Features

James · #1

I posted this elsewhere. I'm posting it here. I think it deserves to be ont he site, but I'm not gonna bother trying to get Rog to agree.

Click images for bigger versions.

I have a habit of not throwing out my old game magazines. It takes me years before I can part with them, usually because I know one day I'll looking for that one bit of nostalgia that I no longer have. So, while going through a bunch of old magazines and preparing them for the trash, I came across more than a few ads for games that I thought were... strange, for whatever reasons. So I cut a bunch of them out to save, scan in, and share with you folks. There's only a few to start with, but there will be more. My scanner's just having a bad day, so I don't want to keep working it over.

-We start off with Blazing Dragoons. This game is about... Something. It's apparently a humorous medeival adventure, created by Monty Python himself, Terry Jones. Sounds good, and I almost regret never playing it. But look at that ad! Yes, that IS Cheech Marin breathing fire. This borders on being a pretty badass ad, but it's still just too odd not to put here.

-Next, we have Frantic Flea. It's apparently a game about fleas. That's all this ad gives me to go on. It may or may not also be about some mentally deranged psycho kid with fleas in his hair, and a 1950's school nurse/lunch lady looking awfully concerned despite that fact that she's RIPPING THE FUCKING KID'S HAIR OFF.

-Deep breath, everyone. Midway Presents Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 2. That's got to be the longest fucking title in the history of games. This was a collection of 6 games; RoadBlasters, Millipede, Marble Madness, Crystal Castles, Gauntlet, and Paperboy. Paperboy is clearly the star of the show, being the focus of the ad. Now, I remember Paperboy, but I don't remember the kid looking so... Jesus Christ. He looks like Chucky and the Toxic Avenger had a baby and smacked it in the face with a rolled up newspaper. Which would probably explain his fascination with being a paperboy who throws papers at gargoyle statues.

-This game is by far the one that most interests me. Treasure Matser boasts that if you found the special password within 12 hours (12 hours in the game, or 12 hours after the game came out, or 12 hours after the date they give?), you will be able to compete for FANTASY PRIZES on April 11, 1992 at Noon. Well... Fuck. Am I too late? How did this work? Was it a vault in the game? Did the game have an internal clock to know the real date? This is way before the Internet was around/big, so it wasn't a website you could go to. It claims you compete to win Fantasy Prizes. Compete with who? What are the prizes? Are they even real? TELL ME FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! I seriously would give anything to know what the fuck the answers are here.

But yeah, let's look at the art here. Shark humping a submarine/torpedo. Spider with dead-doll eyes on a microchip. A dragonfly that looks like it's going to throw up. Half a robot rocketing skyward. AND SCOOTER THINKS ALL THIS IS JUST NEAT! I also provided a closeup shot of just the artwork here. Print it out and put it on your wall!

-And last for now is Wild Guns. I... don't even know where to begin. How about with that giant fucking robot? A huge arm cannon with AT LEAST 4 barrels of destruction, and he manages to just miss the two people who are about 12 feet away. Or that cactus was really asking for it. We have a lady with a machine gun, and a cowboy with a rope that seems to permanently stay in a series of rings. There appears to be a giant space beetle ship thing, and there's another cowboy over to the left wearing some sort of chest plate. And another woman whose gunfire cleverly hides her crotch from the viewer's lustful gaze. I really feel this game needs to be made into a movie. UWE BOLL GET IN HERE!

More to come. Love me and my inability to throw shit away.

the_dudefather · #2

http://64.53.95.207/treasure/treasure.html

has more info on treasure master.

good stuff james

James · #3

Thanks for that link.

Mad Melvin · #4

Look out! A gigantic angry head is flying this way! Shoot it down!
SAY RAP, SAY TAITO, SAY YO!

EisigerBiskuit · #5

Sweet mother of christ! It's taken 3 minutes to load the small pictures.
When I tried Save Target, it started at -9kb :/

Supafly345 · #6

Every ad moment in video game history is an odd one. I think a better title would be "The most memorable moments in video game advertising."

Perndog · #7

I saw the TV spot for Lord of the Rings: Third Age yesterday. They flashed the quote "Best RPG since Final Fantasy."

I hope I don't have to explain this one to anybody.

EverythingWillSuck · #8

Blazing Dragons was also a cartoon. I think Cheech did one of the voices.

I played Frantic Flea when it came out. Just another run of the mill average platformer, but the speed run move kicks so much ass I almost sent it in to nintendo power for the Cheats section (even if it was just a normal move listed in the instruction booklet)

James · #9

And now, for a nice new batch.

-To start things off, we have Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. What I find odd is how the ad pretty much says "RPG FOR IDIOTS" in so many words. I don't even think an Edutainment title admits to its simplicity as much as this. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but when a game ad more lor less says "You do not need a brain to play this," I consider it an odd moment.

-The Combatribes. I rented this game, actually. It's a mix of beat-em-up and suck. But I fucking love this ad. Renegade cyborg AND fabulous babe? You're gonna be the envy of your old high school class come Reunion time, Splatterhead. The Combatribes also teaches us violence against women is OK, as long as their bodies are made up of less than 100% bioligcal material. And look at that last frame! Berzerker done punched her retarded, and I laughed for a good 5 minutes at that.

