BANG BEAD / BANG PROGRESS

by VISCO GAMES

NEO GEO MVS NGM-259

DETAILED DESCRIPTION:

Bang Bead is a sports style action game by Visco that was shown at the European ENADA show in the year 2000. It is the sequel to Visco's 1998 Battle Flip Shot. The game had a very small and limited production run and as a result the cartridges are very scarce. I am the proud owner of the first one that was ever discovered in Italy by Simone' Damico. The game plays much faster then Flip Shot and offers improvements in all areas of gameplay such as graphics, sounds, options, etc. The game had been incorrectly called "Bang Head" by some previous sources prior to it's discovery, which caused much confusion as well.

Although Bang Bead has come to be accepted as an official NEOGEO cartridge, at one point it was considered to be a proto because so little was known about the game. It also took about a year or so before even a second cartridge was found which also caused much speculation. Over time, more cartridges surfaced, and it eventually became more clear that it was indeed produced. After 2000 and through up until 2004, SNK only released 1 non-fighting & non Metal Slug series game, (the puzzle game Pochi 'n Nya) which is also an extremely rare cartridge. So SNK inadvertently created the mystique with these games due to their small production runs.

Another interesting footnote with regards to Bang Bead was that a large portion of the unsold inventory stock of MVS kits were, for unknown reasons, relabeled with replacement cartridge stickers that renamed the games title to Bang Progress.

INFORMATION TIMELINE:

-- February 2000 -- Bang Bead is officially shown by Visco at the Enada Expo in Italy.

-- March 2000 -- Simone' Damico reports about Bang Bead on a BBS newsgroup.

-- March 2001 -- Billy Pitt purchases the Bang Bead cartridge and acquires it in the USA.

-- April 2001 -- the NGM / NGH software product number is revealed to be 259.

-- February 2002 -- Emulated shots surface.

CURRENT STATUS: RELEASED


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