Thursday, April 26, 2018

Retro Atari Classics for Nintendo DS (2005)


Original ad featured in the April 2005 issue of EGM (no. 190).
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Great artwork, terrible performance


It took me 13 years to pay attention to this advertisement, prominently featured in the inner part of the back-cover. It's incredibly gaudy, but someone at Atari thought it would be cool to display this type of artwork to the masses. The end result was unique but falls way short of the intended objetive.

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Virtua Cop 2 for Sega Saturn (1997)

Original add featured in the January 1997 issue of Ultra Game Players magazine (no. 93).
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Arcade quality action right in your living room


If you ever visited an arcade hall during the 90's you remember Virtua Cop fondly. It was one of Sega's most well-known brands and an absolute quarter-muncher. Graphics were very impressive for the time, thanks to the brightly colored polygons that gave the shooter a very futuristic feel. The same could be said about the sound and the overall feel of the game. It just encompassed Sega arcade quality and made for a memorable visit right next to other arcade classics like Daytona USA and Sega Virtua Racing.

Monday, October 30, 2017

NIGHTS into dreams...for Sega Saturn (1996)

Original printed ad featured in volume 4 issue 9 of Gamefan magazine.


The best 3D game that does not a feature a Mario character


Few games have been so well-received as “NIGHTS”, released by Sega for the Saturn in 1996, just when 3D was starting to dominate the video game market. Nintendo had of course Mario 64 and Sony’s Playstation was starting to gain ground with the 3D crowd, but the majority of titles that featured this graphical style were horrible. NIGHTS changed that forever. Of course 2D was still very popular and the SNES was still going strong (Yoshi’s Island was released in 1995; Super Mario RPG in 1996).

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Shadow of the Colossus for PS2 (2005)


Original ad featured in the December 2005 issue of EGM (no. 198).
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An unrivaled masterpiece

To say Shadow of the Colossus changed the way adventure games are played would be a huger understatement. More than 10 years after its original release, there's still nothing that matches the sheer beauty of the 2005 product. Seeing that The Last Guardian (2016), the true spiritual successor of "Colossus", got mixed reviews from critics and fans alike, Sony decided to produce a remastered version of the now classic for the PS4 which will be launched sometime in 2018. So how does the artwork for the original stand up today?  

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance (1990)

Original ad featured in the November 1990 issue of EGM (no. 16).
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Terrific artwork, terrible game

Heralded as one of the worst games ever for the NES, this side-scrolling action RPG featured terrible graphics and gameplay, yet decent music. It was a ported to various different systems, including DOS, but never gained any traction on Nintendo’s console. Having said that, the box art and publicity material was absolutely beautiful.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for GameCube (2005)


Original advertisement published in EGM no. 198 (December 2005)
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A three-dimensional skin to a classic tactical RPG

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for GameCube was released to critican acclaim in North America back in 2005. It’s a tactical RPG very much in the same style as the legendary Final Fantasy Tactics of the late 1990s. Solid game with equally solid artwork, as you can see above.

Saturday, March 18, 2017

Mechanized Attack for NES (1990)

Original advertisement published in VG&CE (June 1990)
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A ho-hum game with a decent ad

Little can be said about the game you see above. It was a first person view mode shooter in the same vein as Operation Wolf. Both of them were successful arcade games (they even had fake rifles to round out the experience), but lost quite a bit when ported to the NES.