Over the past year, I realized that the old era had passed long ago. This revelation was triggered by a cereal box, of all things.

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What brought on this revelation? You see, for at least a decade, it wasn’t unusual for cereal brands to actually pack compact discs into their breakfast cereal boxes. What interested me were the games that were occasionally packaged, though some music CDs were sometimes available (my favorite Christmas album of all time came in a box of Chex). But this is not the way of things anymore.

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Alas, the world has long since moved on from optical storage media. As you can see from these photos, if you want to play the included games, you need to install their mobile app and then scan some code in order to access a game.

It’s not just for cereal boxes either. Gaze upon the venerable Cracker Jack toy surprise:

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I’ve heard really old timers complain that the toy surprise used to be a real toy and not some rub-on tattoo. Now I’m old enough to remember when the surprise was a rub-on tattoo and not a code that you can scan using a mobile app in order to access a game:

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Indeed, the last time I remember seeing bundled CD-ROM games would have been in mid-2012 when I found some Atari games at Taco Bell, which were themselves re-releases from an earlier promotion in 2010.

I have finally resigned myself to the reality that I will never collect odd CD-ROMs from a cereal box or a fast food establishment ever again. But I still have some sources on old games. Here are some recent acquisitions that aren’t yet in the database:

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• Disney’s The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea: There is simply an unending supply of old Disney games that haven’t yet gone into the database.
• FishCo: “Become a Master Fishkeeper”: From Cosmi. I guess there is an aquatic theme with this particular lot.
• Mall Tycoon 2 Deluxe: MobyGames has the standard version but not the “Deluxe” edition; that means more fun for me as I attempt to determine if this belongs as a separate title.
• Combo of Championship Cheerleading / Horse Illustrated: Championship Season: What were the odds that the constituent games in this combo pack wouldn’t already be represented in the database? Also, “Play your favorite MP3s.”

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• Barbie as The Island Princess: I’ll also never run out of unentered Barbie games.
• Fisher-Price Digital Arts & Crafts Studio: Probably not a game as opposed to a creative tool, but might still have some game elements. Copyright 2007.
• 101 Puppy Pets: With the tagline “adopt them all”, this feels like it’s aping 2 other franchises: 101 Dalmatians and Pokemon. Companies involved are Viva Media and Selectsoft Games.
• Bears & Pandas of the World: From Webster Publishing and bearing an ad-hoc “Windows 95 plug & play” logo. Unlikely to be a game.

I procured a lot of old games from someone who really enjoyed hunting games. Here are the items that aren’t in the database:

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• Hunting Unlimited 2: The jewel case cover looks photocopied.
• Rocky Mountain Trophy Hunter II: Above the Treeline: I remember seeing this on the shelves a long time ago. From Infogrames.
• Deer Hunt Challenge: Kill more woodland creatures. This one is published by EA.

Some other random missing items:

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• Hot Wheels Rally: 1996 game from Mattel.
• Spell It 3: Presumably educational title from 1995, published by Davidson & Associates. I’m guessing a singing frog figures into the proceedings.
• Crossword Mania 2: The first game was popular enough to warrant a sequel, apparently. From Sterling Software.
• Family Puzzle Pack: Probably a shovelware pack. From Encore Software.

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• Dancing With The Stars: The PC Game: I should examine this one at the same time as Dance With ABC since Google already conflates them. 2008 title from THQ.
• Disney Princess: Cinderella’s Castle Designer: 2003 title. I’m curious what kind of gaming elements this contains, but it does feature an ESRB badge.
• Save Planet Polluto: “An interactive edutainment experience from the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District under a grant from the U.S. EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality.” Also, the tagline is, “Be the first to save the Pollutonians from the ravages of air pollution!” It raises some odd questions, like where the name Planet Polluto comes from if it’s not supposed to be polluted. I’m sure it will all make sense once I play it.
• Space Missions: Just… Space Missions. The title makes it sound like it’s an expansion pack for another game. 1997 title for Mac and Windows. No ESRB badge, but it does feature an ad-hoc ISO-9660 (CD filesystem) badge.

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• Family Fireworks 6-Pack: Published by Viva Media, this appears to contain 6 2009-era Windows games: Fritz Chess, Card and Casino Games Platinum, Jewel Labyrinth, Sudoku Mania, Mahjongg Platinum 3, and Super Word Challenge.
• Oceans Below: From the Software Toolworks. Probably an educational exploration rather than a game.
• Herbert and the underwater Pyramid: From Swift Jewel, “Jump right in and get ready for cube-hopping fun!”
• 3D Mania: The cover art leads me to believe this contains Operation Over Kill and Condition Red. MobyGames contains no record of either of these games.

