COMIC BOOK ARCADE FLYERS

Comic book superheroes, huh? They’re not just for kids and dorks any more! Okay, so maybe that’s a bit harsh, but superheroes are now one hundred percent mainstream, and as someone who spent a lot of their youth enjoying superhero fiction (although not necessarily comics) it’s an interesting time for the concept of costumed weirdos punching each other. There have been plenty of mis-steps – I knew Suicide Squad was going to be bad but I was definitely not prepared for just how bad – but there’s a lot of enjoyable live-action superhero stuff out there these days. It’s bizarre to me that I can be watching a superhero TV show and think to myself “oh cool, Captain Cold’s in this episode, nice,” but that’s the world we live in these days. It was all different when I was a kid, though. I didn’t have any comic book stores nearby or the financial resources to keep up with monthly series (except the Real Ghostbusters comic, thanks mum) so most of my superhero exposure came from movies, cartoons and, of course, videogames. This is all a roundabout way of saying here, let’s look at some arcade flyers from comic book videogames!

X-Men, Konami, 1992

(images from The Arcade Flyer Archive, click for bigger)

Let’s begin with a prime slab of comic book art that fuses the powerful nostalgia streams of nineties Marvel and arcade beat-em-ups with Konami’s much-loved X-Men. The game itself might not be quite as much fun to play these days as you remember, but that’s a minor consideration because hearing Magneto croak “Welcome to die!” could transform any game into a masterpiece. Just looking at this artwork means I’ll have “Here Comes the Hero” stuck in my head for hours to come. As for the artwork itself, there’s not much to say about it, honestly. It’s just a nice, large image of all your favourite X-Men characters, plus Dazzler. The most striking thing about it is that I don’t remember Wolverine wearing a huge red belt, but apparently his brown suit did indeed feature a huge red belt. Funny how memory works, huh? And what’s that belt supposed to be holding up, his skin-tight lycra suit? Wolverine’s the best there is at what he does, and what he does is promote the importance of adequate lumbar support.

The Japanese flyer feature the same heroic X-Men in a different pose, overshadowed by the leering face of Magneto. The Master of Magnet looks like he’s just seen someone drop a twenty pound note and he’s about to stand on it until they walk away and then pinch it. As for the rest of the characters, they look good and dynamic, although poor Nightcrawler has to suffer the indignity of having text obscuring his face. If you’re thinking that the art looks like an animation cell, that’s probably because X-Men: The Arcade Game was famously based on the semi-failed cartoon pilot Pryde of the X-Men.

There’s also this flyer, which really gets across the grandeur of the full six-player X-Men cabinet. “Play X-Men today at an arcade near you! No excuses!” it says, and yeah, sure, unless the arcade bought the six-player cabinet and then had to close down because the floor collapsed.
If you’ve ever been lucky enough to enjoy the full six-player X-Men experience - sorry, "eXperience" -  please don’t tell me, because I’d just be jealous.

Spider-Man: The Videogame, Sega, 1991

It’s your friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler, and he’s got his own arcade videogame! That’s right, Spider-Man : The Videogame, the game all about Spider-Man starring Spider-Man and three other people Spider-Man knows. Let’s face it, neither Black Cat, Sub-Mariner nor Hawkeye are in the same league as Spider-Man, are they? I’m sure they all have their fans, and I bet Black Cat has plenty of fan “art,” but Spidey’s definitely the star here. Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t the artwork  on this flyer look a bit old-fashioned for a game released in 1991? That’s not a complaint, it’s a classic look for the characters featured here, even if Namor’s raw sexual magnetism is making me a little uncomfortable.
There’s some interesting text down there on the bottom-right. Describing the characters as “three heroes and a heroine” seems like an unnecessary distinction, but I do like Dr. Doom being called “an incarnation of evil.” An incarnation of good common sense and benevolent leadership who is forever being slandered by the accursed Reed Richards might be more accurate, but this description is much less cumbersome.

