Check out these images from the cancelled Mario Land game for the Virtual Boy

The Virtual Boy, a console that Nintendo would probably rather forget, is as fascinating as it is obscure. A commercial failure rushed to market despite protests from its creator, Gunpei Yokoi, and intended to bridge the gap between the 16-bit generation and the Nintendo 64—known at the time as Project Reality.

In total, only 22 games were released for the Virtual Boy before Nintendo decided to pull the plug on the console, which only lasted a year on U.S. store shelves before disappearing completely. The situation was even worse in Japan, where the Virtual Boy was discontinued after just six months. A full-blown disaster that, nevertheless, continues to live on among retro gaming enthusiasts.

Due to its absurdly short lifespan, a number of games never made it to release before the console was pulled. One of these, long considered "lost media," is VB Mario Land. A game that never received an official title and was only shown to the press during the Winter CES in January 1995.

Visitors weren't allowed to try it out—instead, the only thing shown was a demo of the first level on a number of widescreen TVs. The few images of the game that existed have long since vanished. That is, until now. Deep in old AOL catalogues unearthed from The Internet Archive, an unexpected discovery has been made: high-resolution, seemingly official press images of Virtual Mario Land, once distributed by Nintendo themselves. Take a look for yourself below.

Have you ever tried the Virtual Boy? What are your thoughts on the console?