Because advertising is expensive and game development is cheap (?!), an early strategy of some publishers was to just throw their entire catalogue in a full-page ad, casting a wide net -- or rather, throwing everything out there and seeing if any of it would stick. Bandai is still with us, a major toy company (counting among their holdings not only Gundam and the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers but also Pac-Man's creators Namco) ... This ad is surprisingly effective, packing a lot of punchy information in for each game (and, hilariously, showing a redundant miniature game box beneath each game's thumbnail, for the exclusive benefit of readers with magnifying glasses.) Without hyperbole, I can state that in some cases each of the six games profiled here get more air time than some games with full-page ads.
'89 Game Power from Bandai
STREET COP
You're a rookie cop walking the meanest streets of the city. Using the Power Pad controls you can run down and catch the thugs and villains and make the neighborhood safe again!
MONSTER PARTY
Fighting a vast array of monsters is made more difficult than ever when rewards turn into demons and nightmares into reality! Help the metamorphised Mark battle the demons!
DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
Play the dual-world challenge of Dr. Jekyll's London and Mr. Hyde's World of Demons. Battle the demons with Hyde's Psycho-Wave to save his life!
ATHLETIC WORLD
Test your athletic ability on Power Pad by taking on Athletic World's five challenging courses. Hurdles, Animal Trail, Dark Tunnel, Hop a Log, and Rafting. Multiple skill levels keep you constantly challenged - and in shape!
GOLF Challenge Pebble Beach
Play one of the world's most difficult and challenging golf courses on your Nintendo! Super-realistic play lets you control every aspect of playing real golf!
XEVIOUS the Avenger
Skillfully maneuver the fighter plane at warp speeds through treacherous air space and gain the strike advantage. Fire the laser-pulse weaponry at Xevious enemy aircraft and equipment.
Street Cop is a funny concept that may as well be refashioned "Jogger Citizen's Arrest"; Monster Party is the reason this ad was sent in (this ad courtesy of Doruk Özaydın, my first successful guest-contributed art); Jekyll & Hyde looks like an interesting visit to Ikaruga territory (where everything has a light and dark side, also seen in Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest (
no, not that one), King's Quest 4, the Soul Reaver games, and, say, Super Mario Bros. 2.) Athletic World seems to be taking liberties with what are conventionally considered to be athletic events, Golf reminds me of Pebble Beach's interminable status as the only universally known "named" golf venue even for laymen. And Xevious, whose previous main selling point was its arcade exclusivity, here... no longer is. But why play up its intriguing Peruvian setting? Let's try to make it a little more generic here.
I didn't know that "Street Cop" existed. I didn't know they had made any games for the Power Pad beyond a few athletic themed games.
ReplyDeleteMonster Party was a great game, though, wasn't it?
While writing this post I actually learned that the Power Pad was Bandai's invention, initially marketed by them, briefly, as the "Family Trainer"... I guess Nintendo saw the potential (or wanted to discourage 3rd-party hardware) and snapped it up from them. This made a factory-sealed copy of Athletic World complete with Bandai Family Trainer pad the most expensive NES game collectible bought at auction (really, more than the NES World Championships thingummy in the gold cart?)
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see the pad's ultimate vindication with DDR and ultimately the Wii balance board. Nintendo's mistakes may have just been being too far ahead of their time.
I never gave Monster Party more than a cursory investigation, though apparently it warrants more.
YOU FIGHT ONION RINGS!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think the first boss had a voice clip imitating Elvis.
I need to get a copy of that game again to see if I can beat it now. It was weird, creepy, and funny.
I do appreciate whimsical opponents. That's GunNac's sole point of distinction!
DeleteIndeedy, game restorers have unearthed evidence that the first boss, a giant plant, was originally singing into a karaoke machine that was painted over with black, explaining an invisible platform to one side of it. I can't really imagine sifting through hexedited data dumps hoping for a gleaning of meaning (as it's often considered -- putting more work into analysing the specimen than its original authors put into its creation), though of course I suppose I do much the same when I stumble across "cheater traps" in the choose-your-own-adventures I convert -- island passages no legitimate page links to. Some game journals (read: storing game text data on paper, not on disk) had more interesting plots in their cheater traps than they did in the actual games.