"Battletoads", 1991.

It's easy to forget just how huge the transparently derivative Battletoads phenomenon was in gaming circles (derivative in turn of the transparently derivative Teenaged Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles, themselves a paper-thin pastiche of a young Frank Miller's best work in Daredevil -- but typically I must save the digression for the end of the post or else we'll never get there!) and how odd it seems in retrospect that a) they were genuinely platform-exclusive despite not being owned by their console's mother corp whoops, guess not and b) they haven't yet seen a dark, gritty or ironic revival. But Rare's back catalogue is full of stuff like this -- lovingly crafted intellectual property that they'll happily set aside for two or twenty years, only to pick back up where they left off as if they had just nipped off down the way for a bag of chips. We've seen it with Solar Jetpac, Sabre Wulf, and Banjo-Kazooie (and if anything, they do it even more successfully with the IP of others -- cf. Donkey Kong Country and Goldeneye), so don't be surprised if we eventually see a return of these tragical Poochie '90s amphibians.

COMPARED TO BATTLETOADS, TURTLES SEEM LIKE POND SCUM.

DUDE, IF YOU'RE READY FOR A GAME THAT TOADALLY KICKS BUTT, GET BATTLETOADS. WITH 12 LEAPIN' LEVELS OF FIERCE FIGHTING AND RADICAL RACING, FOR ONE OR TWO PLAYERS.
TRADEWEST

IT'S INTERESTING... wait, sorry, caps lock off -- got stuck in eXtreme ANGRY CAPS MODE -- to see that again, the main elements are a) the box art (why not just blow up the box to full-page and leave out the weak text, which boasts no selling point beyond tepid alliteration? I dig the cartoonish visual emphasis the game also employs -- big fist, big foot, big attitude!) and b) trash-talking their primary influence. (If the Great Giana Sisters advertised by slamming Super Mario Bros., it would be similarly conspicuous.)
Also interesting is the publisher's decision to make good use of the margins to plug a few other wholly unrelated titles -- Off-Road and Double Dragon didn't need any more page space to assert their self-evident virtues, their presence more a reminder If You Don't Have These Carts Yet, You Should Remember To Do So. The other games I can't speak much to, but suffice it to say they were no Battletoads.

"Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers", Nintendo 64, 1999.

I've got to bring this one to the front of the stack as I've just discovered that the key players of ICOM Simulations, authors of the original Shadowgate Mac-Venture, have bought back the rights to their IP and are preparing to re-launch this particular property. (iPad ports of their FMV triumph the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective conversion are already for sale!)

Counter to some recent game ads profiled, the problem here is not an inadequate supply of screen shots. Indeed, they are just about all we have to go on, along with a baffling array of company names and logos, the game's name and a helpful indicator that its release will not be elapsing two thousand years prior to the birth of Christ. Unless your game is Myst, screen shots alone shouldn't sell it. (And if it is Myst, your customers deserve the game that they get.)
I was always surprised to find that Shadowgate had sequels (vs. their explicit Deja Vu 2), but other than a bit of character name continuity they don't seem to have as much in common as, say, Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. do. Just a fading license trading off the name recognition of its onetime success. All the same I like to see the old names re-emerging from the woodwork (hi there!) and wish them better success with it this time around.

"Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis", 1991.

A curious time-bending document of a license's gap-leaping journey across media, from film to game to comic book.

The Adventures of the Indiana Jones we met in the three block buster films "Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," and "Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade" continue in a special Dark Horse collection!

INDIANA JONES
AND THE
FATE OF ATLANTIS

Travel to the four corners of the earth in this globe-spanning adventure written by Dan Barry, from a story by Hal Barwood and Noah Falstein, Lucasfilm Games.

I'll skip lightly over the larger questions (how do you hammer out one master narrative out of an interactive work with non-sequential and mutually-exclusive possible outcomes? Well, a choose-your-own-adventure comic would be one potential option, but that's grist for my other blog 8) and ask are the writers such a selling point? Who are the artists? Here, I'll write a new ad blurb that gets to the heart of what the consumers will care about:

"Hey, Dark Horse peeps -- We were granted use to the cool Indiana Jones license. As you can see from our art, which we decided to blow up to full-page size and not just quarter-page, Indy looks like Indy, so you know our anonymous artist is competent. Also, did we mention that this is a commercial tie-in to a game by the same name which you can buy in stores? Isn't that cool?"