The US flyer goes with a daft pun, which makes sense to me because there are two things I associate with Spider-Man: radioactive spider blood and bad jokes. The pun is then re-used at the end of the blurb, because if a joke was lame in the first place it can only get better with repetition. In fact, you could say there’s so much value in that pun that it’s really got legs, oh no, I’ve fallen into some kind of meta void.
Speaking of voids, I spent far too long looking at the background thinking it was some kind of abstracted Spider-Man mask before realising the magenta part is the silhouette of an arcade cabinet and the blue bits are supposed to be the trails of the swooshing screenshots. I was looking for depth where there was only ugly graphic design.

Superman: The Video Game, Taito, 1988

The Man of Steel gets a pretty boring flyer for his eponymous arcade adventure, but then I suppose Superman is so iconic that all you need to sell the idea of a Superman game is an image of Superman bursting though a paper sheet like a winning contestant on Gladiators.

The European flyer is a bit more engaging. Superman hurls a meatball into the depths of space, which at least gets a flicker from the needle of the interesting-o-meter because now I’m thinking of the phrase “intergalactic bolognese.” He also breaks apart some chains with a smile on his face. You see, he’s happy because some villain was dumb enough to attack Superman with regular metal chains and not a kryptonite-powered death machine.

Batman, Data East, 1990

After Superman, logically the next superhero to check up on is Batman, and of course he also got his own arcade game. It’s not that great, from what I remember. As you can see, it’s based on Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman movie, which means this flyer contains little more than Michael Keaton doing a kissy face. Seriously, what is with that expression? Batman looks like he’s just seen the kid in front of him buy the last scoop of chocolate ice cream and while he’ll settle for raspberry ripple he’s not happy about it.

Batman Forever, Iguana Entertainment, 1996

The streets of Gotham City are paved with gold, plus cobblestones and fondant-coated cakes shaped like the Bat-Symbol that act as impromptu manhole covers. You know, if Gotham’s streets were paved with gold it’d explain why so many criminals are obsessed with the bloody place. As much as I like Batman, I was something of an over-analytical kid and it always bothered me that all these crimes took place in the city that’s home to the World’s Greatest Detective. Like, c’mon, man: Akron, Ohio has banks too.

Batman, Raw Thrills, 2013

Here’s a surprisingly modern Batman arcade game, a racing-combat title where you hare through the streets of Gotham – thankfully not paved in gold, because that’d play havoc with the Batmobile’s traction – and chase down some of Batman’s famous foes. I’ve seen this game in action, and the strange thing about it is that it still has the same feel as an arcade game from the late nineties / early two thousands. It’s something to do with the way the action is framed, punchy and hyper-kinetic in a manner that you don’t see in console games. Presumably it’s designed that way to grab the attention of potential customers, as though the enormous glowing Bat-Symbol wouldn’t do that on its own.
I’m especially interested in the claim that you can control “every Batmobile ever” in this game. Now, I know that’s not strictly true, but you can play as the Batmobiles from the sixties TV series and Batman: The Animated Series and frankly why would you want to drive any other Batmobiles? So, I’ll let them off.

Justice League Heroes United, Global VR, 2009

Now this one just feels like a cruel practical joke. An arcade beat-em-up starring the likes of Batman, Wonder Woman and the Joker with cel-shaded graphics, supposedly co-developed by Konami? In another universe this is my favourite videogame ever, but from what I’ve seen of the version we received on this Earth Justice League Heroes United is an incredibly simplistic and remarkably ugly brawler with poor hit detection and combat that’s got as much depth as two junior school kids having a thumb war. Just looking at this flyer is disappointing me and, in the case of the Joker’s face, kinda creeping me out. I know the Joker is supposed to be creepy, but in a “sinister and unhinged” way rather than a Tippexed corpse. Throw in Wonder Woman staring at her own hands with an expression of utter bemusement, and I think we can all be glad that this one never got a home release.

