Power Punch II - just don't ask where the first one is

The Wii version of Punch Out!! is going to be with us shortly so what better time for a kindly NES collector to release the ROM for the awesomely bad Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch (the aborted sequel to the original NES Punch Out!! which was eventually released - sans Tyson - as Power Punch II) – onto the internet.

And before you ask, there was no Power Punch 1.

The story goes a little something like this; Nintendo made a pretty penny off the back of Punch Out!! (in which a certain Mr. Tyson had a starring role) so a sequel was quickly pushed into development. Figuring that something special was required to top the original, Nintendo employed Beam Software to produce a futuristic boxing title which ditched the legendary Little Mac and placed Iron Mike in the vastness of space instead. The general idea was that no one on Earth was capable of beating Tyson, so why not let aliens have a pop at him? Genius, no?

Sadly, as the game was being developed Mike went and got himself arrested, which obviously made him a less than ideal figurehead for a NES game. Despite these real-world events, the production of Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch wasn’t going well anyway and the plug was pulled soon after. American Softworks would eventually pick up the battered code and release the game as Power Punch II in 1992. It sank almost without trace.

The original prototype of Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch has been sitting in the vault of Jason "DreamTR" Wilson for almost two decades now but he recently let it be known that he would dump the ROM online for the right price. Needless to say, the funds were raised and the game is now free to download. If you don’t like emulation then you can purchase a proper working NES cart with the game on it from here.

The game itself stinks to high heaven; just check out this video for proof:

Still, it’s a slice of NES history all the same.

[source gamesetwatch.com]