This game* has many great elements (perhaps its greatest in my estimation its interactive introduction), though for my playing enjoyment it also failed on several levels. But even in its failure it was undoubtedly a compelling failure with high production values, successfully evoking a lost and alien civilization. That said, there are probably better games which never got comic book adaptations.

* I need note that in fact there were two games by this name, both released curiously the year after the comic book -- which does provide an answer to some of my earlier hypothetical questions but also opens the door to more of them. Sometimes if you anticipate the product too much with your cross-promotional tie-in, you get left holding the bag if it gets cancelled altogether. Not the case here, but see the earlier discussion of the Alien vs. Predator coin-op. I guess even at the best of times if can be difficult to get even one company to synch to its scheduled plans, let alone two of them. ...

Atari, 1981.

In this ad, I like the way the kids appear more genuinely frightened than anything, as they play Asteroids on the small screen while it plays out writ large on the side. (Was the Atari logo on the ship really necessary? Perhaps it was part of the Atari Force...) I'm also quite jazzed at the level of detail used in the depiction of the console itself. In the opening panel, is the alien zapping the cannon or vice versa? The white shots appear to be raining down, but the cannon definitely appears to be being fried -- or perhaps that's just what it looks like while discharging its payload? I suppose the former interpretation would make more sense given the ominous tone of the opening panel.

NOTHING CAN SAVE YOU FROM... ATARI. THE MOST EXCITING GAMES IN THE GALAXY.

ASTEROIDS
MISSILE COMMAND
VIDEO PINBALL
PLUS...
WARLORDS
OTHELLO
BREAKOUT
PELE'S SOCCER
ADVENTURE
SUPERMAN
MAZE CRAZE
AIR-SEA BATTLE
AND MORE!!!

Tone it down, guys, and whatever you do, don't get carried away and lose your cool with the use of an exclamation point in describing your awesome and, well, EXCITING product... well, they manage to maintain their composure until the very end of the game list. Atari had many great games but it's conspicuous that the lead-in game (and the only big-panel game not explicitly named) appears to be a creative interpretation of Taito's mega-hit Space Invaders -- a game available for Atari machines (among others) but not one of their in-house productions. (Wikipedia notes: "The 1980 Atari 2600 version quadrupled the system's sales and became the first 'killer app' for video game consoles.")

Speaking of which... note in the small print:

OTHELLO is a registered trademark of CBS, Inc. for its strategy disc game and equipment.

Vs. the generic no-name brand Reversi? Guess that Shakespeare's lawyers were asleep on the job. Hard to imagine that Reversi was the Carcassonne of its day. (The incredible ripples caused by the splash of Reversi continued to bounce around until at least 1993 and its minigame in the smash hit the 7th Guest as well as the weird Infection / Ataxx / Cool Spot implementations around then. But... I'm digressing!)

"Kya: Dark Lineage", PlayStation 2, 2003.

The game might be fun (I played it and found some pleasant surprises, a rarity in the played-out 3D action-adventure genre), but the marketers are acting as though they didn't have much to work with.  Admittedly the visual design suggests a philosophy devoid of nuances and grey areas.

A whole LOTTA HURT
in a BELLY SHIRT

Fight evil creatures
Master magical powers
Soar to new heights

So, to reiterate:

* As you can see, like Tomb Raider, our game also features an attractive (well, bizarrely elongated) female protagonist whose underaged midriff you can enjoy watching for the entirety of the game.
* Unlike other games, where innocents are indiscriminately brutalized for amoral pleasure, we testify that there is a rigorous ethical framework rationalising the use of violence in our game.
* Our protagonist will be demonstrating some extraordinary talents in an escapist fashion.
* One of these talents includes use of the z-axis in our simulated 3-dimensional space.

"Zone of the Enders", PlayStation 2, 2001.