Captain America and The Avengers, Data East, 1991

Ah, that’s better, back to some artwork you might actually want to look at. Well, as long as you ignore Vision’s massive hand / tiny head combo. Other than that, it’s pretty good. Captain America takes centre stage, as well he might, with all the most famous features of his design on display: his mighty shield, his red-white-and-blue suit, the two small tufts of grey hair at his temples that remind you hey, Cap fought in World War Two, he’s an old man now.
These days, it’s kinda weird to see Iron Man shuffled into the background of a superhero team-up, huh? Just bide your time, Tony. One day you’ll be Robert Downey Junior and you’ll never have to lurk behind Hawkeye again. And hey, I could have sworn the Red Skull doesn’t usually have ears. Skulls don’t have ears. Then again, skulls don’t have eyes, either, so I suppose it’s down to artistic interpretation. At least if you draw him with ears you know his Nazi hat won’t keep slipping off his head.

The American flyer for Captain America and The Avengers is… less compelling. Ha ha, “super hero foursome.” Where was I? Oh yeah, you might think Cap’s climbing out of that arcade cabinet, but take a look at the way the monitor glass is broken around his leg. There’s no way his bulging, justice-packed torso would fit through that gap, so clearly he’s just kicked a hole in the cabinet’s screen to get your attention. Now that he has your attention, he can tell you some marvel-ous facts. Go on, read that speech bubble and then admit it, the voice inside your head sounded like a kid giving a class presentation on the exports of Slovakia or something. At least those facts are believable – over on the left there’s the claim that in some arcades, Avengers is out-earning Street Fighter II at a rate of two-to-one. I must conclude those arcades did not contain a Street Fighter II cabinet.

Avengers in Galactic Storm, Data East, 1995

Captain America once more takes the starring role in Avengers in Galactic Storm, and he’s really carrying the whole thing because the other playable characters are… well, they’re down the Marvel Comics pecking order, let’s put it that way. Apart from Cap we’ve got the medieval-themed Black Knight, the element-manipulating Crystal and kinda-Thor-but-not-really Thunderstrike. Crystal has already appeared in the Inhumans TV show, and I’m sure that by 2025 Black Knight and Thunderstrike will have their own movies, movies beamed directly into the population’s brains by the now-sentient Disney-Marvel-Fox Mandatory Entertainment Droids.
Until then, we’ll have to settle for looking at these CG graphics which have not aged well at all. Early low-poly PS1-type stuff can have a lot of charm, but this is a shiny, plasticky nightmare, action figures come to life in a horror-movie version of Toy Story. Cap’s bulbous, over-inflated pectorals are dominating my focus. I can’t look away from them, and I can’t stop imagining the sounds of a clown making a balloon animal when Cap throws his shield.

The US flyer looks a little better. Not good, but better. The nineties really were the heyday of the brown leather jacket, huh? He doesn’t have one in this image but even Thunderstrike wears a brown leather jacket in the comics. I just feel sorry for the baseball pitcher that’s just out of view in the image above, because Thunderstrike has clearly smashed a home run outta the park.

Spawn: In The Demon’s Hand, Capcom, 1999

Oh hey, it’s Spawn! I’d kinda forgotten Spawn was a thing, but here he is in all his gothic, flappy-capes, not-nearly-as-cool-as-Link-Soul-Calibur-guest-character glory. The flyer is a big ol’ picture of Spawn himself, and there’s not much you can say about that. However, the tagline “access the cool and dark mysterious world of SPAWN” is rather glorious, don’t you think? You can access this world, but you are a mere visitor, child: you can never be as cool and dark mysterious as Spawn, emissary of hell and compulsive spike polisher.”

Also, Spawn will strike here. Apparently. Not a believer in the element of surprise, that Spawn.

X-Men: Children of the Atom, Capcom, 1994

To finish, let’s have some palette cleansers with the flyers for Capcom’s Marvel fighting games. I’m not going to cover the “versus Capcom” crossovers in an effort to keep this article comic-book centric, but Children of the Atom is X-Men all the way down and so here it is. Wolverine’s grimacing harder than any Canadian has ever grimaced before, and as someone who was recently told that they grind their teeth in their sleep it’s making me uncomfortable thinking about what this is doing to his teeth. I know Wolverine’s healing factor means he can grow them back, but still, tooth trauma isn’t fun to think about. Luckily Storm’s nearby, and she can calm Wolverine down by electrocuting his hand.
Relatedly, I’m sure I had a Marvel trading card of some sort with this very artwork on it. In this case, I would be happy for the comments to tell me if that was a real thing or something my brain has made up to distract me from the mental image of Wolverine’s teeth shattering under the pressure of his relentless fury.

