High Scores and Glowing Plaques: Memories of the Blockbuster Video Game Championships

In the 80s and 90s, Nintendo was firmly against video game rentals. Big name video rental places like West Coast Video and Blockbuster were stocking NES, and later, SNES games, and so were all the mom and pop rental places of the day. It was big business, and I don't know of any video rental place that didn't carry at least some video games, no matter how small the store. And that's saying something, because video rental places were absolutely everywhere back then, especially before Blockbuster came along and put all the independent ones out of business. According to a 1994 article from Billboard, Nintendo was finally ready to talk business with rental places, allowing them to buy direct and save some money. They were still planning on going to Congress to push for making game rental illegal, however. But in just a year, they would partner with Blockbuster to make the Blockbuster Video Game Championships. And a year later, with the Blockbuster Video Game Championships II, they would even have a custom-made Donkey Kong Country game made for the tournament (Okay, so they didn't make this JUST for the Blockbuster tournament, I believe this was reused from Nintendo's 1994 PowerFest)! And when I heard about that championship, with a game that I considered myself to be quite good at, I decided I had to enter, and I had to win!

The Video Game Championships were divided into two categories, you could do the SNES or the Sega Genesis tournament. I believe the Sega Genesis game you had to play was...Judge Dredd I think? Which would be the game based on the Sylvester Stallone movie. At least that was for the older age bracket, I think there was a 12 and under and a 12 and older bracket. On SNES, both brackets played Donkey Kong Country, but I think because of its rating the older bracket played Judge Dredd, and the younger played an NBA Jam game. Now I was and always have been a Nintendo fanboy, and I was of the age when the console wars were happening. So you know I couldn't help but compare these two tournaments. The SNES version has you playing one of the hottest and best games out there right now, and the Genesis version has you playing Judge Dredd? As far as I was concerned, this was a point for Nintendo. Though to be fair, I've still never played Judge Dredd, perhaps I would be surprised to find it's a great licensed game that bucks the too often trend of phoning it in. But I have no idea.

From what I can remember of the competition, it took place over the stretch of a few weeks, or maybe a full month. During that time, you could go and try to get the high score at your local Blockbuster store. You had five minutes to get as many points as possible in Donkey Kong Country, which in these special carts had both a score counter and a timer. You could play a total of three times, which meant that if you didn't get the high score on your first attempt, you had two more tries to do it, but it also meant that if you had the high score, and someone later topped your score, you had two more tries to try and reclaim the top. I believe they kept a white board with the top three players' names and their scores. It was a pretty easy to follow and fair ruleset, though of course since you could come in at any time to try and set the record, you didn't get any fast-paced, neck and neck battles like the idea of a "championship" might lead you to believe. The ending of The Wizard this was not.

Platformers like Super Mario Bros have always been some of my favorite games, and I consider myself pretty good at them. And most games like Mario are single player, especially back then, so you never had the idea of a competitive scene around a platform game really happen until this. So when I heard about this championship, I thought to myself that I might actually have a shot at this. I was pretty confident in my platforming skills. And so, I got to work training. I took this as seriously as if I was in varsity football at high school and on my way to an important game! I read all the Nintendo Power tips about where all the hidden bonus areas could be found and made notice of all the banana placement. I knew it would just be the first few levels, so I would play them endlessly, over and over, making sure I had the optimal route to get the most points as fast as I could (clearing a stage gave you a large point bonus).

So after practicing the first few levels over and over again making sure I could do a perfect run each time with no screwups, I had my dad drive me over to our local Blockbuster video one Saturday afternoon to register for the championship. I don't remember where the Super Nintendo itself was sitting, but they had me play on a wall-mounted television in the video game section of the store. There was one other person there to compete for SNES as well, and they stood behind me while I played. My heart was pumping, I was tense, but man, I played the most perfect run I could have hoped for that day. Every jump landed, every secret bonus room entered, every hidden banana bunch grabbed, and I never slowed down. I remember my strategy in the first stage was to jump down on the ground near a certain spot at the start of the stage, which would pop a steel barrel out of the ground. You could then throw it at the beginning of the stage on the left and it would hit the wall and bounce back, where you could hop on it and quickly ride it through the first half of the stage, taking out any bad guys as you rolled over them. I head the kid behind me whisper that he didn't know about that secret.

I kept up the momentum all through the five minutes of game time, and when the game ended, I had the store's high score. The girl who was observing my game and took down my score let me know that I still had two more attempts, so if someone took my high score, I could still win it back. I called every few days to check in, but no one ever topped that score, and I never needed to use my second and third attempts.

After the tournament had ended, I received a call telling me I was store champion and could come pick up my plaque and a card entitling me to a year of free video game rentals. Now there was some fine print there, because the year of free rentals was actually two free rentals a month for a year. But still, I was not complaining. When I went in to pick up my award, the girl at the checkout counter gave me the plaque and said "It glows in the dark, get excited" in a voice that said she either was not excited at all, or was maybe a bit embarrassed to have to hand a glow in the dark certificate to a 15-year-old when she was probably only 18 herself? If she WAS embarrassed, she needn't be, because I was super excited to have won, and I was genuinely excited about a glow in the dark framed certificate and a card for free video game rentals!

I was then told that there are other levels of the championships that would be happening after that. I think there was a state championship, and then the finals. They said that if my score was one of the highest in the state, I would be called back for the next round. I think that's how I was told it worked, anyway. I waited but was never called back. I was surprised that my score would not have put me in the top spot. I practiced for hours, and that Saturday afternoon in that Blockbuster, I had what felt like the *perfect* run. I had planned out the optimal route, I was so fast, I hit every enemy and secret I could. I honestly had no idea how I could do it any better than I had that first time. As I got older, I kind of wondered if maybe human error was to blame? Like, most of those people working the Blockbuster were in their late teens and early twenties. Maybe they just didn't submit the score? Or maybe no one bothered to call me. I wish I could remember what my score was that day so I had a better idea of how good I might have done.

Anyway, thanks for reading a rambling blog post about my vague recollections regarding a video game championship that I'm sure nobody even remembers anymore. I still have the handout that they gave during the championship, and I've scanned it and put it up on Archive.org if anyone wants to take a look. It includes the rules of the championship, as well as a writeup of the previous years' winners. Share in the comments if you participated in the championships, or if you didn't then how about your favorite Blockbuster Video memory?