And now, an ad for a game whose most critical sales point was the fact that it came bundled with a demo for the latest member of a far more popular and hotly-anticipated series.

with ultimate power
comes ultimate consequences

TACTICAL ESPIONAGE ACTION
METAL GEAR SOLID 2
SONS OF LIBERTY
TRIAL EDITION
PLAYABLE DEMO INCLUDED

"Certainly one of the most exciting games we've ever seen, and it plays like an absolute dream."
Official PlayStation magazine
Control system is intuitive and easy to use in a 3D environment
Your decisions during combat affect the outcome of the story
Versus Mode for heated, 2-player battles

The controls of a fully-armed, giant, mechanized, prototype robot are in your hands. So is the fate of your entire space colony. Life and death decisions aren't easy -- but when the time comes, you'll know what to do.

Immersive story follows characters as they examine the meaning of life and death.
Computer AI reacts to and learns from your actions, helping you minimise civilian casualties.
Combat system allows both close-quarter weapon attacks and long-range laser attacks.
Fast-paced battle sequences with multiple enemies in full 3D environments.
Missions change when re-played.

The game's headline seems derivative of Spider-Man's core axiom ("with great power comes great responsibility", which is appropriate for an ad running in a comic book. If you want to connect with them, you need to understand how they talk!
Personally, I've heard enough about the 3D environments -- presumably this was to distinguish the game from other launch games which, while technically in 3D, may not have done much with the perspective?
I was never able to pass the first boss, but maybe that last point ("missions change when re-played") should have inspired me to try again. That means I don't have much from personal experience to report regarding this title, but I can tell you now that I will buy any game that successfully delivers on this game's promise of Immersive story follows characters as they examine the meaning of life and death.

"Buck Rogers XXVc: Countdown to Doomsday", 1990.

My understanding is that this is a relic from a dark time in the RPG business, when a tiny seed of uncertain rot planted at the very founding of TSR, before anyone thought D&D had any commercial promise, germinated into a full-blown attempt by a hostile outside interest (in this case, the estate of the creator of Buck Rogers or "The Dille Family Trust") to refigure the thriving business into a house organ for an unrelated and somewhat basically incompatible outside intellectual property... or at least to divert and misallocate funds from the business to the estate until the business was spent, exhausted and deflated. Quick, while Gygax is distracted in Hollywood making Saturday morning cartoons!

Spectacular Inter-Galactic Battles

Blast into the future for hours of adventure.

Join Buck Rogers and the New Earth Organization in the exciting 25th Century, and play the BUCK ROGERS XXVc Role-Playing Game and Countdown To Doomsday, the new computer role-playing game.
The XXVc role-playing game is packed with adventure, fantastic civilizations, genetically-engineered races, and future-science technology. This game contains action-packed adventures sure to thrill science-fiction fans and game players alike.
The computer game thrusts you into a race to save humanity from the enemies of the inner planets. Players must follow clues across the solar system, through the space ways, and to the surfaces of Mars, Venus, and the orbiting satellites of Mercury to discover the awesome DOOMSDAY Device.
Earth's future is in your hands! Look for these games at book, computer, hobby and comic stores everywhere.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I suspect that any product sold at book, computer, hobby AND comic stores is unlikely to satisfy any of their regular patrons.
You can't see it here (an absence of screenshots always a conspicuous omission), but playing the Buck Rogers CRPG on SSI's venerable Gold Box engine was a really jarring experience: some might disagree (eg. Bioware, Raven) but you can't just re-skin a fantasy game engine as sci-fi (or vice versa) without knocking some people for a loop. The engine was getting long in the tooth by this point (it had been quite some time since it launched with Pool of Radiance) but by all accounts this fundamentally misguided product was nonetheless a solid, workmanlike effort.

"Bonk's Adventure", TurboGrafx-16, 1990.

And a glorious return to minicomic video game ads within comic books! This time, TurboGrafix-16 (or rather its Japanese model, the PC Engine -- hence his punny Japanese name, "PC Genjin") mascot (barring Johnny Turbo) B0nk the caveman in his debut console romp, Bonk's Adventure:

B0NK'S ADVENTURE
A LONG, LONG TIME AGO, LATER THAN YOU THINK AND SOONER THAN YOU KNOW, THERE WAS A STRANGE AND TERRIBLE KINGDOM...

"HELP! BONK! SAVE ME!"
TREE: "I WOULDN'T WANT TO BE IN KING DROOL'S SHOES ONCE BONK BONKS HIS WAY TO HIM!"