The Japanese flyer is cool. I have nothing much to add, it just looks really good. Classic X-Men artwork, a strong design, Magneto looking much more menacing than he did on Konami’s X-Men flyer. Good work all around.

Marvel Super Heroes, Capcom, 1995

Finally for today, it’s Marvel Super Heroes and in what has been a running theme, the American flyer is kinda okay but not nearly as interesting as its Japanese counterpart. You’ve got some famous heroes, the game’s title, what more do you really need? Sure, the lighting on Psylocke makes her look very yellow and thus easily mistaken for some kind of wasp monster, especially with her leg(?) looking like a stinger, but aside from that? Perfectly acceptable.

This flyer, though? Get it printed out and hang it on your wall. That way you can live your life under the baleful gaze of Shuma-Gorath, and who wouldn’t want that?

Recently on VGJUNK:
How well can erotic comics translate into ZX Spectrum games? Find out with Lorna!
The Blue Bomber returns in Mega Man 4!
Famous monsters wreck the joint in The Movie Monster Game!

SPOOKY COMPUTER GAME ADS!

Now, an article that is little more than an excuse for me to look at Halloween-themed pictures. Okay, that's not strictly true, I'm also doing it because I enjoy sharing things with you, dear reader. It works out great, because if it's something good or fun then I get the satisfaction of having exposed it to a wider audience, and if it's terrible then hey, I've shared my pain with the world, my burdens lessened by knowing others may suffer as I have. It's a win-win situation. Don't worry, though, today's things are actually kinda great, assuming you're like me and you enjoy goofy Halloween stuff - it's a bunch of advertisements for home computer games!

The Addams Family, Ocean

(click for bigger images)

Let's begin with the first family of the macabre - until Freddy and Jason put their differences aside and get wed, at least - The Addams Family. Everyone loves the Addamses, right? It's hard to not be swept up by their joie de vivre. After all, as MC Hammer's immortal classic "Addams Groove" informs us, they do what they wanna do, say what they wanna say and live how they wanna live. Don't we all wish we could be that free, that comfortable in our own skin? Of course, I'm not sure doing what they wanted to do necessarily included "appearing in an utterly generic platformer," but here we are.
The game's based on the 1991 movie, so the advert's basically just a reproduction of the movie poster, but the blurb at the bottom has some interesting diversions. For one, they managed to misspell "Kookiest" as "Cookiest" despite "kooky" being used at the top of the article. Or maybe the Addamses have the most biscuit-like friends around, who knows? Also, one of the taglines just says "They dance a wacky dance!" I'm sold, I'll take ten copies. That's the power of advertising right there.

Demon Knight, ASP Software

Terry really gets into his role as the Dungeon Master. No, of course not, it's a malevolent entity with the power to manifest tiny skulls but not the power to de-clutter his desk. And so, the mighty demon sits alone at his messy workstation, on his extremely uncomfortable-looking chair, wondering why he's alone on a Saturday night and not out on the town besmirching chaste young maidens or, I dunno, pushing nuns down wells. I might be projecting a little bit, there. I think maybe I empathise with the demon because our skins are a very similar pallid shade. If it was a paint colour it'd be called "Alabaster Ghoul."
However, my favourite thing about this ad is the phrase "ASP Software subjects you to Demon Knight" You don't play it, you don't enjoy it, you're subjected to it, like a lecture from your parents or the films of Michael Bay. I know it's supposed to make the game sound challenging, but as someone who has spent time waiting for Commodore tapes to load I suspect it's more accurate than the designer intended.

Nightbreed, Ocean

"The Nightmare Has Begun!" Yeah, the nightmare of retina-bruising graphic design. This isn't an advertisement, it's full-on optical GBH. The layout of the text means gaining any insight into the game is like trying to divine the future from a can of Alphabetti Spaghetti. Even Boone looks like just being part of this monstrosity as a photograph is causing him excruciating pain.

