This story just absolutely boggles my mind. After the huge success of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! back in 1987, Nintendo clearly wanted to get a sequel cranked out to help liven up the dying days of the NES. With Nintendo's Japanese studios busy elsewhere, the sequel was farmed out to Beam Software (now Krome Studios Melbourne, perpetrators of lousy mascot 3D platforms starring jerks like Ty the Tasmanian Tiger).
What Beam Software came up with was, to put it delicately, not as good as Punch-Out!! (which you can see for yourself above). In fact, it was so not good that Nintendo declined to publish it. The game eventually hit shelves in highly altered form as Power Punch II, starring Guy Who Looks An Awful Lot Like Mike Tyson, despite the non-existence of a previously published Power Punch. The original version of the game featuring Mike Tyson's image, called Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch, was believed lost.
Game collector Jason "DreamTR" Wilson actually came across a copy of the Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch prototype, though, and was willing to dump it for free perusal on the internet after being paid $1500 in funds raised by the fine fans at Nintendo Age. Now you can purchase Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch in NES cart form for $30, or download it from somewhere online to play on the emulator of your choice.
The game still sucks, of course, but might be of interest with all the hype on for the impending release of Punch Out!! for Wii.
(Before you jump up Wilson's butt for wanting money to dump his prototype, remember that a prototype loses value tremendously after images are available on the Web and Wilson may have had to pay a four-figure sum just to obtain the prototype in the first place. Of course, when collectors don't dump their prototypes, the games often end up eventually unplayable due to bit rot-- this may be the only happy ending possible when it comes to preserving old games.)
Add Us On