"War Room", Colecovision, 1983

For my first scanned-game-ad-post, I tried to pick one that appeared to belong to one of the earlier home video game consoles, thinking I could "begin at the beginning" and use it to share a little history lesson:

Here's the ad copy:

Play the game the generals play... for real.

WAR ROOM

Feel the goose bumps on your neck begin to rise as you take your seat in front of the video monitor.  The situation pictured before your eyes is critical.  Actual enemy nuclear attack on your most important cities and natural resources has begun.

Only you can determine the best strategic defense of the nation.  Only you can effectively repel the enemy attack.

But the situation worsens.  As you're attempting to rebuild your cities and keep production of goods and services going, you pick up enemy spies lurking within your midst on your video close-up monitor.  Can you effectively deal with them...even as more enemy missiles are approaching?

Your time is running out.

It's WAR ROOM.  The new high-technology Probe 2000 strategy game for the ColecoVision™ game system.  The game that's so realistic, generals might even play it.

Isn't it time you tested your skills?
PROBE 2000 series
(c) 1983 N.A.P. Consumer Electronics Corp. ODYSSEY, a North American Philips Company

Well, already I'm getting educated.  First post and already I've learned a few things.

First, in this matter, naturally Jason "textfiles.com" Scott has already beaten me to the punch...

Second -- as anyone with two eyes in their head can tell, this isn't a game for the '70s Odyssey home console, but for the '80s ColecoVision (a different story, the tragic cliche of a leather company gone amok).  Why the Odyssey branding?  Apparently parent company Philips (of the later CD-i) felt that rather than make games for their rapidly fading Odyssey consoles (of K.C. Munchkin! fame, the Pac-Man clone so derivatively awesome its sale had to be restricted by law), it could get a piece of the booming video game pie by making games for... successful platforms.  But just so everyone knows the score, let's saddle our Plan B with the deadly association to our defunct and failed brand! Who knows, maybe the laws of marketing are different in the Netherlands...


And finally  -- I figured I might not be the first to scan these, but... are you serious?  really, $10 for a page from an old comic for a failed video game?  Watermarked, to boot, this precious intellectual property!  I suppose if you spend enough of your life trying to claim title over all the garbage you can find (surely this scanner will eventually pay for itself!  Yes, but selling textures on Second Life, not this way!), eventually someone may give you money for one piece of it.


(Also: this game isn't even on Mobygames yet!  If I want to document the ad blurb there, first I have to throw together an entry about the game!  I must work, so I can enjoy my reward of... further work.)


And for anyone curious who heard me fuming on Google+, here is what my "punchier" (dunno about all the punching going on in this post, perhaps I should save it for a boxing game) condensed blog title might have been, executed in a fittingly amateurish mode: