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game ads in the nineties were insane

17/4/2019

23 Comments

 
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I've never worked in marketing, and - having never had a cocaine habit - nor would I want to.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure I could do a better job at selling products than the po-faced, Oooh-I'm-all-grown-up, tedium that passes for video game advertising these days. 

Still, as dull as most game ads are these, they're nothing next to the kaleidoscopic cascade of hyperactive juvenilia which appeared in games mags 20-odd years ago.

Certainly, if I was ever fortunate to own a time machine, I'd travel back to the 90s and make a small fortune doing a better job than the cack-brained idiots who were doing the ads back then. 

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about. 
KIRBY SUPERSTARS
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For the sake of our non-American readers, a s'more is a sort of sandwich made from couple of Graham Crackers - whatever they are - some chocolate and a marshmallow, traditionally melted over an open fire.

​This ad for Kirby Superstar is likening the Nintendo puffball to a marshmallow, which doesn't make a great deal of sense, and is something nobody has ever done, given that he more closely resembles a placenta.

But then they go on to mention a "smorgasbord of Kirby action" - seemingly trying to draw some sort of parallel between s'mores and smorgasbord (of which there is no parallel to be had, beyond the similarity in spelling).

Also features the phrase "hock up the bad guys" which is unpleasant, and suggests a far more graphic act of regurgitation than has ever been seen in a Kirby game.

Also, check out the "Play it loud" dirty protest. Who was running Nintendo's marketing department - Julian Assange?!?!

Nice one. Topical.
EAGLEMAX JOYSTICK
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Whichever way you choose to interpret this image - bird lime or dirty party - it's unpleasant. Double your nausea by noting that he has some of "it" - whatever "it" may be - got in his mouth.
CRUIS'N WORLD
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I've looked at this for 10 minutes straight, and I still can't work out what it's trying to say.

Be one? Be a sausage? Be a frankfurter? A hotdog? A wiener? What do any of those have to do with Cruis'n World? What does it mean?! Be at one with the sausage?

Also, is it just me, or is that sausage sweating slightly? We've all had a sweaty sausage, eh boys!

Baffling ad aside, why was Cruis'n USA and Cruis'n World even spelled like that? Cruisin' USA I get, but putting the apostrophe before the n, and not putting one afterwards... I... I... it makes me have a grammar aneurysm.
A FORK IN THE TALE
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You know you're in trouble when you're already assuming that people will think your game is just another terrible FMV nonsense. They don't help their cause when they claim that FMV will now stand for "Funny with My Voice". Or by putting Rob Schneider in it. Or by stating that "If this game doesn't change the way you think about FMV nothing will!".

SPOILER: It didn't. 

​Possibly the most desperate ad of all time.
VIRTUA FIGHTER
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Well done, Sega. Domestic violence towards children IS funny!
VIRTUAL LEAGUE BASEBALL
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Aren't ads meant to draw you in? Surely anyone's first reaction to the accompanying image would be to recoil. Unless, of course, they have some sort of fetish for "dad cracks".

If you do manage to read on, the main selling point of Virtual League Baseball seems to be that by playing it at home you won't have to smell the disgusting flatulence - sorry, "long, foul, floaters" - emitted by sports fans. 

Incidentally, I went to a baseball game in New York once. It was awful. It lasted about nine hours, and every 10 seconds they stopped the game to play a 20-second blast of "Another One Bites The Dust", and most of the crowd seem to be there to get drunk and bellow homophobic slurs at the players. 
BALLZ
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"Tell Santa you want Ballz for Christmas"... yes, okay... it's a literal message about the game. But also, it's intended as innuendo, and that innuendo is telling you to ask Father Christmas for some testicles for Christmas.

​Why would you want testicles for Christmas? Who is this ad aimed at? Men who were born without testicles? Women? Cannibals? 
GAME GENIE
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America banned the Game Genie - at least for a while - thanks to Nintendo suing Galoob over copyright infringement. No such badness happened in Canada, and Galoob made the most of it by printing ads which read "Thank You, Canada" - subtly encouraging American gamers to cross the border to pick up a Game Genie, eh.

Which is all well and good, but that text there at the bottom... why did they think it was a good idea to intersperse it with that out-of-context "dude" speech, which TUBULAR was GNARLY embarrassing even BODACIOUS in 1992?
ROAD RASH 64
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There's no getting away from it; it appears that baby has just shat out an entire N64 and four controllers.
PENTIUM III
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At first, I wasn't sure what was going on in this stark black and white image. Then I noticed the joystick. Then I noticed the three months-old baby. Then I noticed the umbilical cord. 

I'm not a woman, so couldn't imagine how difficult childbirth can be, but having done some really big poos in my time, which I'd imagine weren't all that different from giving birth, the thought of it brings tears to my eyes.

​What makes this ad for me is the plaintive "Dear heavens, no".
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23 Comments
Dan Whitehead
17/4/2019 10:41:44 am

To be fair to that last ad, I think even in 2019 most people's reaction to discovering they'd given birth to a gamer would be "Dear heavens no".

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CJJC
17/4/2019 11:05:16 am

Be a wiener/“a winner”.

Yes. I’m afraid that’s what they were going for.

