The holiday season is upon us, and everybody knows the best part of the holidays is all the new games. Remember repeatedly seeing the commercials for games you REALLY wanted? It was painful, but it was also kind of great. In a perfect world every commercial made before the year 2000 would be included on this list, as they’re all glorious in their own way, but this site isn’t made of unlimited space, so we had to opt for 15 instead of 15 thousand.
15.
Before we had Rock Band or Guitar Hero (or any music game for that matter), we had PaRappa the Rapper, the lovable dog who taught us all how to believe. This commercial really helped to convey the consummate weirdness of PaRappa the Rapper to the general public. To this day, people who have never played the game still know about the part where the weird stoner lizard sings about having to pee.
14.
Truthfully, this is a pretty standard commercial for the time period. I mean, I like it, but I don’t love it. But what sets this apart from any other commercial of the era is a young Paul Rudd, blown away by the powerful graphics generated by the Super NES. It makes you wish that Paul Rudd would do another commercial for Nintendo today, charming us all by simply talking about Wii Sports Resort or the new Donkey Kong. Now that, I can get into.
13.
This commercial is one of those that just happens to be burned in my brain forever because of how many times it played on TV. It’s also a great example of what video game commercials were like at the time: extremely obnoxious with a lot of “attitude” and in-your-face camera shots. Come to think of it, everything was like that. Thank heavens we got out of that phase. Now if you excuse me, I have to go. The Squeakquel is on.
12.
Sometimes people tend to forget just how much of a chokehold the original Playstation had on the console market. Their rise to the top was aided by cheeky, memorable commercials like this. That being said, I think Sony took it too far with the one where Aeris protested Final Fantasy VII and Sephiroth in front of the video game store. That was a little much.
11.
Old video game commercials are much more enjoyable to watch than new ones. The old ones simply have much more charm than the new ones, which are too slick and polished, and almost always feature soldiers. But this commercial gets included because not only does it give WoW a little bit of pop-culture cred, it also has an endearing wtf-factor.
10.
This is another commercial from more recent times that deserves props. “Weird” and “random” are so in fashion these days that I’m surprised Smokey The Bear hasn’t referred to forest fires as an “epic fail” while doing a barrel roll and listening to Rick Astley on his iSpork. Fortunately, Sony’s charming Kevin Butler manages to pull off that combination of weirdness, edginess, and actual humor that so many people seem to get wrong in the internet age.
9.
I tried to keep this list restricted to American commercials, but I had to include this Australian NES commercial, because it is literally the scariest thing I have ever seen. If I had seen this when I was a kid, I would have been irreparably changed. After watching it, one has so many questions. Is the Duck Hunt Dog an enemy? Who is that duck? What does that man have against me, and why is he wearing a tie?
8.
Mortal Kombat was one of the most popular games of the 90’s. Like any popular thing in the 90’s, it had its own catch phrase, which people would yell in the streets, and still yell to this day. Fortunately, the catch phrase was also the same as the title. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get kids to remember the name of your product (suck it, Killer Instinct).
7.
6.
Talking trash on the competition was standard business practice in the 90’s, and Sony wasn’t about to get left out on all the fun. The difference, however, was that Crash Bandicoot actually said it to their face instead of hiding behind a TV screen like a little bitch. These classic commercials featuring a guy in a crash suit yelling were an instant success, helping to make Crash Bandicoot a very popular series, one that would go on to enchant generations of gamers (for about 4 years).
5.
Unlike a lot of commercials on this list, this one doesn’t have any particular significance (except that it reminds us of how much we all wanted to win a Nintendo 64 back in the day). It’s just an extremely well made short cartoon that pretty accurately depicts how it felt to play Mario Kart, even though Mario isn’t swearing as much as I usually am.
4.
One of the biggest games of all time had an appropriately intense trailer. After watching this, I felt a powerful urge to run to Funcoland for some Funky Kong. However, I remembered that Funcoland is closed, so I opted to instead throw my hat on the ground and stomp on it.
3.
Though the console wars of the 2000’s have certainly been considered to be intense by some, they are a mere scuffle compared to the full-blown console wars of the early 90’s, pitting 16-bit brother against 16-bit brother. There were so many good ads that one could make a whole separate list of “The Best 16-bit Attack Ads That Make You Say ‘Oh No They Nintendidn’t’” However, for the best example of complete ad bluster, look no further; the term “blast processing” means about as much as “triple hops brewed.”
2.
Sega fans waited so long for a real follow up to the Genesis that when it actually happened in 1999, it was a pretty big deal. Fortunately the “It’s Thinking” ad campaign followed suit, making Dreamcast seem like a huge party in your bedroom that all of your favorite Sega characters were invited to. Nowadays the only place you can get that is, unfortunately, DeviantArt.
1.
This commercial belongs on the list just for being incredibly humorous and memorable. But it deserves to be number one because it was America’s introduction to the idea of Nintendo characters beating the crap out of each other, a simple, lucrative idea that became one of our nation’s most time-honored traditions.
por FILIP_FB Qua Dez 05, 2012 11:20 am
