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More Worst Videogame Ads 70

Posted by Zonk from the best-worstest-of-the-worst-bestest dept.
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.'"
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More Worst Videogame Ads More

More Worst Videogame Ads

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  • Which of today's advirtisments do you all find most irritating? I know that some people (read: not me) were offended by the racial overtones in the PSP ads recently. I think that today's ads are generally pretty good. Much better than Awesome Possum (from TFA).
    • I actually hated that XBox 360 commerical with "Teddybears Picnic" song.

      I'm not sure what I bunch of kids running around throwing water balloons has to do with video game systems...

    • Re:Today? (Score:5, Funny)

      by chrismcdirty ( 677039 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2006 @12:05PM (#15825359) Homepage
      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.
      • ...amen!
      • I wonder what product such a headache inducing ad could be selling. You have to wonder if the voice actress who did that ad can go anywhere. I imagine her trying to order at a restaurant and getting slapped as soon as the waiter recognizes her voice.
      • Hehe reminds me of that Simpsons episode...

        DENTAL PLAN! Lisa Need Braces...
        DENTAL PLAN! Lisa Need Braces...
        DENTAL PLAN! Lisa Need Braces...
        DENTAL PLAN! Lisa Need Braces...

      • freedom from hemmorhoids? FREEdHEM hemmorhoidal cream...
        freedom from hemmorhoids? FREEdHEM hemmorhoidal cream..
        freedom from hemmorhoids? FREEdHEM hemmorhoidal cream.
      • I have no idea why, but I feel like I have should be applying something directly to my forehead.

        (I hate that commercial SO much..)
      • and what's even worse than that? its that the woman ISN'T EVEN RUBBING IT ON HER GODDAMMED FOREHEAD. she's demonstrating the product, but you can tell she's just holding it above her head and not actually using it. I swear I have to leave the room to keep from throwing something through the TV when that comes on.
    • 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 fu
      • Actually the advirtising and review departments are entirely seperate in magazines. A few years back, Maximum PC declared an Iomega product the "wrost of the year" while there was also a full page color ad for that product in that issue. Even when I disagree with the rating, magazines justify their rankings and apply impartial standards when possible.
    • Penny Arcade has recently joined the peanut gallery [penny-arcade.com] ...
      • I don't like that specific comic because it's very hard to see the details. For example, where are either of the "two clocks"?

        But the real reason I'm writing this post is that, since you're linking to a recent PA comic, there's actually a better example from their newspost [penny-arcade.com] archives.

        I'd like to be able to read the text in the BlockBuster image, but at least you can get the gist of the advertisement without those details.

        Anyway, Gabe's post there is a must read, even though he's a cheeseball. :)

  • The Title (Score:4, Funny)

    by GrayCalx ( 597428 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2006 @11:28AM (#15825109)
    I think this title is the most worstest of all. There is not none more badder wrote.
  • 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!

  • My Favs (Score:1, Redundant)

    by neonprimetime ( 528653 )
    • Kirby's Dream Course - "He Used to be such a good boy", as he poses for mug shots
    • 3D0 - "Apparently 1 out of 10 people is a blithering Idiot! The other 9 choose the 3DO system
    • Jaguar - "Can you connect the dot?", and below there is a pic with only 1 dot!
    • Shaq Fu - "List the five most despicable low lifes you can think of: Now say a prayer for them
    • Oh, sweet hell. There's an Atlas Shrugged movie in production. That doesn't leave me much time to do all those things I've always wanted to and still be able to kill myself before the licensed tie-in game comes out.

      Amen.

  • As if you couldn't read this yourselves (Score:5, Funny)

    by spyrochaete ( 707033 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2006 @11:30AM (#15825118) Homepage Journal
    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 [1up.com]

    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 (Score:3, Funny)

    by mgabrys_sf ( 951552 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2006 @11:31AM (#15825129) Journal
    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 [youtube.com]

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

    • I like how by the end of the commercial, the family living room perplexingly includes a construction worker and a pilot. Did they receive some telepathic signal, "Get to the Jones' house posthaste! Atari has arrived and only the chosen few can experience Its glory." Bizarre.

      If you really want to scar yourself for life, try seeking to about the 0:24 mark in the commercial, at the very end when the Atari logo pops onto the screen. The squeals of delight rapidly change into cries of horror, as if Atari mo

      • Actually it's "probably" the second syllable of a group of people saying "ya-hoo", but I like your theory much better.
        Me - I like the guy with the pillow to the far right who looks like he's having a spastic fit of some kind. Poor guy. Someone
        should put a mouth guard in him pronto before he bites his tongue off.

        Still it's a pitty we don't get to see any melty faces. Perhaps I could overlay that scene from the movie onto that spot.

