Remember when video games were too crappy to sell with screenshots? When you needed an elaborate painting of a dragon to convince kids it was worth sending you their money?We still feel the pain of those times -- of waiting desperately for "Killer Bees" to arrive for our Atari, only to discover that it was basically yet another black screen with some meaningless colored pixels moving around.
Of course, disappointment is just a part of gaming. But while you may wish that Guitar Hero 3 had a few more songs, or that Mario Kart for the Wii had a few more tracks, that's nothing to what the kids of the 1970s went through.
So to help us overcome that pain, here is Asylum UK's roundup of the 50 most disappointing advertisements in gaming history.
(Thanks to TomHeroes.com for permission to use these images.)
50 Most Misleading Video Game Ads
Unless you owned a floating chair and a 100-inch TV, which in 1980-something was pretty unlikely, we doubt that Pole Position for the Atari was quite this exciting. And even if it was, the cars still looked like two bricks moving from side to side.
Star Wars arcade was actually pretty fun, but as far as we know it never burnt a line drawing of the Death Star into your retinas.
Who knew that non-ninja turtles could be that exciting? No one. They aren't.
You can't turn back the Timelord, but you can make fun of his stupid-looking red eyeballs and all-over blue face tattoo.
It's a dragon! It looks so real! Shame the in-game dragon is 4 red pixels that make bleep-bleep noises.
"Well done son, you've graduated. Here's a game about the 1984 election to ruin your summer."
These killer bees are unbelievably scary. The game was unbeleivably crap. There's a nice symmetry in there somewhere.
Those yellow stars are a visual representation of the abstract feeling of thirst. If you ignore the terrible game and cash-in marketing, that's actually kind of impressive.
Somewhere on this planet there is a man in his late 30s with the secret knowledge that he starred in this ad. For his sake let's hope it stays a secret.
Even Tron the movie looks like a joke these days. God help the game.
Other Video Games Features from Around the Web:
Crabby Games (GameDaily)
Is WoW worse than Porn? (JoyStiq)
The Best Video Game Wedding Cake (The Gamer Genie)
Comments:
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Wednesday 18 June
By Brian Deuel
What a bunch of dreck. Comments like "If you make a game set in a snow storm, you don't have to code any graphics." show how very little you know about the history of video game hardware and what it took to get from Pong to Guitar Hero. The "humor" in this piece is also severely lacking.
I would like my two minutes back, please.
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Wednesday 18 June
By Darth Kur
I seriously don't see anything that is misleading about any of those. Then again I was around when those games were current. You knew the limitation of the systems then and was very happy with what they could do.
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Wednesday 18 June
By Darth Kur
I seriously don't see anything that is misleading about any of those. Then again I was around when those games were current. You knew the limitation of the systems then and was very happy with what they could do.
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Wednesday 18 June
By Dan M
So Mr. Rundle, did you actually *play* these games when they were released or are you some young skunk flipping through some old ads on the web and decided to get all intellectual?
None of these ads are misleading. Unless you were under a complete rock growing up in the early 80's when Video Games became the rage, you knew what to expect from home systems. Like any ad, the paintings are there to grab attention and inspire the imagination.
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Wednesday 18 June
By Joanne
Tron is, and always will be, an amazing piece of classic cinema. Don't ever think to disparage it again.
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Wednesday 18 June
By Kojiro
Wow, this is the lamest attempt at being funny that I've ever seen.
"Lolz I is 12 yrs old so I mak fun of old gamez cuz theyz not 1337 liek haylo3! lololololol."
Seriously, take a look at current video game ads and its the same thing as what you guys are trying to put off on these old games.
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Wednesday 18 June
By Huh
Obviously you have no idea what it takes to design a video game, much less in the 1970s, where doing it meant assembly coding with 10 instructions on a processor that today is dwarfed by a pocket calculator. You are just a parasite feeding off the progress that takes place behind your useless self - while daring to insult those that let you believe you actually know. something about video games. And since you know nothing of the subject than shut up and be thankful.
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Thursday 19 June
By Huh
Obviously you have no idea what it takes to design a video game, much less in the 1970s, where doing it meant assembly coding with 10 instructions on a processor that today is dwarfed by a pocket calculator. You are just a parasite feeding off the progress that takes place behind your useless self - while daring to insult those that let you believe you actually know. something about video games. And since you know nothing of the subject than shut up and be thankful.
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Wednesday 18 June
By momzilla
I can get thru the easy guitar hero stuff - but still appreciate the roots of this technology. I suppose this guy throws out all his mothers cookbooks because he watches food tv now.
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Wednesday 18 June
By Michael Derr
Ya know, making fun of oldschool games is just crap. These games were state of the art then. Did we complain, no! So find something better to mock.
