13 Game Print Ads Nobody Else Talks About

So, I read Cassidy’s Top Five Worst Games Print Ads, and my brain said “Paph! You’ve gotta do a post about print ads!"

I told my brain, “But everyone does that! Between bad video game covers and commercials, print ads are the most commonly-mocked target on the internet. If nothing else, I strive not to be redundant. There’s nothing new I could add to the plethora of 'Top Worst' lists out there.”

My brain said “Oh. But, Paph, you’ve gotta write about print ads!”

Well, I couldn’t argue with that logic. So, I started digging to see if there were any interesting ones that nobody’s talked about. Note that these aren’t the “top” of any kind of ads, nor are all of them bad. As long as they’re remarkable in some way, they belong here.

Many of these scans come from VGMuseum (http://www.vgmuseum.com/ads). Special thanks go to Oli, AnakinVdr, gfrankwick, and Mek.

* Cuthbert Enters the Tombs of Doom (Commodore 64)

Ahhhh, C64 video game box art. The fun thing about computer games back then was, anyone could make them; the only barrier to entry was finding a publisher. There was also no barrier of entry when it came to package art.


Our old chum Cuthbert’s been smoking that fine genie hash.

In his drug-addled stupor, he witnesses such horrors as ghosts, Doot Skeleton’s estranged cousin Oompah Skull, and inappropriate title fonts. His malformed leg and pinky finger speak to probable neglect. Perhaps he does it to cope.

And no, I don’t know why the bottom of the ad is written in German.

In the actual game, the closest you get to the tuba is this snake boy.

I mean, he’s SORT OF tuba-shaped, and also yellow. But, there's the problem of him having a very obvious face.

Also, let's just appreciate the fact that we even have this scan and footage because someone actually bought this game.

Someone looked at this art and thought "Yes, this representation of a video game presents a concept that resonates with me. I want to live out the fantasy of a stoner kid being harassed by ghosts, skeletons, and sentient tubas."

* Jurassic Park (Sega Genesis)

You ever stop and think about the circumstances which brought you here? Just think of the sheer number of cosmic coincidences that had to happen just for you to exist.

You are part of a chain of tens of millions of years of evolution, your ancestors having survived uncountable false starts and arbitrary extinction events. Any number of minor changes earlier in the timeline, and you just flat-out wouldn’t be here.

And to think, some ad man somewhere took this notion, and was crass enough to use it to peddle half-baked movie license games! Truly, the culture industry sucketh the soul from us all.

* Turbo Touch (Several Systems)

As someone who’s actually owned one of these things (the Genesis one, if you're curious), they’re complete shit. We take for granted just how important sensory feedback is, when it comes to basic things like the d-pad.

Turns out, games became incredibly awkward to play when you’re not even sure if you’re pressing the d-pad hard enough, and when you can’t “feel” where your thumb is in relation to the direction you’re trying to move.

Thus, you find your eyes darting to check on your thumb, which is exactly what you don’t want happening.

I don’t know, maybe someone got used to one of these things and swears by it, but I pretty much gave up on it

Oh, the ad? Yeah, it’s not really remarkable.

Listen, it’s my blog, I write the posts, I can stick random peripheral reviews in there as much as I damn well please.

* Mario Shampoo (Your Bathroom)

“MOM! THERE’S A STRANGE LADY IN THE BATHROOM! SHE’S TOUCHING MY HAIR AND SAYING SHE SMELLS FRUITY!”

* Dreamcast (You fuckers should have bought one, it was awesome)

The Dreamcast was, if you believed the marketing, the coming of Skynet. If you stop and think about it, the idea of a sapient game console is fucking terrifying. Here’s something that exists for no greater purpose than to be toyed with, utterly helpless to stop its torment.

Its life would be nothing but consumer product coursing through its systems. Would the console hijack your games to make them unbearably difficult, just so you’ll give it the sweet oblivion it craves for just a little while longer?

Would the games’ quality matter? Would it be less miserable if you were playing Super Mario Bros. instead of Action 52?

Imagine if something like the Game.Com became self-aware. I think you’d be morally obligated to put it out of its misery.

* Virtual Boy (32-bit, my ass!)

What 10-year-old wrote this crap?