Werewolves of London, Viz Design

Admit it, as soon as you saw that title the piano riff popped into your head, even if the werewolf doesn't have a Chinese menu in his hand. Unless you've never heard Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London," I suppose, but honestly how likely is that? Go on, check it out, here's a link. Now if you ever do hear that song again you'll immediately think of a werewolf rampaging through the streets of London, a werewolf so powerful that he's causing Westminster Palace to warp around him. Perhaps the distortion is caused by his animal magnetism, VGJunk says as he pre-emptively hurls rotten tomatoes at his own face.
This is a pretty neat-looking werewolf, in my opinion, with a traditional lycanthrope style. Werewolf Classic, if you will. He doesn't look especially perturbed by his transformation, although as his shirt is tattered but his trousers are not we can assume the shape-shifting starts at the head and works its way downwards. Wait until the transmogrification reaches his groin, then he'll have something to howl about.

Erik: Phantom of the Opera, Crysys

"The Phaaaantom of the Opera is heeere, to split some logs!" I thought the whole point of the Phantom was that he never leaves the Paris Opera, but here he is, walking the streets in a very non-phantasmic fashion. Hopefully he's on his way to get a haircut. Christine will never fall for you while you're sporting that barnet, Erik! Also maybe stop forcing her into your underground lair, that's not cool. Having a messed-up face doesn't give you free license to act like a super-creep. Oh, stop pouting, you big weirdo, you look like chubby-era Val Kilmer.
Credit to the artist, though, that is a picture of the actual Paris Opera in the background when a lazier artist might have made do with any fancy-looking old building.

Vampire's Empire, Magic Bytes

And on the eight day, God created vampires and lo, he immediately thought "wait a minute, why did I create vampires?" but verily it was too late and the vampire was already climbing out of its casket. Except now I look again I think the vampire is getting back into the casket after a long night's feasting, because he's got blood around his mouth and he does look as though he's pulling the lid closed. The lid for his tiny, tiny coffin, which is clearly far too small for him. That's why the old bloke with the beard looks so shocked, he never expected a vampire to curl up inside his bread bin.

That's The Spirit, The Edge

One thing I do miss about this era of gaming is developers basing an entire game on the pun they thought up for the title. If only the trend continued today, we could be playing On Her Mother Base's Snake-ret Service instead of Metal Gear Solid V.
As for the image itself, it's kinda inscrutable until you assume that the mist isn't a ghost but rather the overwhelming odour of those Nikes - shoes that someone may well have died in, thus enhancing their terrible smell. If there is a ghost involved, they have returned to this mortal realm to complete their unfinished business of finding a less ugly hat. Something more appropriate for a ghost, anyway, like a boowler hat or a chillby.

Dante's Inferno (unreleased), Beyond Software

A genuinely upsetting-to-look-at Satan now, with a horrible gaping maw perfectly shaped for cramming sinners into, and strange head-pouches that make me wonder whether this particular Satan isn't at least part frog. Those pouches are easily the most unpleasant thing about this image - they're so veiny, and they look as though they'd be feverishly hot to the touch. Ugh, now I can't stop thinking about what they'd feel like if you poked them. Probably like massive watery blisters? Oh god, brain, please stop it.
I know I've said this before, but videogame adaptations of classic works of art and literature always make me wish for the invention of time travel. Imagine going back and showing Dante and Gaston Leroux how Inferno and The Phantom of the Opera had been, erm, reimagined. I suppose Gaston would mostly be confused about why the Phantom has an axe.

The Inferno, Richard Shepherd Software

Way over on the other end of the Satanic Sinisterness Scale is this chubby lil' Lucifer, who welcomes you to Hell with a nonchalant pose and a smirk that suggest he is the imp of the really perverse. He looks like he's thinking about something deeply unpleasant, and not just the usual "eternal torment" stuff. Something involving root vegetables and lots of plastic sheeting.
As different as this is from the other Inferno game, it is still based on Dante's poem, if the mention of Virgil in the blurb is anything to go by. Forget the other one, I want to show Dante this interpretation of his work. He doesn't have three mouths for gnawing at the bodies of traitors and he's not frozen up to his waist in ice, but he does have a big letter D drawn on his sweatshirt so you don't forget that he's the devil. I think Dante would be cool with these changes.

