Classic games marketing their "cutting edge" technology!

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Jerkface Killah
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Re: Classic games marketing their "cutting edge" technology!

Post by Jerkface Killah »

slowslow325 wrote:My Atari 2600 box says "True to Life Game Sounds" on it... BEEP... BOOP... ERRRRRRR... BEEEEEEEEP.... ERRRRRRRRRRRRR
this is my favorite so far. They must have really been fooling themselves to say that Atari sound effects are "true to life". Har har.

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Jrecee
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Re: Classic games marketing their "cutting edge" technology!

Post by Jrecee »

I think they meant the game sounds sounded like real life game sounds.
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Re: Classic games marketing their "cutting edge" technology!

Post by Betagam7 »

I can remember when nearly every 8-bit Codemasters game for my C64 would come with a glowing recommendation from someone called 'David Darling' on the front of the box.

I later learned that David Darling was the co-founder and owner of Codemasters.
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Re: Classic games marketing their "cutting edge" technology!

Post by The-Goza »

Jrecee wrote:Can't go without mentioning:

Image

State of the art high resolution graphics
If you also look, it mentions it has one megabit of memory. Now that is cutting edge technology.
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J T
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Re: Classic games marketing their "cutting edge" technology!

Post by J T »

The best videogame ad ever was for Pole Position:

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DaGamingMonkey
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Re: Classic games marketing their "cutting edge" technology!

Post by DaGamingMonkey »

J T wrote:The best videogame ad ever was for Pole Position:

Love that one, how bout.....
Phil Hartman?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lROb1vWNiig

I'm sold on the "Fierce Body checking!"
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Re: Classic games marketing their "cutting edge" technology!

Post by dsheinem »

So I went and found a few more of these to add to the thread. First up are two 32X games, which often had to sell buyers on why they should upgrade to a new version of a game they most likely already had. So here's Night Trap and Mortal Kombat II's attempts to do just that:
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While other 32X games mention the power of the system, for the most part the actual back of the boxes don't pimp the graphics/horsepower the same way that the ad campaigns did. So while we all remember polygon battles, this kind of language rarely made it to the back of the box.
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Re: Classic games marketing their "cutting edge" technology!

Post by dsheinem »

Next are some early PS1 longbox games. Here I had more polygon-pushing games to choose from, but found that the worst offenders were almost always sports games. Here's Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball and Power Serve 3D Tennis, which are some of the worst offenders for bragging about their graphical power:
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Lots of other games did this too, but I found that usually the poorest games did the most to emphasize their graphical prowess. For example, the amount of bragging about graphics corresponds to the quality of title between Zero Divide, Battle Arena Toshinden, and Tekken. Here's some of what Zero Divide has to say about itself, in an attempt to cover over the horribleness found inside the box:
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Anyway, If the mood strikes me I may go grab some more...but as with the 32X, I think that the majority of the bragging about graphics was limited to print and other media (and playgrounds) and not very often to the back of the box. In addition, usually a good game stands on its own merits and the back of the box doesn't have to say much at all. The lesson: beware of excessive bragging on the box about technology, the game may likely be a stinker.
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Re: Classic games marketing their "cutting edge" technology!

Post by J T »

I like the "explosive 32 bits" of Mortal Kombat. :lol:


This thread wouldn't be complete without including those old arrogant George Plimpton commercials from Intellivision.





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Re: Classic games marketing their "cutting edge" technology!

Post by dsheinem »

J T wrote:I like the "explosive 32 bits" of Mortal Kombat. :lol:


This thread wouldn't be complete without including those old arrogant George Plimpton commercials from Intellivision.





I'd seen the first two which are good for a laugh, but that last one is awesome. Kudos to Intellivision for putting him on a bicycle, too.
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