And why the fuck is The Joker in here?

-Speaking of laughing, give me a moment here... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I don't know if that kid is the stupidest goddam thing I've ever seen in a game ad, or if he's the most awesome goddam thing I've ever seen in a game ad. Regardless, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Berlin Wall is a game about... Who the fuck cares? LOOK AT THAT KID! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

-No, this isn't an ad for Japscat. It's for VMX Racing, which is apparently about dirtbikes or motocross or something that involves two wheels and mud. But the "guy" there is just really creepy. The vacant stare off into the distance and NOT on the game. The slightly-off mouth showing only a row of pearly white teeth (And I won't even begin to explain why they shouldn't be showing at all, and how the TOP teeth should be at least a little. Err... Too late). That fact that he's completely caked in mud to the point that he looks like the Golgothan from Dogma. He looks like a mindless mud zombie, being controlled by some off-screen mad scientist to play this game, because nobody else will.

-And last for now, we have Panic!. Got Panic? What's the RIGHT answer to that? I'm guessing "RAPE! RAPE!" So this guy seems to be overjoyed with the milksplosion coming from his nose, and who can blame him? He's got PANIC!. Now, I don't know what a game with a boy in pink overalls and his equally-happy dog could be about, but it's apparently about something downright awful. Look in the corner there. MA-17 rating. What in the holy fuck could be so bad in this game that nobody under 17 is allowed to see it? What the fuck is this game even about? Does it have milk in it? Time to go look for some information over on GameFAQs. No, I don't got Panic!, but I sure as hell wish I did.

the_dudefather · #10

lol at berlin wall kid

EverythingWillSuck · #11

Panic! is some sort of weird puzzle game. I'm surprised to see it got MA-17... when I saw a review of it in a magazine years ago it was MA-13, but whatever works.

It got released for the PS2 in Japan also.

Helm · #12

Haha the Panic! add is amazing!

I have a few old magazines with the mystic quest ad and I never read the blurb. Also, there's a great ad for the nes (on the whole) with a weird mixture of many characters from many games that is bizzare, but I can't find anything old enough to scan.

James, have you seen the Battlecruiser 3000 ad with the chick?

FS · #13

That Combatribes comic is ridiculously amazing. The Joker made me LOL.

the_dudefather · #14

i could dig through 5 years worth of CVG to find some more. but then again, im just not that bothered

James · #15

And we're back.

My scanner's still sputtering along. I'm sure it doesn't help that one of my cats feels the need to stand on it all the time.

-Plumbers Don't Wear Ties. There's really NOTHING I can say about this ad, except I'd love to be playing this right now.

-Next up, we have Stop That Roach. It appears to be some sort of puzzle game with some... kids? And... roaches? Roaches with 4 limbs, are permanently winking, and wear color-coordinated overalls over one shoulder. And they dance. Huh.

I also like fact that the little boy has a flame thrower. What the fuck, guy?

-This is probably more about the game being odd, rather than the ad. But the ad does have an interesting display. A "possum" (more on this later), dressed in spandex, holding on for dear life to the skin of a robot-trampling rhino. Clearly, this IS an Awesome Possum.

But WHY is he called a Possum? Sure, for the amusing rhyme in the title, but does that look AT ALL like a possum to you? I'd sooner call him Awesome Muskrat or Awesome Retarded Chimp, but without that title, the word "possum" would never pop into my mind while looking at a brown mouse with a fluffy ringed tail.

I won't even get into the giant cigar-smoking robot, the fact that this is an eco-friendly game about saving the environment, and a soda can that is falling from nowehere that MUST be caught before it calls. Well, besides this paragraph.

-Fantastic Night Dreams Cotton. This sounds like a Hentai game right off the bat, and the anime drawings featuring a half-naked fairy girl further evidence this. They're described as "sweet and seductive." The tagline is "Wait till you see what these girls can do with their hands." And it almost seems as if it's NOT a dirty sex game filled with tentacle rape. Well, it's an old game. Maybe sick sexual deviance of raping underage girls hadn't quite hit it big yet.

Oh, and that thing in the top-left corner looks like a pegasus with a Fraggle head. Which reminds me, I gotta get that Fraggle Rock DVD that came out last month.

-This is my favorite ad out of all of these. Even more so than Berlin Wall. Heh... that kid... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

*ahem* Anyway, Krazy Ivan is a game about... something. An angry naked Russian with two women that look slightly dominating, while a fat guy in a sagging diaper shakes his fist and looks up in the air. Perhaps he's angry at all the birds in the sky who refuse to fly directly into his mouth? And the game looks like some sort of shooter, and there's no evidence of Ivan, the girls, or the fatty being present. Disappointing. But at least the part about aliens seems present in both ad and game.

But, Ivan is one badass dude. If he came to your house, he'd make you take his cock any way he wants, either with his charm or with his force. Then he'd yank out your ribcage and use it as a gun rack.

We're nearing the end with only a few more to go!