I’m a fan of the idea of the Nintendo World Championships in general so when I found out about this infomercial for an unlicensed multi-cart that was a fake NWC with 80s WWF Pro-wrestelrs, I was all in. You have Hulk Hogan shilling for the Maxivision Power Video Challenge 30 in 1 multicart game. But what sells this for me is the fact that it’s called the WGF, the World Game Federation. This is the stuff I dreamed about when I was a kid watching the attitude era.This 30 minute infomercial was made to sell this unlicensed NES game that included 30 games, and to do that they had this Wizard like event that while fake has all the energy that you’d expect from an esports game, and by that I mean nothing like it since it’s actually exciting to watch. You have 6 players divided into 3 teams. Red White and Blue since well Hulk Hogan is there I guess. He’s not the only WWE wrestler as you also have H onky Tonk Man, Birdman Coco Beware and Mr. Wonderful. I’m not really into that era of wrestling so I can’t say I’m familiar with them.
The event is very high energy, even starting it up almost felt like a Nickelodeon GAS game as the cartridges are released and the kids run to get them and put them inside the the NES and turn it on, as if its a race to who can do it before. It doesn’t matter if it’s rehearsed, the stunts and acrobatics displayed here are still real and far more entertaining than the actual Nintendo World Championships. Unsure how the judges control the scores as they just make up numbers but that’s the least of anyones concerns.
Hulk Hogan describes the games as they’re chosen before each match and I have to say; While I’m not a huge Hogan fan, the man could do a promo, he sells the game that it made me want to check it out even if you already know it’s most likely a terrible game. The video editing is also above average as it has jump cuts that make it exciting, there’s a lot of crowd cheering and narration that really keeps the energy up. The lights, smokescreen, 30 GREAT games slogan, it’s allr eally entertaining to watch. No dead times, just action action action. Esports could learn a lot from this ad.
They bring this random kid who appeared in the high scores page of Nintendo Power to legitimize their game and giving his seal of approval, he of course shills though he’s no Hollywood Hogan. I do have to say the commercial overstays its welcome, as it showcases the other games it kinda loses its appeal of overusing the wrestler promos talking about the games. They’re not really describing them much either, but that’s for the best, as they make it sound far more interesting. The other disappointment is that the winning team doesn’t get belts at the end but instead some generic trophies.
Now let’s talk a bit about the games, apprently the 30 great games that we know of based on the proptotype were these:F-15, City War, Puzzle, Tiles of Fate,Krazy Kreatures, Double Strike, Dudes With Attitude, Venice Beach Volleyball, Ultimate Soccer ,Deathbots ,Rad Racket Tennis ,Mermaids of Atlantis ,Wally Bear and the No! Gang ,ShockWave ,Pokeblock ,Deathrace ,Captain Comic ,Robodemons ,King Neptune’s Adventure ,P’radikus Conflict ,Pesterminator ,Castle of Deceit ,Moon Ranger ,Challenge of the Dragon ,Solitaire ,Secret Scout ,Baby Boomer ,Chiller,Dudes II
But what we actually got was Maxivision 15-in-1 the Maxi 15 with the following gamesChiller, Deathbots, Double Strike, Dudes with Attitude, F-15 City Wars, Krazy Kreatures, Menace Beach, Puzzle, ,Pyramid, Rad Racket: Deluxe Tennis II, Shock Wave, Solitaire, Stakk M, Tiles of Fate, and Venice Beach Volleyball..
No one really knows why, apparently the infomercial only aired once, the price was like 3 payments of $50 making it a bit expensive and they ran out of moeny. There’s rumors that it was licensing issues but that only seems to be the case for about 2 games. They did later mention they had enough games for a Volume 2 as this was Volume 1 so that’s where the other missing games would’ve shown up I guess. It does mean the video features some games that were not in the actual cartridge.
The cartridge actually looks pretty cool and so does the menu with the descriptions, it seems like it had some effort put into it. As far as the actual games, I played a couple of them, didn’t invest too much time to be honest but they seemed to range from mediocre, to entertaining for a little while, I’m sure some of them are much worse and some of them might actually be decent. This was a bit late in the Nintendo Entertainment System’s life so not many copies are out there and it’s a rare game for collectors.