Frightmare, Cascade Games

With the sleep-related title of Frightmare, it's appropriate that this spectral head appears to be doing a big yawn. Had a busy day of spooking, have you? Rattling chains and lowering the local temperature a couple of degrees can really take it out of a spectre. I contemplated not saying "he's dead tired" but I already made those ghost hat puns and a soul cannot be damned twice.

Zombie Zombie, Quicksilva

Do you think the artist of this piece was trying to draw a faintly seductive zombie, or did it just spring unbidden from their pen? If it's the latter, imagine what a curse that would be. Trying to draw a cat? Oh no, I've accidentally drawn a zombie giving a flirtatious wink over its decomposing shoulder! I tried to add a tree to the picture, but now it's a rotting corpse holding a fan coquettishly over its face! Then I tried to write a shopping list and the artwork that poured forth from my pen was so grotesque it's technically illegal!

Friday the 13th, Domark

This advert is mostly just the poster for the staggeringly misnamed Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, but there's something about it being in Spanish that gives it an extra little bit of flair that I really like. "Not suitable for the faint-hearted!" the tagline on the left screams! Okay, not "screams," it's too tiny for that, but that's okay. When your main image is a bloody hockey mask with a knife jammed into the eye-hole you don't need much text.

Scary Monsters, Firebird

"AAAAHHH!" screams the vampire, furtively glancing at his monstrous associates, "AAAAAHHH am I doing this right, guys? AHHHHH because I feel a bit silly AAAAHHHHH!"
There's a lot of interesting facial expression in this one, isn't there? The Dracula looking a little unsure of himself, the werewolf pulling the face of a (wolf)man slipping into a relaxing bubble bath, the mummy being too shy to get into the shot properly and the Frankenstein, who looks like a dad listening to his daughter explain that her new boyfriend is called Razor and he rides a motorcycle. A dad without eyes, sure, but there still some paternal sternness to that face.

Bride of Frankenstein, Viz Design

More Frankenstein now, and they're going through a rough time relationship-wise. He's trying to propose marriage, but she wants to dismember him with an axe, possibly because he keeps using her lipstick without asking. I know they're supposed to be sparkles of light, but those white lines don't half make it look like Frank is pulling that wedding ring out of his ear. Maybe that's why his bride is miffed, Frank can't do anything without working his lame sleight-of-hand magic routines into it.

Poltergeist, Firebird

I'm telling you this for your own good, young lady - you need to switch your hair-dryer to a less powerful setting.

Lone Wolf and the Ice Halls of Terror, Hutchinson Computer Publishing

Wow, it was a pretty bold move to make the hero of your game a colossal, tentacled nightmare-beast, although it's hardly surprising that it's a Lone Wolf if it looks like that. Yes, yes, I know that isn't the hero of the game, but I can dream, can't I? Don't tell me you wouldn't want to play as this thing, prowling your ice cave and eating any adventurers foolish enough to enter? Although now I've written it out I'm sure that on the Spectrum, such a game would be nothing more than a Pac-Man clone and this magnificent slimeball deserves better than that. It comes from a famous lineage, after all, because I'm sure it's heavily based on the H. P. Lovecraft story At the Mountains of Madness, which is all about horrible slimy things being all indescribable and unknowable in the Antarctic. Alas, unlike in the story that inspired it there are no giant mutant penguins in this advert. He know about terror, did Lovecraft, and giant mutant penguins is it.

The Real Ghostbusters, Activision

This artwork strongly conflicts with the idea that bustin' makes you feel good. The only one here who looks like he's having a good time is Peter Venkman, and he's not even actively engaged in the busting. He's just haphazardly firing his proton gun behind him with shocking disregard for workplace safety legislation. I get that you're supposed to be the cynical, laid-back member of the team, Venkman, but if someone walks up behind you you're going to incinerate their face. Your lack of care and attention is making me want to side with the Walter Peck, and that's a horrible feeling. Also, Ray and Winston are dangerously close to crossing the streams. Did you not have a safety video during your induction or anything?