DROOL: "BONK... HAH! THAT CRUDE CAVEBOY WILL NEVER MAKE HIS WAY HERE... I'VE SEEN TO IT! YOU'RE MINE, PRINCESS!"
PRINCESS ZA: "YOU MUST BE JOKING! NOTHING CAN STOP BONK!"

BONK: "SHE'S NOT TALKING THROUGH HER CROWN, EITHER! BRICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES... -- BUT NOT WHEN I BONK 'EM WITH MY HEAD!"

TREES: "WOW! THAT'S... REALLY USING YOUR HEAD!" [B0NK!]

BONK: "WOAH! I WASN'T COUNTING ON YOU SHOWING UP!"
DINO: "I'M COUNTING THE PAY DROOL GAVE ME TO STOP YOU! I'M WORKING FOR HIM NOW!"
FLOWER: "BONK, OVER HERE!"

[ROARRRRR] BONK: I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH POWER YET FOR A HEAD-ON COLLISION WITH YOU... BUT I WILL WHEN I PICK THIS FLOWER..."

BONK: "... AND CHARGE UP WITH MEAT AND OTHER GOOD THINGS AND -- [WHOOSH!] ... GO NUCLEAR!"

BONK: "YIKE! THE TERRIBLE T. RACTORHEAD! IT'S ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER IN THIS PLACE!"

BONK: "TO BONK HIM, I'LL NEED ANOTHER FLOWER FOR TWICE THE POWER!"

BONK: "OOOPS! A VENUS BONKTRAP! I'M STUCK!" [CHOMP!]

PRINCESS: "I'M DOOMED... UNLESS YOU SAVE BONK SO HE CAN RESCUE ME... IN THE ALL-NEW TURBO-GRAFX 16 BONK'S ADVENTURE"

This ad ran, among other places, in Todd McFarlane's crack at Amazing Spider-Man #1 -- at its time the best-selling single comic book issue of all time, before he jumped ship to Image. You've certainly seen the cover artwork of the first issue of his Torment storyline. In any case, I imagine it ensured that this ad got seen by a lot of kids -- but even they weren't enough for the TurboGrafx-16 to be a viable platform on this side of the water.

A caveman protagonist was rarely enough on its own to float a game; by this sophisticated era they also needed to ride skateboards, a la Encino Man (or more to the point, Wonder Boy rebranded as Master Higgins). Eventually we got Caveman Ninjas and, well, then the whole thing started to fall apart. Though NEC never got a better mascot than Bonk together, the shine fell off his tenure when his debut game appeared on the NES -- a mercenary move, Hudson!

A blogger with less restraint than I might not have been able to avoid a joke in that "twice the power" panel. Me, I like how several times over the course of this strip, Bonk appears to be an angry baby.

"Atmosfear: The Harbingers", VCR/board game, 1995.

Not much to say here: again, something like this wasn't considered a video game even though video games incorporating full-motion video had been around since Dragon's Lair hit the arcades in the early '80s, home FMV-game systems had been designed to encroach upon living rooms everywhere (see the ill-fated NEMO and its games Night Trap and Sewer Shark, later repurposed for the Sega CD), and of course once the CD-ROM format came about crappy video was actually all you needed to stink up a disc and call it a game. This gets an extra nail in its coffin due to the necessary use of game board and tokens in order to track player progress and game state -- something that, again, wasn't unheard of in the early home consoles and which we'd seen as recently as Infocom's Suspended in 1983. OK, this was over a decade later, but for years between the two computer games would direct players to consult entry number 224 in the game journal included with the package just to save disk space for text. Clearly all the elements were on the table but they weren't yet all unified in a single presentation!

ATMOSFEAR
'The Harbingers'

The sound, the nighmare, the game.

ATMOSFEAR
Experience the game

What I want to know is how are you supposed to frighten people when your company is named "A Couple A Cowboys"?

"Alien vs. Predator", SNES, 1993.

This is just about the only video game advertisement I ever saw in the pages of a Dark Horse comic book (which would typically only advertise -- other DH comics!), and for obvious reasons -- it's an extension of a mash-up first explored (in any depth) in their pages.

