More Worst Videogame Ads

An anonymous reader writes "1UP has posted another feature with the best worst videogame advertisements of all time. There are some absolutely laugh-out-loud ads and descriptions for the Jaguar, 3DO, Super Metroid, Bubsy, Super Street Fighter II, and a bunch of others, including some bizarre peripherals from the '90s such as the Interactor, a subwoofer that you'd attach to your chest. 'It's the kind of thing you'd expect to see on a particularly lame supervillian, except he'd at least be able to knock people down with some kind of ripply sound wave effect, as opposed to just looking like a dip while playing Mortal Kombat.'"

Comments

The Title

[GrayCalx]

I think this title is the most worstest of all. There is not none more badder wrote.

Sega, mid-90's

[Langfat]

My vote goes to the "Coffee? Tea? SEGA!" ads that were on TV during my Saturday morning cartoons in the mid-90s. I still have nightmares about those ones!

As if you couldn't read this yourselves

[spyrochaete]

I'm sorry to just post something verbatim from the site but this had me rolling on the floor:

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=6&cId=3 152506

For: A Joystick Under a Napkin
From: STD
Appeared in: EGM, September 1994

Of course I'm prepared. I covered my joystick with a napkin to protect it from lightning strikes weeks ago. The imagery here doesn't capture the excitement of one-on-one fighting games so much as it looks like someone trying to hide an embarrassing erection at a restaurant.

Classic Atari TV ads

[mgabrys_sf]

I think the run of ads around 1980 were particularly bad as each and every one of them showed people in near-orgasm at the sight of a few pixels:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mLiBK3O1zHU&search=atar i%20commercial

There were other ads from atari not nearly as cornball, but these were in the highest rotation so yes I'm scarred for life.

Not really an ad, but...

[Yvan256]

The worst box art I've ever seen has to be the one from the first Megaman game. It's so lame it's a miracle people even tried the game (which is excellent).

Did not RTFA yet

[El_Muerte_TDS]

But my guess for the worst videogame ad would be the "John Romero will make you his bitch".

I will get back to you after I read it.

Re:Did not RTFA yet

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Ok, the article is only about the ads between 1993 and 1995. So we'll have to wait a while.

Re:Did not RTFA yet

[identity0]

I actually have that ad somewhere. I'm thinking of framing it and putting it on a wall, just for laughs.

But I was dissappointed these were only console video game ads, no PC ones. I can remember some damn awful ones from PC Gamer in the mid-90s.

Forgotten company/product: Picture shows shittiest, messyist room ever, with trash everywhere, leftover pizza, roaches, etc. There is no furniture, but sitting on the floor in the middle of the room is an naked, emaciated, disheveled man facing the reader, with his legs spread wide. His groin is covered up by a computer monitor, which he is staring intently at, while gripping the monitor like it's a hooker's head giving him a blowjob. The caption was something like: "Scientific studies have shown that monkeys will prefer recieving pleasure to food, water, or excercise. Are you a monkey?" I wish I could remember what the hell game that was for. Sure as hell did not make me want to get it.

Duke nukem 3D: A lineup of various very ugly people dressed as Duke Nukem, including scrawny redneck dude, several midgets, an old woman, etc. All of them making faces like a retarded child who has been told there's a monster under his bed. The caption: "Accept no substitutes." It didn't make me want to accept the real thing, either.

Tomb Raider: Every ad that tried to 'excite' us with Lara's polygonal body, ever.

Battlecruiser 3000 A.D.: Sexy woman in lingere. Speech bubble from off-screen: "Not now, honey, first I have to recharge the shields, launch missles, repair the hyperdrive...." etc.

Serf City: Crazy leprechaun-like dude in a top hat and big bulging eyes and wide grin swinging sledgehammer at reader. "Life is feudal." Indeed.

Some random online gaming service: Screenshot of Quake II, with big guys and gals with guns and camo facepaint from the game. (Badly)Photoshopped into the pic: teenager in yellow shirt and slacks, with the worst "I'm trying to look life I'm tough by roaring" face ever. I couldn't tell if he was supposed to be screaming because he's scared, angry, or having fun. Oh, and his gun was also badly photoshopped in, or maybe it was a cardboard mockup of the Quake II shotgun.

I wish I had my stack of PC Gamers here, there were way too many hilariiously bad ads back in the day.

Re:Today?

[chrismcdirty]

HEAD ON! Apply directly to your forehead!
HEAD ON! Apply directly to your forehead!
HEAD ON! Apply directly to your forehead!

Oh wait.. you were referring to annoying game advertisements.

More random than anything.

[hal2814]

Does anyone get the idea that someone just took a stack of circa-1994 EGM and Gamepro magazines and just picked out random ads to put here? I mean, some of these are bad, but they're hardly the worst I've seen. In fact, these ads seem to me to be par for the course in that era. And to be honest, I thought the Lords of Thunder ad was decent even if their math was a bit lacking. I wasn't in awe over it but I don't remember thinking it entirely stupid when I first saw it.

Zelda 64

[AnarchoAl]

Surely the UK advert for Legend of Zelda: the Ocarina of Time has to be the worst ever: A game that women enjoyed playing at a time when almost all gamers were men, and they advertise it with the slogan "Willst though get the girl? Or play like one?"

http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/profile/video_player. php?id=cSE2xDes5b4KuT8

The worst of today's ads...

[Hitto]

Definitely SONY PSP ads. "Cheese you can listen to", "I'd hit it", and so on. They try so hard and so badly to imitate the internet counter-culture-which-became-mainstream-like-five- years-ago that instead of making me laugh, those commercials make me cringe and I immediately think of everyone working at sony to be seventy year old people who want to communicate to the "young crowd" that they "is down with them".

Also, most TV videogame ads that show FMV, FMV, FMV and nothing else. That's how Nintendo got fucked when Zelda 64's ingame and gameplay-only commercial looked like ass compared to FF7's OMG WE'RE NOT LYING TO YOU IT'S REALTIME GRAFIX!!!-FMV-based ad.

Come to think of it, I don't like ads from anyone at all, anyway. Why are we glorifying what is essentially legal corruption? Never thought of that?

Game publisher : If you give our game a bad rating, we'll cancel this 3-million dollar page ad.
Game magazine : zOMG Tonic Trouble is teh WIN! Six stars outta five!

on the heals of...Games that never got made

[mikers]

How about the "Worth 1000: Beta Busts 5" Games that never got made, photoshop games box competition... This one had me laughing so hard I was crying... Check out the "World Cup Hooligans" entry or "Halo Kitty".

Worth 1000: Beta Busts 5

Another article

[Lord_Dweomer]

Shameless plug, but I just wrote an article about a recent HORRIBLE ad for a game design college that has been running in game magazines. You can read my full writeup and see an image of the ad at the following URL:

Article about bad advertising in gaming mags

Honestly, where do they come up with this crap? I work in advertising, and from my perspective I really have to wonder who had the final say over the copy in this...it really is laughable.