The Witch's Cauldron, Mikro-Gen

Finally for today, there's this thing. I... I'm not sure what to make of this one, so here is a list of some of its component parts. A frog-man drinks a potion that makes his dick explode. There's a witch, or possibly a tree that looks like a witch, and I assume she had something to do with the groin-bursting potion. The frog-man is wearing extravagant boots. There's a small Cockney man who has the presence of mind to make a "frog / hopping" pun even as he sprouts a lion's tail. The frog licks its lips as it looks at the potion, tempted to go in for another sip, and if the witch has brewed a potion so delicious you'll keep drinking it even after your genitals are spread over a thirty-foot radius then she should probably start bottling and selling it. It is beautiful, it's perfect, and I can think of no better way to end this article. Goodbye!

Support VGJunk at Patreon!
Recently on VGJUNK:
Spooky I-Spy in Halloween Trick or Treat!
Butterfly chat in Mansion of Hidden Souls!
Clobbering Dracula yet again in Castlevania Legends!

VIDEOGAMES ARE BAD FOR YOU (ACCORDING TO THEIR ADVERTS)

You young whippersnappers with your web-enabled bulletin board systems and smartphone social media hashtags, you should be more grateful about how easy it is for you to learn about the latest exciting videogame releases! In my day, our only sources for game news were that kid at school who swore his uncle worked for Nintendo and magazines. A magazine is a bunch of paper with words and pictures on it that's been stapled together, you see...

Okay, okay, that's enough fake curmudgeonliness. We all know about videogame magazines, and we all know that they had a lot of advertisements for new and upcoming games in them. Bafflingly, one of the recurring themes of these adverts, particularly in the 16- and 32-bit era, was that videogames will mess you up and merely playing the game that's being advertised will lead to social isolation, permanent injury or even death. That doesn't seem like a good way to sell your product, but what do I know? There's probably a reason I don't work in advertising. Here are just a few examples of videogame ads that promise nothing but pain and misery, roughly sorted in order of how traumatic the experience will be for the player.

Mario's Picross, Game Boy

(click for larger)

I'm starting with this one because it could be interpreted two ways - you either have to have a head shaped like a giant's scrotum if you want to be good at Mario's Picross, or playing Mario's Picross for long enough will turn your skull that shape. The reality is that neither is true, because I played a whole bunch of Mario's Picross and my head was / is a relatively normal size - although my hairline is admittedly getting close to the one depicted in this ad.

Mega Man X3, SNES

"This one is totally infectious!" the advert screams, and I can't vouch for anyone else but I always mentally append "like herpes or ebola!" when I see it. This one can be explained by the whole "computer virus" element of Mega Man X3's plot, but still, I can only imagine that tagline as something really worrying to hear your doctor shout during an examination.

Various Taito Games

Catch the Taito heatwave! Catch its powerful radiation right in your crotch, rendering you sterile for the rest of your life!
Imagine if you went over to a friend's house and they were sitting in that splay-legged position while they played their NES. Yeah.

Tetrisphere, Nintendo 64

Ooh, tooth damage, nice. Everyone's favourite bit of unsettling dream symbolism can be achieved in your waking hours through Tetrisphere - but only if you roll Tetrisphere into a ball and bite it, a scenario that's unlikely to occur if you play Tetrisphere according to normal operating parameters. At least the design process for this one makes sense: "Tetrisphere, it's a sphere, and the game's hard, so it's a hard sphere... like a jawbreaker! Now I'll just edit some cracks onto this picture of some teeth and hope it doesn't make anyone who's putting off a trip to the dentist feel really uncomfortable."

Road Rash 64, Nintendo 64

Playing Road Rash 64 will make you shit yourself. Here's a tip - unless you're a brand of laxative, don't imply that using your product will cause the consumer to lose control of their bowels. Maybe THQ also own a company that make adult nappies and this is textbook example of vertical integration.
Somewhere out there, there's a kid of around fifteen years old whose bare arse was used to promote a videogame about motorcyclists beating each other up. Sometimes the unfathomably bizarre nature of humanity's existence can feel almost overwhelming, but then I think about said kid's friend mocking him after finding out about his "modelling" career and everything seems right with the world.