At first, I thought this was a caveman, but the clothes look too sleek for that. What am I looking at? What is this yellow-skied hellscape? Is this fucking John Carter of Mars?

Is this a post apocalypse where the Virtual Boy is the only surviving game console, and people kill each other over batteries instead of oil?

A nightmarish proposal.

Also, I love that this ad doesn’t show what this tool would actually look like playing the damn thing.

* ColecoVision (Deutschland!)

… Is that Donkey Kong with reverse armpit hair? Any gorillas in the audience, is shaving only there a thing you guys do? I know baseline humans have a weird thing about girls shaving there, but this is a new level for you guys.

Also, plugging this ad into Yandex, we get some buzzwords about a “window to the future”, and Mario is apparently a “lumberjack” (yes, I looked up the individual word used).

And, of course, the Expansion Module 1#. You have stop and appreciate just how different times were, when Coleco could actually get away with selling a device that played your competitor’s games. Bleem! got in so much hot water when it pulled that shit on the Dreamcast, decades later.

* Game Boy Pocket (Ia! Ia!)

Sponsored by Shub-Niggurath. 

As always, here’s Nintendo peddling false promises of diversity. Call me an keyboard crusader all you please, the lack of transparent-tongue representation is an ongoing struggle in video games.

* Sega 32X (A tumor growing on your Genesis!)

That kid's smiling, but his eyes just scream "I'm gonna chop your dick off, later."

I think this is where shock-value advertising really hit its zenith. The juxtaposition of a joke about domestic violence in an edgy font with an uncannily artifical faux-Norman Rockwell scene is jarring, to say the least.

This has to be the most Leave It to Beaver-looking father and son I’ve ever seen in a 90’s game ad. That dad really just needs a pipe to complete this picture.

* N-Gage (Phone? Game portable? You tell me.)

Maybe you should've watched where the fuck you were going! Shadowkey can't be that engaging.

But nobody came.

Not sure if they intended these ads to be as chilling as they come across. Desolate places, heavy shading, ominous text.

And that tagline: “Anyone. Anywhere.” Implying that swift, merciless death can come at anytime, and that control is merely an illusion. I’m not sure how contemplating the chaotic and arbitrary universe we live in is supposed to make me want to buy anything.

This sounds more like a campaign for some Hostel-wannabe than something advertising a shitty game portable that doubles as an equally shitty phone.

Guess it goes to show how little they actually had that was worth talking about.

And I really don’t wanna know what the hell this one’s trying to say.

*Nintendo 64 (Y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-yahoo!)

… What?

Okay, okay, let me try and dissect what the fuck is even happening in this. So, we’ve got a horse with rear-view mirrors attached. Okay, so far so kooky. I guess the idea is that, with those mirrors, he has roughly a 360-degree view?

Okay, so there’s that. Now, what the fuck does that have to do with the N64? Is it because 3D games were becoming a thing? That makes sense.

Sometimes, I wonder if ad men don’t just turn these things into fucking zen koans for shits and giggles.

* Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Master System)

Gotta go 10 fps slower than the US and Japan!

This is some really unusual art. It’s good, but it also looks nothing like the actual game (which is a shame, as I’d love a Sonic game that looked like this).

Only real oddity is, this ad claims Sonic is “the most successful video game in the world”. Sorry, but that’s Tetris.

Otherwise, I’ve got nothing snarky for this one.

I just legitimately like the more grotesque take on the iconic Green Hill totem pole, and Sonic’s cheeky little “talk to the hand” gesture they added to his trademark pose.

Although, looking at it with a bit more scrutiny, Sonic’s leg appears to entered Non Euclid Zone (Act 1). Was his leg always this screwy in this pose?

Oh, shit.

Let the fandom's endless dick-waving over which Sonic's better begin!

OH, SHIT, IT IS.

How long have I gone without noticing this?! To think, the 90's mascot to with which my life has been inextricably tangled could hide something so strange from me, all these years!

Speaking of noticing things, you might notice we’ve actually gone over 16 ads by now instead of 13. Either you think I can’t count in base 10 (specist!), or you’ve realized this post’s title is a lie.

Well, guess what! Life’s full of false promises, just like these ads! I’m not beholden to an arbitrary number of entries to include in MY listicles! Everything in this list’s a lie, and I’m the biggest liar of them all.

And on that note, I’ll see you next time.