Weird Lotus Turbo Challenge for Sega

[fcgamer | 4,728]

Hoping maybe @dyer or someone else can shed some light on this.

Grabbed it a few years back from a contact of mine. Game is Lotus Turbo Challenge on Sega Genesis. Nothing particularly odd about seeing this turn up in Taiwan, as EA distributed their USA releases here, as seen from old magazine adverts.

Oddness though, the back of the box has printed on it, "Inspected by" with the number 5 written by hand. This isn't a sticker of sorts, it's literally printed on the insert, and then the number is hand written.

Then there's the manual. No idea why it mentions FC on the first page, which is the common abbreviation here for Famicom. The cover is on regular paper, the rest seems to be on poorer quality paper. Just compare to the normal manual. Similarly, the last page with the EA address is missing, there are hand written notes pertaining to (I guess?) the courses, etc.

Thoughts on what's going on here? Near release sample version? Bootleg? Obscure variant?

I might add that the carts and art were all fabricated here in Taiwan, the EA stuff that is.

[Hybrid | 426]

 

I've seen similar on one other game any chance we can get a pic of the full case?

 

 

Edited February 21, 2021 by Hybrid

[fcgamer | 4,728]

Sure @Hybrid

Edit: Is that picture of yours from an old auction or something? I'm really curious how it's manual is.

Edited February 21, 2021 by fcgamer

[Hybrid | 426]

The pic is from an old auction but I do own one myself

[dyer | 202]

Hi @fcgamer, nice find!

I have seen a few EA games with the same sticker, both US and PAL releases, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme and reason for it, clearly the QA process wasn't (which is what I assume "Inspected" means) great as the artwork @Hybridposted is a massive error. For a while I thought the yellow circle thing was added to those that were not up to the right quality and then found some that were so its a bit of a mystery. I certainly think its linked to some sort of QA process.

I think yours is a genuine US release but I don't have a copy to compere the manual so the jury is still out.

Sorry not much help.

 

[Hybrid | 426]

58 minutes ago, dyer said:

Hi @fcgamer, nice find!

I have seen a few EA games with the same sticker, both US and PAL releases, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme and reason for it, clearly the QA process wasn't (which is what I assume "Inspected" means) great as the artwork @Hybridposted is a massive error. For a while I thought the yellow circle thing was added to those that were not up to the right quality and then found some that were so its a bit of a mystery. I certainly think its linked to some sort of QA process.

I think yours is a genuine US release but I don't have a copy to compere the manual so the jury is still out.

Sorry not much help.

 

I have a theory of what the power monger artwork is which is may not be what most people think it is

[dyer | 202]

3 minutes ago, Hybrid said:

I have a theory of what the power monger artwork is which is may not be what most people think it is

Sounds interesting, willing to share?

[fcgamer | 4,728]

Aside from this one, I don't have another, though I viewed the manual on Sega Retro and mine is definitely different.

Similarly, those dots (at least on mine) aren't stickers,  it's directly printed on, so not sure how they'd do that if they decided it wasn't up to snuff, after already printing .