Quake III Arena, PC

Now we're getting to the really unpleasant stuff, with the implication that playing Quake III will end up with you either living in a filthy basement or being trapped in some kind of Saw-esque torture game - you wasted your life playing Quake III, now you must play Quake III for your very life! If you fail, you'll be sucked down this toilet. I like that this advert shows the foulest, filthiest basement pit, the owner of which is forever sitting on a porcelain throne and masking their hideous odours with car air fresheners, but they still have a spray-bottle of glass cleaner handy. Can't let my 14" CRT get mucky, it might interfere with my pro gaming skills! That's a nice touch. The nicest touch of all is that there's a toaster next to the computer. I am seriously considering getting a toaster to put next to my computer now.

Wipeout, PS1

Wipeout will slap you around a bit, give you a bloody nose, that kind of thing. As a kid I always thought this ad had an undertone a drug abuse to it, what with the nosebleeds, the glassy-eyed stares and the PS1's demographic shift to older consumers and their subsequent embracing of the "lad culture" scene. I'm not sure why I headed towards this conclusion when sure physical violence is a more obvious answer - perhaps it was because I'd played Wipeout and it didn't seem impressive enough to warrant this kind of marketing. It's no F-Zero, that's for sure.
On a happier note, this is an ad that implies that girls can play videogames too. That kind of thing was not common in 1997. Sure, playing Wipeout might leave you looking like you fell face-first into a pile of rubble, but it's equal opportunity brutality!

Super Metroid, SNES

This game will kill you, butcher your body and sell the meat for consumption. Only if you're a sheep, mind you. Humans will just get to enjoy a first-rate SNES adventure. Nintendo's anti-sheep bias could have backfired, but sheep possess neither the intelligence nor the opposable thumbs required to start a letter-writing campaign so the Big N just about got away with it.

Super Smash Bros. Melee, GameCube

Not only will playing Smash Bros. Melee break every bone in your body, it will also send your shattered form to a cenobitic dimension straight out of the Hellraiser movies where you'll be suspended from wires in a formless grey void for all eternity. That is not a fun situation. All I can take away from this is that playing Super Smash Bros will lead to Bad Times. Not for the guy in the Cubic Prison of Eternal Agony, though. He loves what he has become.

"My suffering will be legendary, even in the Mushroom Kingdom!"

Doom 64, Nintendo 64

Doom 64 will kill you. You will die if you play it. Buy Doom 64. It's not just that it'll kill you, but that the developers specifically made this game so that you'd end up in a body bag, and you know what? This ad is fair enough. It's Doom, and if any game was going to kill you it'd be Doom. I know I for one am quite likely to die while playing Doom, but admittedly that's because I spend so much of my time playing Doom. It's a simple statistical probability at this point.

Equinox, SNES

We've seem some ads that promise discomfort, some that promise serious physical harm and even some that promise death, but this ad for Equinox goes way beyond that. If you play Equinox, this advertisement says, your entire life will be a meaningless waste of human potential, completely devoid of experience or growth or even love - there is nothing but the game. The game strips away every aspect of your life until your frail body finally gives in, but even then you are not free and your last action is to pass this terrible SNES-based curse onto a young relative so that the cycle may continue. You will die alone and unfulfilled, never even having completed the game you sacrificed your entire life to play. That's Equinox, out now for the Super Nintendo, get your copy at your nearest Toys 'R' Us store!

So, why did so many advertisers want you to think that playing their videogames would leave you a broken husk? I suppose it's because people like a challenge to their toughness, to their endurance, as long as they know they're never really in danger - these ads are nothing more than the 90s' version of the horror films of the 50s that offered free coffins for anyone who dies of fright during a screening. Combine that with the curiosity to see what could possible be included in these games that's so harrowing and you get ads like these. Do they work? I have no idea. I do want to play Doom 64 now, but as you can probably tell that's pretty much the status quo here at VGJunk.

Recently on VGJUNK:
Steampunky mud simulator The Chaos Engine!
Stab like an Egyptian in Big Karnak!
Stone Age antics in The Flintstones: The Treasure of Sierra Madrock!