THE BATTLE TO SURVIVE

JUST GOT UGLY

Two titans of terror are about to square off in the more fearsome fighting the galaxy has ever seen!
As a Predator Warrior, you'll battle dozens of deadly, double-jawed Alien beasts bent on your annihilation. But you're ready. A cloaking device makes you instantly invisible. You're armed to the teeth with spears, lasers, wristblades and killer kickboxing maneuvers - Weapons you'll need to survive ten treacherous levels of claw-to-claw combat.
Overcome swarms of Alien drones, warriors, chestbursters, face-huggers and you still face your ultimate challenge: a monstrous battle with the Alien Queen! Alien vs Predator, now face to hideous face on the SNES, Game Boy and MS-DOS from Activision.

Activision may have overextended itself somewhat here; I can find no record of an MS-DOS port of this game existing (concurrent development for both platforms would have been rather unusual), while the Game Boy "version" is a separate but related game subtitled "The Last of his Clan". But the cover artwork is so good it was used for both games (and the ad for that matter: save your money, here's a picture of the box in which we sell the game! Plus -- some gooey Alien fluids.)
I love the Predator's claws, and this is the reason why -- in the later, PC AVP game, the Predator is able to use its forearm computer in order to switch weapons systems and even activate a mutually-assured-destruction tactical mini-nuke. You see it raise the keyboard before the player's "face" and type keystrokes in on the keys. And because the Predator has long claws emerging from its fingers, it is unable to type as a normal person would, on fingertips, but instead is consigned to a kind of typing on the fleshy finger pads similarly to the way a receptionist would if she had gone overboard on the fingernail extensions. Because Predator Warriors and Glam Receptionists would typically be located at such polar opposites of most spectrums, it's neat to find that here it just ticks over and they meet. On that later game I also wrote a piece on the Alien's "mouth-cam", years ago. And... well, I would say to what extent I digress, but surely you must expect that by now.

"Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles" LCD game, 1989.

Do you consider these things to be video games? Of course not! But Konami sure did, after dropping a mint for use of the TMNT license and helping Kevin Eastman buy Heavy Metal. I mean obviously not -- you could play Pong on these things, and I had one that doubled as a digital watch that turned into a Transformer knock-off! But here you are: Konami even uses the phrase "video game" to describe them. And heck, Nintendo would agree, with its early Game & Watch hand-held LCD games: even if the technology is old or "cheap", if you can have fun with it, it's worth employing. (For further kicks, dig the "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology" ideology.)

But let's be frank -- these aren't actually as fun as virtually all competent console games. But at least a bad LCD game tended to cost quite a bit less than a bad console game.

THE NEXT TIME YOU'RE BORED,
TWIDDLE YOUR THUMBS.

Pop your knuckles and fire up your fingers, because Konami's coming at you with six awesome new hand held video games.

Based on your favorite arcade and home video hits, these boredom busters are packed with action.

And they're portable, so you can slam dunk a basketball in the car, take the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles out to lunch, or launch a heat seeking missile from Grandma's condo.

Licensed titles available in this little series appear to include not just TMNT but Gradius, Super C, Double Dribble, Top Gun and ... well heck, they actually appear to have made quite a lot of these. I guess there was money in it -- they were Tiger Electronics' bread and butter for gawd knows how long, at least until the Furby came along.

In conclusion -- video games? Well, maybe, maybe not -- but as far as their ads in comics books are concerned, they sure were marketed as video games!

"Tomba", 1997, PlayStation.

Of course, screenshots can be overrated. This one bold panel tells you all you need to know about this game: jungle boy fights pigs. Stop, stop -- you had me at "jungle".

BACON ISN'T JUST FOR BREAKFAST ANYMORE.

Evil pigs. Hidden paths. Enchanting worlds. And man-eating plants. Can you believe what Tomba has to go through to conquer the evil swine? Fortunately he's got a bunch of weapons and a ton of spunk. Tomba's here. And it's the first wild action game with role-playing adventure mixed in, too. (You'll love Tomba even more than a BLT on rye.)

The first role-playing adventure action game, you say? If you add a couple more crayons to that rainbow, it all comes out brown. I'll have to take their word for it that this game is enchanting and wild, but after making two pork jokes, they seem trustworthy enough.