Retro Gaming Australia

In 1994, Sega Ozisoft released its stranglehold on the Australian market just a little, allowing other Australian companies the opportunity to produce cartridges and distribute games. Village Roadshow quickly jumped on the opportunity and struck deals with companies like Acclaim, Time Warner Interactive and Viacom New Media.

As a bit of a sweetener for those intending to purchase what Roadshow considered to be the big games of 1995 – Batman Forever, Primal Rage and Phantom 2040 – the company produced special edition box sets for the three games which sold for a little bit more than the standard retail price. These sets are exclusive to Australia, and therefore command a premium.

We snagged images of the last good condition box sets to sell online for the Australian Gaming Database, but we thought we’d take the opportunity to discuss them on the main site.

The amusing thing is that these sets were totally unpopular when they were first released, and wound up on clearance for as little as $15 by the end of the Mega Drive era, but the last completed sale for these sets saw them go for some $AU500+.

The big question is are these sets actually worth $500?

Honestly, that depends on how desperate you are for a complete collection, but to most of us, the answer will be a big fat NO!

The games in these packages are terrible, which is why the sets sold poorly on release. Primal Rage is a horrible port of a middling fighter, Phantom 2040 is a bland platformer and Batman Forever is just a travesty – quite possibly one of the worst licensed games of the 16-bit era.

The main reason, however, is that the contents of the package are complete crap.

Primal Rage comes with the game, a cap and 8 trading cards.

Phantom 2040 comes with the game, some glow in the dark Phantom stickers and a Phantom keyring.

Batman Forever comes with the game, a poster and a set of four postcards.

At least the boxes are pretty.