Any kid of the 90s will tell you how inundated platforms like the NES and Sega Genesis were with low-quality movie tie-in games. From Lethal Weapon to Robocop, no property was off-limits for publishers with more cash than common sense. There is probably a laundry list of licensed games that didn't get released, though, as more games are canceled and quietly forgotten than gamers will ever discover. Thankfully, history hasn't left the Days of Thunder NES game behind.
In a recent discovery made by the Video Game History Foundation, an unreleased NES version of Days of Thunder from publisher Mindscape was found and footage was uploaded online. Situated among a pile of materials belon🐎ging to (known for early Apple II games), the team from VGHF found a 21-floppy disc backup that contained code for the title based on the 1990 Tom Cruise led film.
Oddly, an e꧙ntirely separate released for the NES, which might be why this particular version was canceled. Whatever the reason, the VGHF picked through each of the 21 discs and pieced code back together to get a prototype working. A explains the process.
In the footage revealed, the game looks...disappointing? There were obviously a lot of technical limitations in creating racing games in the early 90s, but Days of Thunder doesꦿn't look particularly good. There are no explanations of what is going on and the sense of spee🍌d is really lacking for a car moving 250 MPH.
Stil꧙l, the faked 3D effect for qualifying laps is neat and this version is likely a much earlier build. If Mindscape was able🌟 to finish the title, it could have become one of the better licensed games on the NES and would probably be better than the actually released version.
At least this discovery has led to something great becoming available. The VGHF will be uploading the tools it used to reconstruct Days of Thunder online for 🐬other archivists to utilize. This may help in the discovery of other unreleased/lost NES games coming to light.
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