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B3tanTyronne
17/4/2019 11:20:31 am

For me, the best ones were the olde Sega ads that appeared in Viz waaaay back in the 90`s.
https://segaretro.org/Viz_print_advertisements

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Paulvw
17/4/2019 12:49:41 pm

The sausage one is about being a 'big dog' isn't it?

Do I win £5?

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Steven Tench link
17/4/2019 12:54:05 pm

The ad for Wipeout with Sara Cox was mental as well

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Chris Hightail
17/4/2019 01:28:47 pm

As someone who uses to visit the states a lot in the 90's for work, I belive the cruise n word poster comes from the popular youth term from the time,'as fast as a sausage'. eg, "I've got to cram for my finals this semester, or my pop ain't gonna buy me a ride, and I want one that's as fast as a sausage" .

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Birch Vand
17/4/2019 01:47:16 pm

The Hot Dog one explains what it means at the bottom of the advert: "enough tricks to turn anyone into a hot dog." Which still doesn't make much sense, and raises even more questions; I thought hot dog was a skiing term? Dunno. And the sausage is disturbingly sweaty.

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Hot Dog ad
17/4/2019 03:04:22 pm

I assumed the sausage advert was saying "be a dick" because you could ram other cars off the road and drive badly. But obviously putting a severed penis in the ad would be bad, so they used the next best thing?

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Charlie Bouquet
17/4/2019 05:48:27 pm

Seeing that Cruisin World poster really takes me back. I’d forgotten all about it.
I was working in the industry back then and was at the N64 UK launch party. It was one hell of a night. Different times back then, an evening full of booze, music, games and more booze.
A group of us went clubbing afterwards, where I was lucky enough to participate in some filthy sexual practices in the loos with a member of the Spice Girls.
Different times indeed.

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Hue Stetson
17/4/2019 06:41:46 pm

Wow, only in the 90s,living the dream fella, was it only a fiddle or did 2 become 1?Fnar Fnar. Reminds me of a fantasy I used to have about the original line up of BanaRama, I used to wish me, my brother and my dad would go out on a date with the girls and they would do a little concert for us.

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Jim Leighton (Future World Darts Champion) x
18/4/2019 01:55:33 pm

I smell bullshit...… Nintendo wouldn't have the Spice Girls at a launch party.

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Smilin' Peter
18/4/2019 02:21:22 pm

To be fair, he did say that the alleged shenanigans with a spice took place when he went clubbing after the N64 party...

aceplym
17/4/2019 08:26:24 pm

Graham cracker = Digestive biscuit, believe it or not. Something to do with the wheat variety or something? See also 90's cereal and TMWRNJ plot hook Golden Grahams

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Starbuck
18/4/2019 08:49:23 pm

(all together) TMWRNJ!

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
17/4/2019 10:48:03 pm

I remember one for a Sega soccer game with a foot standing on a gamepad on a playing field, with the slogan “You’ll he tempted to play the new Sega Soccer game as realistically as possible, but then your gamepad would really stink”

Another was a guy claiming that to get every advantage in (generic Wipeout ripoff) he shaves his entire body to reduce wind resistance, and then “clean(s) the shaving cream off my mirror and pop it back in my PlayStation.” Predating the discs being black, I guess.

The Nintendo “Play it Loud” slogan was their attempt to reclaim the edgy angst demographic they’d successfully chased away to Sega (myself included) with the whole Mortal Kombat has nasty blood! Nintendo is for wee kiddiewinks! approach.

I recall seeing that Rob Schneider game once in a shop and wondering why.

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colincidence link
18/4/2019 07:54:35 am

Virtua Fighter one shows off the vast range of characters, from Lau to Lau

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Jim Leighton (Future World Darts Champion) x
18/4/2019 01:57:44 pm

Seeing that Ballz ad has put the game's music in my head...… and now it won't go away...……

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Smilin' Peter
18/4/2019 02:23:41 pm

The classic of Nintendo's Play It Loud campaign was the TV ad for Yoshi's Island.

Look it up. It will induce a smile of recognition from fans of Monty Python's Meaning of Life. And waves of nausea from everyone else!

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Socks
18/4/2019 03:33:08 pm

'I'm not a woman, so couldn't imagine how difficult childbirth can be, but having done some really big poos in my time, which I'd imagine weren't all that different from giving birth, the thought of it brings tears to my eyes.'

This made me lol, I have thought exactly the same, especially after witnessing my partner giving birth. I'm sure I've done poo's bigger than my 7 pound baby.

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murray link
18/4/2019 10:54:59 pm

hilarious, loved this post
DID NOT LOVE - fingernails on the guy holding the Kirby s'more
f'n naaaaaaaaasty mate

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mrak
19/4/2019 09:18:32 am

I did not notice. Ban this sick filth!

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Matt
19/4/2019 11:11:57 am

I remember some odd 3DO ads including for the 'EA Moist Mullet' which I seem to remember being a fish re-purposed as a console accessory.

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John Veness
3/5/2019 02:30:29 pm

On the Virtual League Baseball one, I've just noticed it boasts that the game is "the only ball game good enough to play in the Virtual Boy ball park". Presumably what they're really saying is "no one else is bothering to publish a baseball game on the system so like it on lump it, this is the best that you'll get".

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