Showing posts with label Bandai Games video game print ad (1989). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bandai Games video game print ad (1989). Show all posts

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Bandai Games video game (1989)

Bandai Games video game advertisment
Original ad published in the October 1989 edition of EGM (no. 04)
Press to view or download image in higher resolution.

Historical Background and Graphical Analysis



Bandai, the Japanese toy and electronics giant, was an active player in the NES video game market. They applied a hit-and-miss strategy, preferring quantity over quality. The five games presented in the ad were mainly of the first group of products.

Now I won’t lie. I only owned Shooting Range (1989), which was a decent attempt to implement Nintendo’s Light Gun (my father made an enormous effort to buy me this game when I was very young, so it holds special emotional value to me).

Other than that, I can only relay YouTube reviews which pretty much destroy Monster Party, Street Cop, and Golf Challenge Pebble Beach, all released in 1989. And…Wild Boys was never even released! It was supposed to be some sort of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles clone.

The infamous Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (also released in 1989 in North America) deserves a special mentioned as the NES game claiming the highest amount of animosity of the big retro reviewers on YouTube. You probably know the Nerd’s famous diatribe against this piece of "dog vomit", but there are some other very funny reviews out there.

Even with Bandai’s considerable financial muscle, The print ad is pathetic. What? No artwork? They scanned the game’s box-art and pasted them on their page editor. And that’s it. “Excellent!” my ass.








Bandai Games print ad copy

"Excellent!"