This unentered title gets a category of its own:

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Pony Luv: A Pony to Call Your Own. The reason this stands out is that the seller didn’t want to send it without cover art. So they found a low resolution photo of the cover art material, scaled it way up, printed it out on standard paper, and taped that to a generic keepcase. A+ for effort, I guess. I won’t be scanning it for MobyGames, though.

Next up, I have a whole bunch of educational titles published by Sunburst Communications and procured from a retired schoolteacher. Here is the Phonics lot, all of which are marked as published in 2000 for both Windows and Mac:

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• Phonics Beginning Blends: Sunken Treasure Adventure
• Phonics Long & Short Vowels: Max’s Attic
• Phonics Word Families: Python Path
• Phonics Initial Consonants: Creepy Cave

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• Teasers by Tobbs, Mac-only
• Every Child a Reader, 2000, Mac & Windows
• Tenth Planet Explores Math: Number: Fraction Operations: Not sure where the title begins and ends with this one. It’s copyright 1998 by Tenth Planet Explorations Inc.
• Spatial Sense & Problem Solving: Copyright 1992, 1995, and 1996, Mac-only

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• Spatial Sense & Problem Solving: A second copy, and with different artwork. Mac-only CD-ROM.
• Graphers (1997, Mac & Windows)
• Reading Who? Reading You! (1996, Mac & Windows)
• Bailey’s Book House: 1995 by Edmark, Windows and Mac

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• A Mad-Libs interactive DVD game
• First Phonics: 1997, Mac & Windows
• A To Zap: Copyright 1995 and 1998, Mac and Windows
• The Letterbugs: Get Ready To Read: 2000, Mac and Windows
• Key Skills Reading: Letters and Words: 2002, Mac and Windows

Next, I found a series of these CD-ROMs from an outfit called White Wolf Software and advertised to work on “IBM and Compatibles”. Each one purports to contain “Ten Great Programs”. However, I strongly suspect that refers to shareware versions of 10 programs of varying quality.

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• Series 4: The cover art mentions Rise of the Triad, Bio Menace, Race the Nags, and Captain Comic.
• Series 5: Vinyl Goddess From Mars, Solar Winds, 2-Bit Poker, Oil Cap
• Series 9: Epic Pinball, TeleCards, Pyramid, Pirada I: The Fearless
• Series 16 (copyright 1995, US$12.99 price sticker): Alien Carnage, Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure, Night Raid, Zone 66
• Series 22 (copyright 1995, US$12.99 price sticker): Monster Bash, Crystal Caves, Star Hammer, Television Trivia
• Series 23 (copyright 1995): This one has a more educational bent: Crayon Box, 123-Talk, Jurassic Spelling, Big Math Attack!

As I researched all the titles presented on the cover art, I noticed that the various games’ release dates are a few years prior to the copyright dates on the cover art. More than a few of the games are from Apogee. It’s not unreasonable that they cut deals to distribute the entire games, rather than just the shareware versions.

Finally, here’s a smattering of demo discs I have acquired:

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• Ripcord Games demo disc: Return Fire 2 and Enemy Infestation, 2 games that date back to 1998.
• M1 Tank Platoon II demo, with a demo of Falcon 4.0.
• Operation Bodycount one level preview demo disc
• Red Orb Entertainment CD Sampler for Windows 95, copyright 1997
• The Space Bar: I’m assuming this is a demo disc for the following titles: Emperor of the Fading Suns, Obsidian, Lose Your Marbles, A Fork in the Tale, and HyperStudio
• Rocket Science Game Sampler, copyright 1995
• Bethesda Softworks Sampler: The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall and Terminator: Future Shock

I already found an original Xbox cast off in a recycle pile about 4 years ago. However, that one sits in a state of disassembly for some optical drive hacking experiments I was conducting awhile back. So when I found another unit at my favorite thrift shop for only $6, I snatched it up immediately in case I feel inspired to actually play an Xbox disc.

When I got home and plugged it in to verify that the thing works, I received this surprise:

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A copy of Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects.

