Video Game Ads 16-Bit & Beyond

We return to our look at advertisements from the nineties by moving up to the 16-Bit era. Improvement in graphical muscle can only mean a parallel improvement in the marketing of games, yes?

 

First up, US Gold (remember them?) and Delphine Software bring us Flashback on the MegaDrive. Boasting that it's the first game to sqeeze CD quality images onto a humble cartridge, using a massive 12 Megs! The cut scenes in this game were brilliant for the time, but I honestly can't remember getting past the first level? Doesn't this print Ad just ooze excitement??

Hey Chico! The WWF got everywhere back in the 90s. Here we see the 5 major systems of the time each getting a wrestling game. But the main focus is on Royal Rumble, which was coming out on the SNES and Genesis. A fun game in multiplayer, made all the better by including one of the best wrestlers ever in the roster, 'The Model' Rick Martel. His pic does not appear on this Ad unfortunately!

What can I say about Mortal Kombat II that hasn't been said? It came out on all the main systems, and everyone played it at one time or another. Of all the versions that came out in the end, the 32X version is my favourite.

Konami released one of the best games on the Genesis with Rocket Knight Adventures. Its part platform game, part shooter. It's bright and colourful and stars an Opossum called Sparkster. Later Konami released a sequel, simply called Sparkster.

Go west young man! Konami follow up the popular Lethal Enforcers game with a sequel set in the old west called Gunfighters. It was ported over from the Arcade to the MegaDrive and MegaCD. You could also buy it with the Justifier LightGun, shown here bottom left. I think it only came in bright blue though, so police wouldn't confuse it with a real gun and blow you away while playing the game.

Video Game Ads from Comic Books of the late 80s, early 90s

Some more NES games and a few GameBoy games this time, as we move into the early nineties. As we move forward the standard of advertising is surely going to get better!

Tengen here were going right ahead with releasing games that did not have the official Nintendo seal of quality on them. Here are four games packed and ready to go. Gauntlet, Pac-Man and RBI Baseball would all later be repackaged as licenced games. Tetris on the other hand would only be on the shelves for a few weeks before Nintendo got it removed so they could release their own, some would say inferior, version. Tengen Tetris is now one of the rarer NES carts.

The original Metal Gear on NES. Here we see all the amazing gadgets you could use in your mission, stressing that your transceiver is the most important piece of kit. Of course 'you'll have to supply the wits'!!

Ultra Games were a division of Konami, founded as a way to get around Nintendo's strict rules on publishers releasing games for the NES. You were only allowed release five games a year according to Nintendo. This page scan shows Defender of the Crown, Skate or Die and the Turtles, but even Ultra knew we only wanted some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action. Palcom was Konami's equivalent to Ultra in Europe.

LJN released video games for their parent company Acclaim, usually licenced games. Usually bad licenced games! These Bill & Ted tie-in games are no exceptions. The NES version has you searching different time periods for historical figures, while the GameBoy game is just a one screen action/puzzle game. Both are far from excellent.

Konami had a Castlevania series on the GameBoy that ran parallel to the NES games. It's main character was Christopher Belmont, who I think only appears in these early GameBoy releases. I believe he may be Simon Belmont of NES Castlevania's, Great Grandfather.

This two page spread is unbelievably for the GameBoy version of Street Fighter II. Was 'Your Momma' really that funny back then? I'm not sure who this ad was aimed at, but seeing as they only included two SuperGameBoy screenshots of the game, I presume it was the millions (may have figures wrong) of owners of that particular piece of SNES gaming equipment.

Video Game Ads from Comic Books of the late 80s

Now we start moving up in years, and onto the powerhouse advertising of the NES. By far the biggest console of the late eighties and early nineties. If you did not have one under your telly yourself, you would certainly know someone who did.

Back in 1989 Hulk Hogan and the WWF were massively popular. And Acclaim brought out the first official game just in time for WrestleMania V, where the Hulkster defeated the Macho Man Randy Savage to win back the Championship belt. The game featured 6 of the most popular wrestlers of the day, and despite the limited move-set was good fun in multiplayer. It was very different from the WWF games that followed over the next number of years. It was developed by Rare and I'm guessing sold bloody millions. Well, maybe an exaggeration, but surely sold more than the VCR board game they also advertised. How would that work?

Who doesn't know Pac-Man right? Althought the picture of him on this Tengen NES conversion isn't the most flattering! Tengen released an unlicensed and licensed version for the NES, (this one's licensed) but it was just a reworking of Namcots Famicom Pac-Man that had come out in 1984.

Taito had a big hit on their hands with the Operation Wolf coin-op, and it was released on every system around at the time. This NES version was a little slow for my taste, but at least you could dust off the old Zapper gun, which was only used for shooting ducks. This ad has some pretty cool Commando style artwork, but sadly no screenshots. Hmmm... something to hide maybe? You weren't expecting an arcade perfect conversion now were you?

