that I would completely hate. I'd pretty much be spending $35 for the honor of having a box on my shelf that would make me mad every time I looked at it.

Still though, Airball!

[yemtrader]

I bought one too, I think $35 bucks is worth it to get a copy of an unreleased game that I can play on my console that was previously being kept private. Especially since it will probably soon be liberated to the masses by you fine gentlemen. If this effort is successful hopefully retrogames will be successful in freeing more unseen prototypes from private collections. Have you guys ever started a donation drive to free more privately held prototypes? or is that giving in to their greed...

As an aside, I thought Tengen cancelled this game because the board required for it was unique and costly back then? It probably is cheap to build now though? I guess you probably won't see any copies made with donor cars for this one, but I might be wrong?

Hi, I'm Nick by the way. Hope you don't kick me off the board for this rambling post.

[Ethane]

This is one game I really want to hear about, and maybe a full Lost Levels article. I actually enjoyed playing Airball at the arcade in my youth, and even mowed a ton of lawns after I saw Tengen's advertisments for it's release in a few gaming magazines. I saved up fifty bucks and scoured the adverts in EGM and the like for game stores that had it (I had the disfortune of growing up in a little town with a Wal Mart as the only gaming outlet.)

[TheRedEye]

Man, not even a Toys R Us? That's rough.

[rbudrick]

[GDRI]

Here's a video of the game in action.

[Ethane]

[Wonderbutt]

[I am Christina Aguilera]

[TheRedEye]

Airball is the same game as like half of the ZX Spectrum's catalog. My favorite is Batman, because there's something awesome about the dark knight having to stack up severed elephant feet and climb them like stairs.

[rbudrick]