Meanwhile, on a separate visit to the same thrift shop, I saw one of these:

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Oops, did I say “one of these”? I meant I saw about 50 of them. They were scattered all around the store. I’d find 10 here, 5 there, 2 in another part of the store. Looks reputable, right? They couldn’t label it as “High Quality” if it weren’t true, right? I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this. The color scheme reminds me of the Xbox 360 brand. The price was right (i.e. low enough), so I picked one up. When I got it home, I realized that there were numerous stickers on the box and started peeling them back:

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Ah, so it is supposed to be an Xbox 360 controller. Here’s what the box looks like without the stickers:

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What are the stickers for? It seems clear that this is some manner of counterfeit. Were the sellers legally required to cover up Xbox 360 markings? Perhaps they were barred from selling these and decided to just drop them off at this thrift shop.

So it’s a good bet that it’s a counterfeit controller. But what’s the difference between this and the real deal? I don’t have an Xbox 360 so I don’t have much experience with how this differs from an authentic controller. It looks legit to me and would have fooled me were it not for the weird box stickers. I recently procured a Steam Link device and this controller appears to work perfectly.

However, I dug up this Gaming.StackExchange thread in which someone procured the same counterfeit item. They determined that the analog controller actually acts as a digital gamepad. I.e, it only has 9 discrete positions rather than offering a continuous range of coordinates.

Other recent acquisitions that are not yet represented in the MobyGames database:

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• Elroy’s Costume Contest, from Headbone Interactive (1996): This is interesting. I have previously acquired 2 other Elroy games and covered them in a previous entry. In checking to see if anyone else had heard of these games and if there were any other games in the series, I found that someone had cared enough about this series to set up a dedicated Wikia space for it which only mentioned the 2 games. I assumed that was the last word on the matter. Evidently not.
• Pop! Drop! + Stack! XP Championship, from SelectSoft games (2006): What a curiously punctuated title. The box claims to have “Over 100 Games”. I have encountered this SelectSoft stuff before, in the form of dubious 100,000 Games and 333,000 Games packages.
• Lost & Found Volume 1, from Interactive Toys (1994): An ambitious title promising future volumes that I will need to watch out for.
• Harvest Mania To Go, from Pogo.com (2005): MobyGames has a record of this being a browser game from 2005. This copy also has a copyright date of 2005, so perhaps it was published concurrently. Seems to be a cross between color matching and Farmville.

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• Looney Tunes: Back In Action, from Warner Bros. (2003)
• NHRA Drag Racing 2: Limited Edition (2000): The regular version is already in the database; the Limited Edition probably warrants a separate entry.
• Fetch! from Gamebryo, Virtual Playground, and ValuSoft (2006): You can pretend to care for a dog.
• Go Fish! from Knowledge Adventure (1998): probably not a card game
• Madagascar Animal Trivia DVD Game (Demo Edition), from b Equal: Appropriate for “ages 6-106”

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• KAR Racing, Twin Pak with Mini Golf, from Cosmi (2003): turns out I already acquired a copy of this but without the box or the Mini Golf game
• The Horse Lovers Ultimate Compendium, a DVD-ROM collection from Viva Media (2012, 2014): The box copy claims “Over 50 complete games included”. However, it only seems to include 6 games according to the rest of the copy (front, back, and disc):
  • My Riding Stables
  • Championship Riding Star
  • Blue Ribbon Show Jumper
  • Horse Camp
  • Riding Academy 1
  • Riding Academy 2

Awhile ago, I covered 2 educational titles from an outfit called Ohio Distinctive Software (ODS): GeoRunner and Superheroes Math Challenge. I recently found an eBay lot consisting of more than a dozen ODS titles, including GeoRunner and a duplicate of one game; 14 discs in total. Most of them aren’t in the database yet.

Many of them appear to be bilingual (English/Spanish). Here is the first half dozen:

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The inventory:

• ODS Amazing Art Corner– I’m guessing this is either art history or activities
• Master Gecko’s Home Row– presumably a typing game
• The Daily FUNdaMentals– perhaps a trivia game
• Twins’ Challenge / El roto de los mellizos– no idea on this one
• Mongro’s Monstrous Money Math / Las Monstruosas Matematicas– probably basic financial management
• Robob’s Cubetronic Quizimajig

And the other half:

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• Intergalactic Rocket Factory / Fabrica de cohetes intergalacticos– don’t know what this is, but it sounds like fun! Then again, it’s supposed to be educational, so maybe not
• The Mammoth Food Dig / La Gran Aventura de los Alimentos– likely an exercise in proper nutrition
• The Groovin’ Gourmet– cooking?
• Edgar’s Language Exploration / Exploracion de Idiomas de Edgar
• Quadrinarian Qword Find: The Search For Meaning– maybe this is a simple grid word search puzzle dressed up with a weird title
• Painter Bear’s Language Bridge / Puente de Idiomas Del Oso Pintor

