[Franklint]

Gah! This is seriously the best thing ever. You have no idea how much I want this proto cartridge, especially considering that I could play it natively as it's PAL.

Also just reporting that the ROM works great under the latest version of sixtyforce: http://www.grabup.com/uploads/ee48c94b96791b04749b25ebaf1ebb94.png

Cheers,
Franklint

[Carnivol]

Okay, so I've always been a bit skeptical about this game's supposed unreleasedness (as far as the N64 version goes). I've always been sure I've seen this on shelves, and I've been tossing around the idea of "Maybe it was Rental Only?" or that it might've been only available in specific regions or through specific retailers or something in limited supplies (Like Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, or whichever it was that was near impossible to get ahold of in stores or something)

I brought some random N64 mag with me as toilet reading and couldn't help but notice something... I didn't really care, so I really do anything. A few days later, I brought another mag for toilet reading, this time I couldn't ignore it.

So here they are, a couple of reviews of 40 Wanks (N64) (Get it? Toilet reading, reviews of 40 winks, child-- okay... this is derailing itself into insanity!)

Anyway, the first (3 pages) is from Nintendo - Official Magazine (Guess it's a UK one). It's a November 1999 issue, but I lack the cover for it, but based on the ad in the back for the December issue, it's probably released sometime during the second week of November (or at least somewhere close to the 10th)


NOM - Page 1 | NOM - Page 2 | NOM - Page 3
(Beware of 56k unfriendly oversized scans!)

The second (4 pages) is from N64, this time, it's a December 1999 issue.


N64 - Page 1 | N64 - Page 2 | N64 - Page 3 | N64 - Page 4
(Beware of even more 56k unfriendly oversized scans!)


Now, both date the game for 26th of November release and pretty much give it the "Out now!" treatment. I couldn't find the follow up issues for these two in my collection, but seeing that they mention nitpicky little things such as the ShadowMan Rumble Pak Bug (game claims to be Rumble Pak compatible and even asks for the Rumble Pak in-game, but the Pak doesn't work. Some sort of last minute cock up, apparently), I'm fairly certain they'd go all "stop the press" on this game suddenly/supposedly getting cancelled for release. Especially since it's pretty much right after the review was written or a couple of weeks before the review even went on print in the N64 case.


Anyway, enjoy some kinda favorable "launch" reviews of this "supposedly" unreleased game (I still think it just went undumped 'cause of its limited available and lack of appeal to whoever may have had access to backup equipment back then)

PS: I crop and scan like shit (blame the old 1998 scanjet scanner that barely fits an A4 sheet)

[BFC]

Thanks for the scans. But do you really believe people haven't done enough research to judge if a game was cancelled or not? Even ign and other game pages mention it was cancelled. If a game exists someone will have it or at least some pictures are found as proof. No retail game is so rare no one even has a pic.

btw - the version found is english, spanish, italian and features an "X" serial which means there was a version with different languages in the making - most likely french/german. Let the hunt go on

[Carnivol]

Localization wise, I guess there were probably 2 language sets. English, Spanish and Italian and English, French and German (which languages are available in the PlayStation version?)

Everything that points towards it being unreleased is IGN's overall rather lacking coverage of the game in general (a total of 4 articles over a course of 3 years) It's worth noting that IGN probably wasn't very heavy on the European front back in 1998~2000 (as far as I can tell). Now, as far as other sites goes, some either link to IGN or come with ridiculous claims such as the PAL PlayStation version being cancelled too. And, well, that one most certainly came out and can be found every now and then on auction sites.

I guess what "may" tie some dots in favor of this game possibly having gone unreleased would be GT Interactive (its publisher) going somewhat belly up in December 1999, but then getting consumed by Infogrames (now Atari), something which was apparently (according to Wikipedia) announced on the 16th of November. Unreal Tournament was another GT Interactive title to've been released late November too. GT Interactive was also "shut down/rebranded" on the 16th of December, the same day IGN says they'd been in contact with GT and they said they were debating whether or not to release it (Maybe something's just wonky with their stuff or their journalism at the time being very wonky, but something tells me that IGN would've at least mentioned that little bit of trivia in their article. I mean... the company that was "debating" whether or not to publish it ceased to exist!)

Seeing as how wonky all these details are, the game might've been put on hold for US release or something (given the situation), but the European version (Eurocom being European and all and no words on what the status of the Euro version was + massive multi-lingual localization efforts + at least two European magazines having coverage of it on launch/post-launch) seems to indicate that the game most certainly "should" have been sent off to production already and well on its way to stores (Nov. 26 1999 = Friday, so stores should've probably had it either on Tuesday or Thursday that week, possibly even a week or two before.)


As a side note, on ASSEMblergames there are at least a couple of others that to've been under the impression that this was released too (in the "I've played/seen/Sold" this way). I've had a good few "turned out to be correct" hunches on a bunch of other things in the past where everyone's been all "nay", but I'm not saying I "must" be correct on this one. However, details are lacking a bit too much and things just doesn't quite make sense.

[edit]
Googled up an old US user review on Amazon.com saying N64 is unreleased.
[/edit]



I've heard a lot of stupid stories told by people through the years thanks to what's just turned out to be undumped games (I'm still haunted in my dreams by the e-bullies giving me shit for saying I had a PAL copy *insert random at-the-time undumped PAL release*)

I think if someone has the follow up issues to the two I scanned, I'm sure there might be slightly more reliable stuff to be found there (if it's unreleased, that is) ;)

[BFC]

I agree people tell a lot. But me and also hydr0x did so much research on all these "what is released where" lists for checking out what is dumped or not that I can certainly say this never made it to the shelves. If we can find proof for games released less than 10 times in the world we can do this just as well

if you find a copy feel free to post a pic. Unless this happens everything is nothing but speculation. Prooving is the only way to do it.

[KlarthAilerion]

[Smeg]

uh wot

How is it they're restoring it, then?

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/apollo11.html

[KlarthAilerion]

They're restoring it using the various media outlet's data, which is better than nothing. The original tapes that were created and possessed by NASA were written over with other data at some point in the past 40ish years.

[Smeg]

Does the new video say "recorded by NintendoAge" across the bottom?

[kap]

[ICEknight]

[PACHUKA]

duh, missed the joke. my bad

[lorenzo90]

Hi There!
This is Lorenzo!
Im new in this site!
I enjoy the fact that unreleased games come out, even if they have alternate console counterparts. In this case, yeah, I've played 40 Winks on the PSX when everybody was going through the downloading ISOs at 56K stage and installing 8 pin modchips in their Sonys.

Just keep on posting Guys!

Thanks!
Good Luck!...

Predator

[Evan]

Strangest spambot post I have ever seen.

[kap]

For sure. I just edited the spambot's URL to make it more awesome too.

[GDRI]

They've become sentient.

[KingMike]

What human would download ISOs on 56K? :P

[Carnivol]

Thank god I had a 64k ISDN connection back in the late 90s... Wouldn't even want to imagine what nightmarishly download times I'd have to endure if I was capped at something as ridiculously slow as 56k.