Jan 14 2009
20 Awesome Vintage Video Game Ads
And when I say vintage, I really mean vintage. The new gaming generation would most certainly be too young to even know about most of the games that were around in the early 80′s. Hell I was just sucking my thumb in those years.
But to see some of the campaigns these guys came up with for the likes of Pole Position and Pitfall are pretty outstanding (neither of those are pictured below, sorry).
When you see names like Parker Brothers you know you’re going way way back.
Here are 20 awesome vintage video game ads.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Mario Brothers!
Masters of the Universe
Megamania
Montezuma’s Revenge
Ms Pac Man
Mr. Do’s Castle
Galaxian
Frostbite
G.I. Joe
Grand Prix
Star Wars
Joust
Jungle Hunt
Kangaroo
Keystone Kapers! – My favorite game
Kool-Aid
Wizard of War and Gorf
Lock ‘N Chase
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[...] los diseños de coches de la época. Pues después de este palitroque aquí os invito a visitar esta galería de extrañas carátulas videojueguiles de corte clásico, que recuerdan automóviles de los años veinte. Una actualización nocturna de [...]
awesome
This is a good collection. When I was a kid, an ad that I would look at over and over and over again was the 2 page comic spread promoting Splatterhouse for the Turbo Graphic 16. I absolutely needed the game after staring at that advertisement.
Jungle Hunt! Loved the music that game played.
awesome collection!!
[...] – 20 totally fricking awesome vintage video game ads. (link) [...]
[...] – 20 totally fricking awesome vintage video game ads. (link) [...]
Ah yes. The nostalgia of the days when we had to use our imaginations based on the ads and covers to conjure up scenes of violence.
Nowadays it seems that most games are so uber-violent it’s kind of a let down when you do the real thing.
What’s next? The threat of real dismemberment or death for the losing player?
Let’s just hope they never bring the odour of combat, especially the after battle perfume, into video games.
Umm… no links?
Seriously, links to high res versions please! I want to know which player is eating twice as much!
[...] in a gallery of vintage video game ads is that at left — John Madden lending his cred as “sportscaster for CBS Video Games” [...]
[...] Check out more ads here [...]
[...] in a gallery of vintage video game ads is that at left — John Madden lending his cred as “sportscaster for CBS Video Games” [...]
[...] Check out more ads here [...]
[...] more from the original source: Unreality – 20 Awesome Vintage Video Game Ads | Post a Comment [...]
[...] relegated to comic-styled advertising. But Unreality has that and more in their compilation of 20 Awesome Vintage Video Game Ads. I think I remember some of these from before I was actually hooked on [...]
Seriously, links to high res versions please! I want to know which player is eating twice as much!!
This is a good collection. When I was a kid, an ad that I would look at over and over and over again was the 2 page comic spread promoting Splatterhouse for the Turbo Graphic 16. I absolutely needed the game after staring at that advertisement..
the surfing on the controller in the megamania ad is just plain awesome. makes me wanta try out the game
I remember all of these ads! One of my favorites not pictured here was the extremely cryptic ad for Riddle of the Sphinx. There are very few games in my lifetime I couldn’t beat. That was one of them.
Looking at the Atari game artwork was almost better than playing the game itself, which consisted of simple dots (eg. Centipede, Dig Dug).
In fact those game adverts relied mostly on artwork that fired up the imagination well into the 90′s.
You guys missed two of the best ones ever. Check em out.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a15/Sgt_Crow/growl-1.jpg?t=1247774759
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a15/Sgt_Crow/earnestevans-1.jpg?t=1247774788
Seriously. Does it get any more awesome than that?
This pretty much sums it up:
(Joust ad) Long ago, in the distant future, there’s a place where evil knights joust upon beasts of the air.
Ha, LONG AGO, in the DISTANT FUTURE…
Oh, and get this:
Retrieve the enemy’s egg before it transforms back into it’s former self.
Umm… how can an egg revert to a former self before it was an egg? What, does it break down into the two sexual reproductive cells that made the egg?
Damn, the 80′s. Everybody was high then, and these were the people in charge of entertaining us as kids. Frightening thought.
Ms Pacman
“meet the new home version of MS. PAC-MAN. She looks and plays so much like the arcade, she’s unlike any home video game you’ve ever played before. And she’s only from Atari for use with the ATARI 2600, and the S___ Video Arvade systems.
You get four gho___. Four f__. Escape tunnels. And lots of floating munchims. Pears to pretzels, apples to oranges. To get the top bananna, worth 5000 points, you have to know ::next page:: your little lady backward and forward. The way the player on the left does. He gets 1000 point for the apple. While the player on the right gets only half as much for the orange. But plenty of indigestion.
So escort MS. PAC-MAN out of the arcade.
Because this woman’s place is in the house.”
Yes, you read the last part correctly. hilarity!
the first blank might be…Sears?
four gh___ = as we all knew, but i didnt want to jump to conclusions: four GHOSTS.
i can see it now
and upon further inspection, i dont know if the next blank after ghosts even starts with a f…im totally lost on that one!
Maybe it’s melons?
Actually, I could certainly be considered part of the newer gaming generation, but I have played at least two of those.
I had collected all the Atari ads and kept them in a folder. I LOVED quizzing myself on the different games. That ad campaign came out when Atari was trying to update its image. They changed the boxes from different colors to a uniform silver, the artwork was less like a montage and represented the elements of the game.
To answer each question, eat the apple, shoot the diving gold Galaxian, stab the ‘gator with the open mouth, punch the falling apple and ALWAYS shoot the fighter before the flying saucer.
Holy Cripes I remember the Mario Brothers ad and the Montezuma’s Revenge ad. Talk about nostalgia.
Seriously, links to high res versions please! I want to know which player is eating twice as much!!
Oh, so *that’s* what the objects in Megamania are supposed to be: tires, dice, etc. o.O I always wondered what they were. (It’s still one of my favorite Atari games!)
You’ve got to love the violence as advertised in the Texas Chainsaw ad, yikes! scary: http://www.atariage.com/2600/screenshots/s_TexasChainsawMassacre_4.png
@hard-to-read, it is indeed Sears and ghosts, but the third blank is “four mazes”, so no, it doesn’t start with an ‘f’.
Here’s another, much sexier, ad for Ms. Pac-Man: http://www.retroist.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ms-pac-man.jpg
@marc, which ad were the fighter and flying saucer from?
What mario brothers on atari? that is crazy never heard of that. Too bad it looks just like a redone donkey kong though.
And where is Maria ?
http://spong.com/pack/b/a/barbariani277622.jpg