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Wednesday 18 June
By Cav
Hmm...wow...where to start. Do you actually know anything about these games? Know anything about the history of games? I'm going to go ahead and guess "no," which explains these observations perfectly. Phaser Patrol is a bad game, eh? I'm going to guess you are about 14 years old, in which case I'll cut you a break. Free advice: Stick to things you know about or learn about the things you don't.
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Wednesday 18 June
By old skool games
yeah maybe they were a little missleading but i mean in the 70's everything was it was the era of the future and everything is progressing and people are trying new things and putting future ideas in minds of the kids who today make video games as an adult .
I think little kids need to shut the fuck up about how these games suck and how xbox360 is better. umm ofcorse its better in the 70's people didnt even have personal computers let alone a cell phone. They have no idea how awesome it was when these games came out for the first time because it was the first time we have ever seen anything like this. now we've seen it all. I cant even imagine what kids will be like in 20 years.
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Thursday 19 June
By Canyon
Are you kidding me? When games could not be SOLD with screenshots?! When people saw two little white sticks boucning a small white circle back and forth, you know what happened?! Millions of Dollars were made! Why? Because back then technology like that was godly, much like the Xbox 360 is Godly now, but guess what? In twenty years, Know-nots like you are once again going to be trolling and saying how un-realistic the Xbox 360 is, so do us all a favor and put a little thought into your next article.
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Thursday 19 June
By SlimGatsby
Wow...its all already been said. This is all kinds of unfunny and ignorant. "Hay know what gaem sucked was ET lol"
Also, I get it. "Mike Rundle." Grow the fuck up.
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Friday 20 June
By Sweater Fish Deluxe
There's nothing wrong with making fun of old games or especially old game advertising, just like there's nothing wrong with making fun of new games or new game advertising.
The problem here is that you haven't actually succeeded in making *FUN* out of these ads with your comments. My guess is that you just looked at a random collection of video game ads and then wrote down whatever random joke popped into your head first. If you were a brilliant comedian, that may have led to a hilarious article.
Obviously, you are not a brilliant comedian.
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Tuesday 24 June
By Byron Stone
Man, I can't believe this! Don't you realize Mr. Rundle that back then they didn't have the technology we have today? This article makes you look ignorant in ways words can hardly describe. The games looked like crap because they were made with primitive technology. What you're doing is like calling the person who invented the wheel an idiot because today reinventing it TODAY is a total waste of time. Inventing the wheel may not be something you want to do today, but back then it was a revolutionary creation.
Then on top of that, you're not funny. I was actually happy before I started reading this, but I had to stop reading it because it was so lame that if I read all 50 entries I'd probably be mad by the end. You obviously didn't do ANY of your homework on this, and are about as far from funny as the east is from the west. I don't know how you managed to take a subject as cool as video games + humor and manage to come up with something this bad, where every single person on here actually left a comment something like this, but somehow you did it. Good thing I'm not your boss, because I'd have to have a word with you after you wrote something this ignorant.
And the ads weren't even misleading! People knew exactly what they were buying, and didn't expect the games to be anything more than "basically yet another black screen with some meaningless colored pixels moving around". The most misleading thing in this article is it's title.
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Tuesday 24 June
By B. Stone
Man, I can't believe this! Don't you realize Mr. Rundle that back
then they didn't have the technology we have today? This article makes you look ignorant in ways words can hardly describe. The games looked like crap because they were made with primitive technology. What you're doing is like calling the person who invented the wheel an idiot because today reinventing it TODAY is a total waste of time. Inventing the wheel may not be something you want to do today, but
back then it was a revolutionary creation.
Then on top of that, you're not funny. I was actually happy before I started reading this, but I had to stop reading it because it was so lame that if I read all 50 entries I'd probably be mad by the end. You obviously didn't do ANY of your homework on this, and are about as far from funny as the east is from the west. I don't know how you managed to take a subject as cool as video games + humor and manage to come up with something this bad, where every single person on here actually left a comment something like this, but somehow you did it. Good thing I'm not your boss, because I'd have to have a word with you after you wrote something this ignorant.
And the ads weren't even misleading! People knew exactly what they were buying, and didn't expect the games to be anything more than "basically yet another black screen with some meaningless colored pixels moving around". The most misleading thing in this article is it's title.
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Tuesday 24 June
By Dave
You guys are right, this guy knows nothing about gaming. He probably spent his youth having sex with girls or some stupid shit like that.
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Thursday 26 June
By E
Generally mindless twat, those captions, but great set of ads. That Shuttle game was pretty challenging and RBI baseball is still one of the greatest games of all time. Some of the old games had solid gameplay, but they did require a bit of imagination.
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Monday 30 June
By sterling price
Dungons and dragons was good and also was up there twice (even if it was a different version its basically the same thing), mario was famous, the star wars games were good, and frogger was one of the best games of its time. i played and enjoyed it on the commador 64 lol im 15 and i still play it lol. and number 6 was an advertisement for a collage. think before you just throw random old pictures up. i agree with brian. this was a waste of time.
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