Hacking 'Treasure Seeker' - NES

"Treasure Hunter" is, by all appearances, is a horrible game. You don't even necessarily have to play it to know it's not top notch. See, NES games had this thing where they tried to cash in on "trends", so if a game adhered to too many of these generic traits, mostly, it wasn't any good.

So, in that respect, "Treasure Seeker" is in big trouble. Look at the dweeb on the cover: Backwards (non-fitted) cap, shades, 90's shirt, thumbs up. Sad on so many levels, to the extent that it's attempt to make it cool actually makes it less cool. In addition, check out the drawings surrounding him. They couldn't be more culled from disparate genres. Robots. Dragonflies. Spiders. Spaceships. Sharks! Sharks. Sharks! Really? Okay, I'm done. I think I've proved my point.

Beyond the obvious aesthetic flaws of the cover, though, "Treasure Seeker" has an interesting history, at least according to the Reddit blog:

As advertised on the box (and in Nintendo Power), players had several months after the 1991 release to practice playing it. Then, in a live and much-anticipated MTV event, a secret password was revealed.

Entering this password opened up a bonus level at the end of the game, and at the end of the level was another secret code that was worth thousands of dollars in cash and prizes: You had twelve hours to race through the game, reach and beat the never-before-seen final level, and call into a special 1-900 number.

If you were the first to do it, they'd send your family to the Superbowl. If you were one of the next 250 people, you'd get the brand-new, just-released Super Nintendo. But you only had until midnight to claim it!

Reddit has, in its infinite wisdom, commissioned another similar project. They want people to purchase a cheap-o copy of the game and beat it, submitting all of the passwords so they can, well, I don't know, post them or something. They don't really make it clear what the endgame is, but they do want people sending in game saves and such, so if you own a copy, get to playing, sucka.

Help Reddit Hack the World's Worst Nintendo Game