Classic Gaming Commercials Were Awesome!

Modern video games are usually advertised with endless bullshots (photoshopped screenshots), or “not actual in-game footage” montages that are full of action, even if the game isn’t. Of course, things weren’t always this way and in fact, some of the older adverts were often far worse than their modern counterparts for embellishing the truth of the game. Of course, one thing about the original adverts from my own youth, is that they’re full of retro charm and often so bad that you can’t help but grin at how amusing they were and still are.

Just looks at this one from the 1976 Radio Shack TV Scoreboard. It was terrible, but at least they had the confidence to show it actually being used, something you rarely see in modern adverts.

Or this bonkers advert for a Wiresless NES controller, they may have embellished the levels of immersion a little bit (see: A lot).

Of course, you could always fight Mike Tyson in Punchout, even better if you have a massive video wall of old school TV’s.

Or get ready for the future with this Sega Mega Drive advert from 1992. Again, maybe the hammed up the excitement a little bit, even if the Mega Drive was freaking epic.

Then again, the Mega Drive did have “BLAST PROCESSING!” and Nintendo didn’t! Sing along “You can’t do this on Nintendo!” And you thought the console war was intense these days!

Or you could buy the Sony Bagel Toaster for £299 and a Deadly Doughnut to put in it for just £44.99. Wait, WUT? Then again, Sony have long been masters of strange advertisements.

How about “HEEEY! You look like a real jerk!” from the old 1983 Pole Position Atari advert? Be careful though “it’ll leave skid marks on your soul!”

Actually, now that I think about it, old video game advertisements were awesome! Then again, some modern trailers haven’t lost that ludicrous magic of giving us no real impression of what the game is actually like.

And let’s not forget that banned Xbox commercial, which is pretty intense to say the least, but damn was it a cool, if somewhat disturbing, advertisement. Credit to them for thinking completely out of the box on that one.

Feel free to share some of your favourites in the comments section or on our Facebook wall and we’ll share them out with the eTeknix community.