American
Video Entertainment's Maxi 15 Multicart
They existed
then, and are still produced now. They tease and torment us collectors,
yet we continue to drive their prices upward. They lie about how
many games they really have, playfully and innocently. They mostly
suck. They are, of course, the multicarts of the NES world. The
NES and Famicom saw many types of these collaborative cartridges;
most of them produced as pirates. There are the Supervision's
and the Sachen's, but to the traditional collector playing by
the rules, there exists only three important unlicensed multicart
releases: 6-in-1, Action 52, and Maxi 15.
This feature covers the last of the trio and is, in my opinion
at least, the very best of the three (but then again, drowning
is more fun than playing Action 52 so that statement doesn't
hold much strength). It's also, interestingly enough, the most
affordable to pick up. That right there says a lot about rabid
NES collectors; they speak with their flapping bills and think
with the Cheetahmen-sized brains they have.
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| Maxi
15 Logo Reset Screen (HES). |
Maxi
15 (AVE version) displays a Maxivision castle. |
Maxi 15,
or Maxivision 15, was released stateside in 1992 by American
Video Entertainment (AVE) under the name MaxMarketing. The original
idea of Maxivision was to have twice the amount of games, 30 titles
in all. That didn't quite work out for AVE, probably because it
was too much for such a small company to manage, and second because
of the extra costs involved with financing so many games.
A slightly
different version with the same name saw a release on the PAL
format in Australia by Home Entertainment Suppliers (HES). One
difference between the AVE and HES versions is the change in the
graphics after you reset the game. The HES version displayed a
Maxi 15 logo while the AVE version featured a more advanced
animated splash screen of a unisex character standing before a
castle with "Maxivision" written on it instead.
Maxi
15 game selection (AVE)
Another difference
is the game selection. HES decided to remove two of the games,
Pyramid and Double Strike, in exchange for BlackJack
and DeathRace.
Maxi
15 game selection (HES)
Almost all
of the games found on the NTSC multicart had separate releases
outside of the Maxi 15, and although most were made by
AVE, some originated from different companies. Menace Beach,
for example, was made by Color Dreams while Pyramid was
first developed by Sachen. Other development companies with games
featured on Maxi 15 include: Odyssey Software, Idea-Tek,
TXC Corp., Computer & Entertainment Inc., and American Game
Cartridges Inc. (AGCI). Indeed, it was like they hosted an unlicensed
game company circle jerk and in the center was a photo of the
famous Nintendo game tester, Howard Phillips. Only the game Stakk'M
was unreleased outside of this multicart. Despite the fact that
14 of the 15 titles had their own individual releases in the past,
AVE thought it was wise to market this eco-friendly note on the
back of Maxi's box: "This is
an environmentally responsible product. We have eliminated 15
paper game boxes, 15 dust sleeves, 15 poly bags, 15 styrofoam
spacers, 14 game manuals, 14 plastic cartridges, 14 circuit boards
as well as 14 times the energy & fuel to manufacturer and
ship a typical game product." Well, that's certainly
one way of looking at it. It almost makes up for the number of
Action 52 carts that wound up in landfills by children
crying tears of anger. (This would explain the rarity of the game
and why the cattle on the auction sites continue rush to buy them
up at such ridiculous prices.) Sorry folks, it's just that Action
52 is such an easy target. I'll try to easy up on any more
jokes involving it and Cheetahmen from now on.
For such an
environmentally-friendly game, there sure was a lot of crap that
came inside of each Maxi 15. Besides the outside yellow
cardboard box, AVE included a registration card, a Maxi 15
sticker, a 39-page instruction manual, a plastic case that encloses
the game, and the cartridge itself. Here are the scans.
Now because
they don't call this site "NES Player" for nothing,
it's time to hit the games on this multicart! Click the pics below
to take you to another page that will give you more information
(walkthroughs, images, endings, reviews, etc.) on each title.