Some other recent pickups:

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• Big box copy of The Africa Trail, cousin to the venerable Oregon Trial series; even comes with a copy of The Oregon Trail on CD-ROM, alleged to be a $50 value; humorously, when I got around to opening the box, the Africa Trail CD-ROM was missing, though the Oregon Trail CD-ROM was still present, as were several other Africa Trail artifacts
• Really Wild Animals: Swinging Safari Explore and Print, by National Geographic Interactive– MindScape is also mentioned; copyright 1997; not sure if this is a game or not
• Disney’s Hot Shots: Tarzan Jungle Tumble— I have a certain fondness for this series of late 1990’s Disney casual games
• Dance With ABC– companies mentioned include Softworks and GT Interactive; it’s really hard to find information about this game since Googling for the name only returns results for Dancing With The Stars which happens to air on ABC

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• Care Bears: Care-A-Lot Jamboree– MobyGames has a nice collection of Care Bears titles but this one has slipped through the cracks
• Gus Goes To Cyberopolis– full name is “Modern Media Ventures Presents A Gus & The Cyberbuds Learning Adventure: Gus Goes To Cyberopolis”; MobyGames has a record of Gus Goes To Cybertown, which is apparently a separate title
• I Spy Fantasy
• Nickolodeon Rocket Power: Extreme Arcade Games

I’m not usually a big collector of the Limited Special Collector’s Ultimate Edition, but this item caught my eye: “Lionel Trains Presents: Trans-Con! Centennial Edition.” It helps that neither MobyGames nor much of the internet at large seem to know much about it (which always makes me want to snatch it up for preservation purposes).

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Other items in this batch:

• Jets, copyright 1994 by Medio Multimedia; impossibly generic in its naming (while the company name is construed by search engines as an obvious typo), so it’s hard to find any other data on the internet about the title. It features the MPC2 and “CD Laser Station” badges.
• Tuneland starring Howie Mandel, by 7th Level, Inc., a company I have encountered a few times on this blog; this features the Packard Bell logo, so perhaps it was a pack-in.
• Qwirks— this is already in the database, but my curiosity was piqued because it was designed by famed Tetris developer Alexey Pajitnov (plus, some cover scans are missing from the database).

So, about this Trans-Con special edition package– the game is apparently an educational title, probably primarily marketed towards classrooms. Here’s an old review from an educational software review site. Here are all of the items I procured in the used version of the limited edition package:

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The game, a handsome map, and an awkward tin. It’s entirely possible not all of the items included in the original package made it to the thrift shop where I procured this.

Some other recently procured items:

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• The Wild Thornberrys: Rambler– this Wild Thornberrys licensee has slipped through the database’s cracks. I hope I get to it one day since I actually quite liked the last Wild Thornberrys game I played and documented.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Operation Krabby Patty, one in a rather long line of licensed titles yet is not in the database as of this writing.
• Casper: The Interactive Adventure: Windows 95/98; companies mentioned are Morning Star and WizardWorks; based on the MCA/Universal live action Casper motion picture.
• Type to Learn 3, by Sunburst, for Mac and Windows
• Big Science Comics, by Theatrix. Sponsored by National Science Foundation. This may or may not be a game, though this old press release seems to think it is.
• Multimedia Differential Equations: This Windows 3.1/95 title probably isn’t a game. Mostly, I picked it up because of the word “multimedia” and because it was published by Pro-one CD-ROM, who also put out this Video Casino Games title. I’m just fascinated with that period of transitional and evolving technology.

My Acquisition Log entries have slowed considerably. A lot of my usual acquisition sources seemed to dry up in the last year or so, including my favorite local thrift shop. However, I visited said thrift shop recently and found a treasure trove of games, a bounty the likes of which I had not encountered in quite some time.

In all my years of collecting games, this trip was unusual in that it was the first time I did so with an internet-connected mobile device by my side. It may surprise you to learn that I’m not much of a gadget freak and so I haven’t placed much value on smartphones yet. But I acquired a hand-me-down iPhone a few months ago. So this was the first time I was actually able to check potential purchases to see if they were already in the MobyGames database. This is a good thing or I might have walked about with 2-3 times as many games. The following games largely represent items which have little to no representation in the database as of yet.

Next TODO item is to make sure that my master games spreadsheet is easily accessible via my iPhone so that I don’t end up with any more copies of Barbie Sparkling Ice Show. Oops.

