Lost Levels Spotlight: Bio Force Ape
Bio Force Ape, an unreleased game developed by SETA, is a contender for the Holy Grail of retro video game collectors. People have looked for a cartridge for years but never found one. A hoax of the game on a classic game forum in 2005 resulted in some minor internet memes. Lost Levels has the whole story, from mentions of the game in 1991 to how the game was eventually found and dumped.
Bio Force Ape is different, though. Already a freakish oddity based on what little information was teased in Nintendo Power in the early ’90s, the game’s notoriety grew exponentially in the years since, resulting in fan games, rampant speculation, and perhaps the greatest prank ever played on the game collecting community.
Many simply assumed that a playable version of Bio Force Ape never existed. They were wrong. This is Bio Force Ape — the genuine article — in all its naked simian glory.
Be sure to watch at least the first stage of the playthrough video at the end of the article. The game is actually kind of impressive. The animations are pretty good, especially the suplex and throw finishing moves. Notice how the sumo wrestler being thrown at 5:07 has several unique frames of animation while being spun around, as the player character grabs his stomach.
And that scrolling is lightning quick, jeez. I haven’t seen an NES game this fast since Recca.