Again Taito refrain from putting screen shots on the advertisement. This time for the arcade conversion of Bubble Bobble. Maybe they thought the text would suffice in selling the game to people? But when the first line is the rather tongue-twisting, 'These are two hungry Dino-Mights and they've got bubble fight'n fun down tight', I'm not so sure.

Here Taito show four of their NES arcade conversions on one page. Focusing mainly on the rather solid conversion of Bubble Bobble. The ropey Operation Wolf conversion that has already been mentioned. A conversion of Toaplan's Sky Shark, also known as Flying Shark. Taito also converted Technos' Renegade, but it was only one-player and not a patch on the later Double Dragon.

Video Game Ads from comic books of the early to mid 80s, Part 2

The second part of our look at some advertisements from the early to mid eighties.

Here Parker Brothers bring foul-mouthed Q*Bert to your Atari. The screenshot alone should be enough to have you rushing down to the shops to buy it.

This is an advertisement for Star Wars: Return of the Jedi tie-in game, Death Star Battle from 1984. A game where you fly the Millennium Falcon through an enemy force-field before taking down the evil Death Star. All in glorious Atari 2600 graphics! Now why doesn't George Lucas go back and tinker with games like these, they were surely not what he envisioned?

Power Lords is a game released in 1983 for the Magnavox Odyssey 2 and announced but never released for the Colecovision. It is based on the toy line and comic book that was around at the time. The toys were generally crap looking and the comic only lasted three issues, so that's why no-one remembers this flop series nowadays. This game is pretty rare I believe, being one of the last games released on the Odyssey.

The sequel to the much loved Pitfall by David Crane arrives for your Atari, Apple, IBM PC and from the Ad above, the mighty C64. Pitfall II Lost Caverns did away with cartoon representation of platforming and instead went with a picture of a man entering a cave. Every young boys dream in the early eighties I'm sure.

Long Ago, In the Distant Future?!? Joust comes to your home Atari systems. The arcade hit is so popular they don't need screenshots to show whats going on, as presumably everybody knows already how to steal giant eggs. For you see as it says... You Don't Play It... You Live It!

The Masters Of The Universe game from Mattel on Intellivision and Atari 2600. The Power of He-Man uses SuperGraphics to bring your battles with Skeletor to life, or as near was possible on the Intellivision anyways. You got a free comic when you bought this too if I remember.

Ghostbusters, the box-office smash hit movie gets converted to home systems by David Crane for Activision. Here we finally get some screen shots of the game in action for the Commodore 64. Brilliant game, brilliant movie, what more could you ask for?

Video Game Ads from comic books of the early to mid 80s, Part 1

I have a large selection of comics going back a number of years, and while thirty years ago kids seemed to be excited by remote control cars, offers of posters of John Travolta, or body building equipment?? Eventually video games start to creep into these pages. So the next number of posts will focus on the ads from the early eighties to the late nineties. It gives me an excuse to use my scanner (yes, it does work) and to look over some classic Swamp Thing and Legion of Super Heroes comics. Aah, the days when Marvel and D.C. didn't need an earth shattering event every six months to screw with continuity and generally mess up their universes.

Atari presents Mario Bros. from 1983. It promises exciting two-player action for your Atari 2600 and 5200 in an arcade port of some sort of plumbing simulator, it'll never catch on.

Wow, Frogger was so popular it had to be released on no less than 8 different systems! The Sega arcade hit from 1983 really could not be avoided (insert traffic reference here). At least they show an actual screenshot from the Atari 5200 version in this ad rather than a sneaky artists impression of what the game kind of looks like that some ads go for. Which of the eight versions is the best? Hell if I know! You wonder why there was a videogame crash!

Here is a spread for Frogger from a year earlier for your Atari Video Computer System. This contains the artists depiction of the game in action. This must have driven Frogger fans into a near frenzy. It's just like the arcade!! Coming Soon! Parker Brothers promised, with little indication that it would spawn (get it?) so many Froggers.

Burger Time was another conversion of an arcade hit, this time by Data East, that would be coming soon to pretty much any system you could possibly have connected to your monitor or TV. It does come with a health warning though, "Graphics vary by system". Why be a knight or a space marine, when you could be a chef flipping burgers?

Look, it's pretty straight forward, you either bump'em or jump'em, there is no third option. Race'em? Don't be stupid, where's the fun in that exactly? Mattel Electronics bring another Data East coin-op to the home with versions for both the Intellivision and the Atari 2600.

Mattel bring Advanced Dungeons and Dragons to your Intellivision. Ignore the archer with the impossibly wide stance trying to down the big green monster and look at that screenshot. Is that a snake? jewel? castle? wolf? Use your imagination... but I don't think the Intellivision control pad has enough buttons to keep up with my imagination!

The sequel to the first AD&D, Treasure of Tarmin would be released by Mattel not long after the first game, which was called Cloudy Mountain apparently. Again for this ad, ignore the archer surrounded by nasties, holding a bow that's taller than he is, and look at that in-game screen. Is that a spider? a Catoblepas? a blue polyhedral dice eating monster? Holy crap it's like Doom with arrows.