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Classic Console TV Ads
superpenguin writes "Here is a site with some TV ads for classic computers/games systems like the Atari and Intellivision, as well as games for those systems. Find out whether Atari basketball or Intellivision basketball plays more like real basketball. Some real gems here. These ads are in Real Media format."
For Commodore Computers - where they compare the Vic 20 to the 2600 and the C64 to the Apple 2, IBM and Radio Shack computers,
Commodore Billboard
Check out the commercial for the original Legend of Zelda game on the NES.
I'm not sure which is worse, the lyrics - or that nerdy looking rapping blonde kid.
I can still see excitment on graphics or sound with modern games. It's just on a very diffrent level.
No longer is it "Hey, they mad the NES say 'IM BAD' using nothing but beeps and tones!!!" ala "Bad Dudes". Now it's "Wow, the soundtrack to this game rocks. Music is top notch, etc, etc..." Ever watch a movie? Ever thought "The soundtrack to this film is great." Same thing with modern games.
Graphics, however are not at that nearly 100% realistic level yet. The Final Fantasy movie came damn close, but it's still not there. And no games produce that kind of quality in real time yet anyway. So, yes, it's very possible to get excited about graphics of a new game the same way we did in moving from Super Mario Bros to SMB 2 or 3, or NES to SNES, or MIDI to Sound Blaster(TM). I stil remember the first time I played Doom with a sound card. WAY diffrent experience! Now there are games like Thief that are so sound centric, that it's unplayable without sound.
But aren't we missing the big picture?
Citizen Kubuto looked great, but what about gameplay?
I'd rather play Super Mario Bros. 3.
It's more FUN (to me at leat). It's got better game play. New games aren't all devoid of great gameplay (Half-Life, Max Payne, Starcraft, Super Smash Bros Mele, and the Grand Theft Auto series come to mind...)
These days the next big thing can very well be a great new way of using the game to tell the story (Wing Commander did this, and so did Half-Life (Think about it, what other game never leaves the 1st person perspective even for a one second cut scene, ever?)) Or the next big thing can be a gimick like Bullet Time in Max Payne. Or it can just be a georgous new rehash of an older saga, like Metroid Prime. On the surface, it's just a FPS, in the Metroid universe. the graphics are georgous, but are they more or less so than Return To Castle Wolenstein, or Alien Vs. Predator 2? I dunno. Hard to say. But Metroid Prime certainly has me excited. I can't wait to delve into another chapter of Samus' adventure. We shall see how well a side scroller like Metroid translates to an FPS.
For further reading, may I suggest you play any of the Donkey Kong Country series on the SNES. Pay close attention to Cranky Kong. You'd like him. ( ;
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Of course the notion of "classic" depends on your age. Remember though, we're all generation X brother. Sheit, I was born in '76. I sure as hell remember these kind of ads. In my country we also had these cool Pacman stickers that came in cereal packets. Anyone remember those?? Waka waka waka...../.
They cheated, by sending you the bill (for which you opened up the phone and used the money within to pay)
Wow, you're young. Classic for me is definitely the Atari 2600, Intellivision. I can even remember playing the Fairchild system (which I think was hardcoded with only a few pong-type games).
I also remember making lineprinter banners of Snoopy, Neil Armstrong's Moon photo, playing "Civil", a civil war stimulator on an HP3000 timesharing system, and hand-typing program listings from "Creative Computing" into my Apple ][.
An I'm only 35!
Dave Ahl! Creator of Hunt the Wumpus, publisher of Creative Computing and printer of that damn Nuclear Reactor simulator for the PET in every single BASIC computer listings book. (And I can connect with those memories - I spent time with a Nybble magazine and my Apple ][ as well).
Whatever happened to him? A google search doesn't turn him up. Also who was the guy (Landstrom, Langford?) who did the insane postscript coding - raw programs in postscript to generate fractals and the like. He advocated selfpublishing, and I have one of his books in storage somewhere.
Heh. I'll stop now - this story is already flooded with "Remember..." posts. Good to see there are some other people out there on Slashdot from the dawn of the PC (back before that meant "IBM PC"), and who remember timesharing systems.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
the "newest QuickTime format" is QuickTime, and is certainly not an MPEG-4 derivative. Just because QT6 can export .mp4 files and read MPEG-4 properly doesn't mean QuickTime has changed. It's just been extended again. You don't seem to know what you're talking about, son.
That was classic intercourse!
Here's the soundtracks to a few old 80s commercials I found on videotape. There are some video game commercials in there, but the most "unique" one by far is the one for Mister T Cereal.
I remember articles in Electronic Games (anyone else get that magazine? It was great!) discussing the various techniques used to shoot the commercials to avoid seeing the scan line.
There were long discusions about some fellow who developed a method of actually having someone stand in front of a TV and talk about a game being played in the backround. IIRC it was something similar to the 'blue screen' used in movies and newscasts...big stuff in early eighties!
Imagine for a moment a world without hypothetical situations...