        Where's my Raiders DVD...
    • Also check out the Alien Vs. Predator Jaguar ad that's in the related videos from your link. That was probably the best ad Atari ever did.
    • Born in 1978, my first game system owned was a 32 varieties-of-pong console.

      I was still excited, damnit :(
      • The Odyssey 300 was my first system:

        http://www.pong-story.com/odyssey_other.htm [pong-story.com] (it's the yellow one).

        True story about that one though - the RF modulators in those days were a joke. They were basically just air (we cracked one open), and allowed the companies to dodge FCC violations on interference by putting the crime into the hands of the people (customers) who hooked it up. At the time I was living some 60 miles south of St. Louis, and to get TV reception of any decent kind, you needed an arial similar i
    • i'm shocked you didn't mention the ad for pole position [youtube.com].

      It'll bust your crank and leave skidmarks on your soul!
      • I didn't because that's a good one.

        In fact, I think every commercial should start out "HEEEEEY - You're a real JERK!".

        It would be much more interesting to the average viewer and would be a nice bit
        of disclosure at the top of the commercial break that you're going to be fed total
        bullshit for the next 10 minutes.

  • Not really an ad, but... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Yvan256 ( 722131 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2006 @11:31AM (#15825130) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:5, Funny)

    by El_Muerte_TDS ( 592157 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2006 @11:32AM (#15825138) Homepage
    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.
    • 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 (Score:4, Interesting)

      by identity0 ( 77976 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2006 @02:03PM (#15826386) Journal
      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.
  • wait, worst one more time ads were the intellitxt ones splattered throughout the article. It used to be you just had to watch where you click to set the focus for your scroll wheel, now if you're not careful your pointer becomes hopelessly entrenched in a mine field of intellitxt garbage.
  • I can't believe I just generated ad revenue clicking through that garbage.
  • It's only a passing mention in the article, but Atari Jaguar enclosures are now used for dental camera systems?! [1up.com] That [imaginsystems.com] (PDF) is awesome.

  • More random than anything. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hal2814 ( 725639 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2006 @12:06PM (#15825363)
    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.
    • Since you are already rated at a 5, I'll just reply and say that I agree with you.

      It seemed like they were just playing MST3K with old magazines, and criticizing the games as often as the ads. I've seen worse ads than any of the ones in the 'article'. - I don't think they went all out on this one.

  • Zelda 64 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AnarchoAl ( 987558 ) <anarchoal@yahoo. c o . uk> on Tuesday August 01, 2006 @12:10PM (#15825389)
    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 [gamespot.com]

  • Ouch (Score:1)

    by Jeian ( 409916 )
    "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."

    I'm currently suffering the pain that comes from laughing Dasani lemon-flavored water up one's nasal passages.

  • Oh, sweet hell. There's an Atlas Shrugged movie in production. That doesn't leave me much time to do all those things I've always wanted to and still be able to kill myself before the licensed tie-in game comes out.

    Hmm, I imagine most of us will kill ourselves during the third hour of John Galt's speech. (I know, why see the movie... well, why play the licensed tie in game if you haven't seen the movie? Besides, isn't there already an Atlas Shrugged computer game?)

  • Oh, that thing. Aura was a sad story. They developed the first really powerful direct drive linear actuators, things that looked like hydraulic cylinders but were entirely electrical. (U.S. Patent #5,099,158) Some were so powerful that they were used for active damping on metal bridges, to reduce vibration when heavy trucks rolled by. These things were shown at industrial automation shows.

    But they didn't sell. Good idea, too expensive.

    Aura tried making the Interactor [avsim.com], a big subwoofer, using their a

  • Before man dares to fight.

    What game is that by line from? I thought it was the dummest line ever...
  • Shiggity-shiggity-shwa. [superlime.com]

    (No, it's not a real ad, but it's the first thing that popped into my head.)
  • Is it just me, or do all the new slashdot stories seem to have come from digg.com first?

  • on the heals of...Games that never got made (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mikers ( 137971 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2006 @02:12PM (#15826454)
    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 [worth1000.com]

  • Another article (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2006 @02:25PM (#15826552) Homepage
    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 [blogspot.com]

    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.

  • Does anyone else find it very annoying that they make comments about the screen shots and fine print in the "worst ads"-- but the scans are too low-res to actually see or read what they're talking about?
  • That's okay they're still bad:
    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/07/26 [penny-arcade.com]
  • Woah!
    NEXT PAGE>>
    So many
    NEXT PAGE>>
    bad
    NEXT PAGE>>
    advertise
    NEXT PAGE>>
    ments
    NEXT PAGE>>
    on this site
    NEXT PAGE>>
    and the game advertisements are poor also.

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