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This lot includes:

• SeaWorld Adventure Parks Tycoon, from Activition Value Publishing
• Wild Varmint Bounty Hunter, published by ValueWorks; hunt for prairie dogs, squirrels, coyotes, and rabbits (didn’t realize that a coyote is classified as a ‘varmint’)
• Cyberswine by Brilliant Digital Entertainment– this is already in the database, but these Multipath Movies fascinate me on a technical level; one such title — Gravity Angels Part 1: Alien Discovery — was one of the first games I covered on this blog
• Gravitar– companies mentioned on the jewel case include Topics Entertainment, Digital Eclipse, and none other than Atari; it seems that there is an old Atari game named Gravitar and I’m curious to see if this is a straight port or an upgraded remake of the original

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Here’s a grouping of educational (possibly) titles:

• Math Blaster: Cross Terrain Adventure
• Hawaii High: The Mystery of the Tiki– the colon-ated title makes it sound as though this is one of many games; published by Sanctuary Woods (I still have a soft spot for their Radio Active title)
• Richard Scarry’s Busytown: Best Math Program Ever, published by Simon and Schuster Interactive– a lofty title if I’ve ever read one
• Thinkin’ Things: Galactic Brain Benders, by Edmark

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A few more, in bigger packaging:

• Jungle Rangers: Into the Canopy, by iFocus
• Drop! Deluxe Suite, from eGames; this boasts of coming as a 2-CD set, though it doesn’t look like it would be a very complex or graphically intensive game, requiring lots of assets. Then again, it’s eGames and you can usually count on them to package various bits of software that are, umm… at best, tangentially related to the game in question. Some games in the series are already on record, but not this collection or remix or whatever: Drop! and Drop! 2

MobyGames saw some rough times last year when, after years of stagnation, its new corporate master launched a much-maligned design overhaul. Then, at the very end of the year, a new benefactor swept in, took control, returned the design to its former glory, and has been carefully evolving the design and working to grow the community.

Through it all, I have continued to collect games, mostly due to force of habit, I suppose. But now I feel a bit more eager to get back to collecting and entering data (even if it’s just for cover art at this point).

Here are my latest acquisitions that are not yet represented in the database. Here’s a random grab bag:

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• The Robot Club by Southpeak Interactive
• The Otter’s Adventure (Softkey release), developed by Digital Impact in 1995
• Galactic Bowling: The Ultimate Extreme Sport; PerpetualFX/Cosmi
• Secrets of the Dark 2 Game Pack: Temple of Night & Eclipse Mountain, published by Big Fish

Here’s a smattering of educational games:

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• Pong Pong’s Learning Adventure: Animals, published by Hong Kong Datasun Group– this seems to be half in Chinese; I’m not looking forward to figuring out the original release region for this title
• How Do You Spell Adventure? by Sanctuary Woods, whom I recognize thanks to their Radio Active title
• Brain Quest: 2nd Grade, published by IBM in 1999; several entries in the Brain Quest series are already in the database, but not 2nd grade
• Mighty Math 2-pack: Number Heroes and Calculating Crew, published by Edmark
• Word Krispies (looks like this is already in the database), published by Liquid Dragon Studios and published by Encore
• School House Rock: Grammar Rock (Smart Saver release)– “Kids email program included free!”

Here’s a stash of biblical-themed games, most of which were published by Left Behind Games:

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• Jesus Wants All of Me
• Charlie Church Mouse: Preschool
• King Solomon’s Trivia Challenge: Volume I: Quizmaster Edition
• Left Behind 3: Rise of the Antichrist

The next group is commercial licensees:

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• The Apprentice, based on the Donald Trump reality show; published by Legacy Interactive, whom I recognize thanks to their Law & Order adaptations, which makes me wonder if this is also Java-based
• Scooby-Doo! Ancient Adventures– this is a VTech V.Flash console game. I have one of these V.Flash systems, still new in the box. One day, I’ll need to open it and play the 3 V.Flash games that I have acquired and perhaps lobby for the system’s inclusion into MobyGames, since they’re adding a lot more systems these days.
• The Powerpuff Girls Learning Challenge #1: Mojo Jojo’s Clone Zone, from The Learning Company; I guess I should appreciate that some of these game titles are so ridiculously long as it makes it easier to determine that the game is not in the database.

Some software items that come in big, classic boxes:

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The first is Redshift 3. I’m not sure if this technically qualifies as a game. It might just be an educational space exploration software title. I wonder if it holds up to web-based space education tools.

The second box is Twenty Wargame Classics from Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI).