That didn't happen of course, our primitive brains were merely fooled for a second when seeing real people in a videogame for the first time, like the old timey folks who ran from that film of a train, afraid it might hit them.
That ad TERRIFIED Joel Lieberman LMAO, probably had nightmares of blood spraying out the cabinet after the kids were dragged inside "GET IN HEEEEEERE!"
Fun fact from the recent MK doorstopper book, the kids in the MK advert are the kids of Roger Sharpe, who was the head of marketing at Midway at the time but is widely credited as"the man who saved pinball" by getting NYC pinball bans effectively lifted after showing their city council it was a game of skill not (gambling-related) luck by calling his shots and hitting them in front of the lawmakers.
Ah yes, I saw the movie "Pinball: The Man Who Saved The Game". Very good film. It's along the lines of the "Tetris" film, though I get the impression it's more grounded in reality.
Ok I think I get the Spanish bra one. Between the text of "Life is a constant struggle, train yourself with Tekken" and the target audience of teen boys, I think they're saying "you've heard horror stories about how hard it is to unhook a bra in the heat of the moment, but compared to Tekken combos, it'll seem easy."
In the UK we had an advertising campaign from Sega with a guy getting cybernetic upgrades from a barber so he could keep up with Sega games. Later, the barber would get their own comic in Sonic the Comic.
I find the retail ads (or whatever they are called), the ones directed to cigar chomping old men that own arcades to be the most fascinating. Some _try_ to explain the games but others just fall back on "Look, this is popular with the kids and has a high turnover/profit loop"
Real talk - the Killer Kuts cd bundled in with killer instinct was fire 🔥🔥🔥 Also in the killer instinct folding ad I think the bottom of it had had the “play it loud” slogan. Can’t believe I remember that one so well lol
1:59 There was actually a limited comic book that explored a kid getting pulled into an MK game and being forced to compete. The kid looks like a young Kobra to me.
The super mega angry Jeanne D'Arc reminded me of that cover from Psycho Soldier with a really weird Athena who had Marge Simpson/Elvira's hair, a very weird torn schoolgirl outfit and for some reason elf ears... We call her Bad Box Art Athena
I remember an ad for, I believe, bloody roar. It had the tiger on it it and he says "who you callin' a pussy?!" I don't think I understood the double meaning at time haha
Kano in the MK ad is Quan Chi in MK Mythologies. Blown, my mind is. Also, Retroarch has this feature to download cover art for roms, and since arcade machines don't have cover art, it will download advertisements like these instead for sets like MAME. The neat thing about arcade game advertisements is that they're often more directed at arcade operators rather than patrons. Some will boast that their game will suck your customers absolutely dry and have said customers beg for more. It's an interesting shift of perspective. You've only shown us the tip of the proverbial iceberg today, Matt. Looking forward to more.
Advertisements in the 90s were really just like "this female character will take you out AND break your balls!!!" No wonder guys on Twitter are the way they are.
I think that the Street Fighter Alpha ad is meant to convey that the game is so intense that it blew up the house shown in the photograph. It's not the most well executed visual metaphor, but it was the nineties and pretty much everything in adverts for toys and video games aimed at kids was exploding because we weren't inundated with news stories about suicide bombers like we were post-9/11. Could be worse: back around that time, half of the adverts for games we had in the UK were photographs of sweaty people with nosebleeds looking like they'd done a bunch of coke and fallen asleep in an alley. It took until the Shadowman ad campaign where they offered to pay you to place a permanent ad for the game on the gravestone of your recently deceased relative for the ad industry over here to start toning it down.
Ahh yes, the ad for the first Wipeout. The ad so infamous, they spliced it and news articles regarding the outrage to the ad into the ads for the sequel.
"The Third Place" was the initial ad campaign for the PS2 in the UK (and probably Europe?), where they basically tried to continue the advertising weirdness that worked well for the PS1. Kind of gave way to the more generic ad campaigns they ran later in the console's life.
so I'm pretty sure "The Third Place" thing is in reference to like, a psychology thing about how people need at least 3 stable places to frequent for better mental health: home, work, and a place for, y'know, general relaxation and socializing (like a bar or an arcade). A PS2 is almost certainly in your house so it can't really Be That
Aw yeah, there's VS. and Mace: The Dark Age! 90s magazine ads are a lost art (for better or worse). Sometimes you get a bland 3D render that we thought was amazing because 3D was still pretty early on so just the prospect of a 3D boob was enough, or sometimes the ad just makes fun of you. Maybe both!
So many of the Street Fighter or Darkstalkers ads feel like they decided that they had to avoid the gorgeous Japanese art cuz some Capcom USA guy thought it was "too foreign" and also thought that the Sega Saturn E3 video was the height of cool.
That Street Fighter Alpha ad is a perfect representation of 90's game print ads in general. A two page spread of something gross or depressing, with a couple tiny screenshots of what they're actually selling.
Ngl the domestic violence poster would be perfect for Tekken also I like to think the butcher poster with Killer Instinct is what made Max fell in love with KI lol
The 90's Brazilian marketing was aggressive as well, a good example was Sega's brazilian representative Tectoy when they were promoting MK for Mega Drive (Genesis) and Master System, the ad was like this: "Yes, there is blood here. With that name, what did you want, soup? This game definitely isn't for softies. That's why if you have a strong stomach, the fighter's sensational and violent adventures will invade your videogame to promote real fight. There are 7 fighters for Mega Drive and 6 for Master System with incredible digitalized photos. Among them there's Johnny Cage with his terrific Shadow Kick. Fight for your Mortal Kombat. Or go play with dolls!"
Would love to see more videos of these, 90s and early 2000s were a wild time for video game ads. Some like Crash Bandicoot really leaned into the nonsensical
You think the print ad for 'Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance' was weird in the UK. You have seen the advert which went with it.....the theme was these players of the game, had blood on their hands!
Fun fact the guy who did the character design for Toshinden also did the designs for Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer. He went on to do hentai and just straight up used all his female characters, including Sophia, in the soon to be Criterion classic Angel Blade
From what I understand, the spanish text in the Tekken 4 one is trying to say something more like "Life is full of fights, so since you have to fight something, why not Tekken 4?", with a joke that taking off a bra is one of these fights, because it's hard. That part is in English to make it more obvious that it's a fight. For SNK I can only remember those ads with Shinkiro illustrations and those were great, I used to buy gaming magazines in the 90s and they were always full of them. I'm from Brazil though, not sure if those more crappy ads got here or I just forgot about them.
I remember a fold-out magazine ad that revealed a muscular arm was actually ripped off at the shoulder. No idea what game that was for, but as a kid it was a bit discomforting to look at.
33:19 I love this one because it reminds me of a friend's art style and they're totally draw Yamazaki like this! Now I want to take this ad and challenge my friends and I to do a collab redrawing of this.
*Mai does fireball in KOF Maximum Impact ad* Matt: That's not a move, that she does. Well, Andy Bogard sometimes has a move like that, and Mai's grandfather Hanzo taught him, and Hanzo is explicitly referenced in the backstory of Maximum Impact 1 or 2, somewhere, so maybe Mai COULD do that move, but she prefers to fight with her fans.
Oh god. I remember now. “The third place” was the PS2 ad-catchphrase for a cup of coffee. Didn’t last long I think. Went in tandem with the super weird David Lynch commercials? I don’t remember.
World Heroes was actually kinda popular here in Brazil during the 16-bit era in the early-to-mid '90s. I dare say almost as popular as Fatal Fury and more than Art of Fighting. I assume that was true in other places as well, that would explain why the people behind the ClayFighters ad felt the need to diss the game lol.
35:40 That's not an Urkel reference, it's a LifeAlert reference - it was their tagline for commercials depicting old people who have fallen and need to press the little LifeAlert button around their necks to call 911. You may know the line from Fighting Vipers' training mode music, which samples a LifeAlert commercial.
There was one that I remember from a UK gaming magazine that was essentially a heart on a butchers' hook, I think that might have been for Eternal Champions? That one grossed me out as a kid
With how easy it was to use sex appeal in ads back in the day you'd think it would be INCREDIBLY easy to make a super eyecatching Darkstalkers ad that sells the game in an instant..... But nope, Prude Joe was in charge that weekend i guess?
I have a vivid memory of an SSFFII _billboard_ in Lancashire, that said, in front of kids and God and everything: “For the next best thing, shout ‘NORTHERN BASTARDS’,” emphasis _theirs_
A new Pocket Fighter would be a great excuse for them to use some hand drawn graphics. Imagine the sprite detail of the last 2D KoF with the cartoony fun of Cuphead. If they just start with the good concept, a small roster, and tight gameplay, it would probably catch on, and they could just add a couple characters and further balancing every now and then.
regarding the Fatal Fury Butt Kick, the other things that the ad is talking about is in the background (More Characters, More Fighting, More Selection)
13:58 Yep, actually this ad is actually the most tame I've seen as I've been researching as much gaming magazine scans for DOA, fanservice really did start from the beginning, it just became even more prevalent over time (the first Xtreme game probably helped with that) I mean I'm fine with it in the actual series, only a couple times with a few costumes I think go too far, but that's only in 5 and 4 I think It's always been with the series since the beginning, so it makes more sense why people didn't like when they said 6 going away from fanservice. DOA needs to be both the fanservicey stuff while also being a great game, it just works for success
I remember seeing a ad (teaser?) for DOA3 where the image is showing a grassy hill and it says “the grass is always greener” with dead or alive 3 written on the grassy hill! Also did you know that it along with other OG XBOX games were supposed to come out on November 8th 2001?
there was an ad that I think about constantly. it was for Gundam Battle Assault for PS1, and it was a picture of someone’s hand, all cut and burnt. each different wound had notes on how the injury was acquired with a selection of screenshots.
FWIW I think the rational with all of the non-sequater ads that are just random pictures, is that if you pick up a gaming magazine, all of the actual pages of the mag that are like reviews or whatever are mostly going to be single or double page spreads with a load of screenshots of games so that they don't have to pay for as many column inches; so the idea is that a big random image stands out while you're flicking through the mag and you stop to work out what the hell it's actually an ad for. It's basically pre-click era click bait. Now weather that actually lead to any sales is a totally different matter
There's only a few ads here that I don't think would have sold me as a kid. As long as I get some cool looking characters, box art or screenshots somewhere in the ad, I could be sold. The World of Heroes and Tekken 4 ads at the end give me nothing.
Loaded was a magazine aimed at late teen, 20 somethings males in the UK. It was all about half naked ladies, beer and rude jokes. It was trash and if they were using a review from that on the advert then its a bad time for all. Also The Third Place was like the PS2 tagline in the UK
You could make a decent one-shot game show where younger adults try to guess what genre a game was based on the art from The ads. "I guess maybe a dungeon crawler RPG?" "It's actually for a platformer where you're a marble" "What"
I appreciate 90s culture in general, not just in fighting game ads. It wasn’t the high point of culture by any stretch, but it was the era that gave the least amount of shits, and that’s beautiful in its own way
93-95 had a run of entertainment that is difficult to match. You could easily argue that it’s the high point for cinema and music, while television churned out several iconic shows as well.
It'd be nice to see some video advertisements and see your takes on them, Matt. I know there were some cringe worthy video advertisements growing up, but then also the famous, classic Mortal Kombat 2 city ad with the kid screaming "MORTAL KOMBAT!!!" was there too.
@@carn9507 32X has its own wall outlet, and then a proprietary cable that goes to the Genesis/MD and then Genesis?MD is the full output signal....won't work without it.
@@DSMTheEditor I didn't know about all the wires myself until I got on dirt cheap (early 2000s) then went to hook it up. I wasn't even looking for a 32X at the time. It was pocket change so I just grabbed it.
On the SF2 Turbo box art, Between Honda and Sagat is Dhalsim, it's crazy he was always there and I never noticed till a few years ago (google the artwork without the title font)
Mai is also on the side of the Maximum Impact box, so as much as they were going in on the new protags, they were REALLY banking on Mai for the marketing.
My husband saw that Mai Shiranui ad in MAD Magazine back in the day and of course his mom walked in when he had that page open. Needless to say, she was not thrilled
I remember that "The third place" subtitle was a thing back in the day here in europe, too. Was a bit surprised that Matt didnt know this, so I suppose it wasnt a thing in NA?
The Flophouse Plays and Matt McMuscles' channels are a true free for all. They might be my go-to on video game content (Sorry, Scott the Woz and others). :)
I miss those abstract ads. Back when we were kids we just needed it to look cool. Also, a lot of times the magazine had a preview or review of the game from the ads
You can tell a lot about a man based on whether or not he finds a playable Sawada to be a selling point
They Originally wanted Kenya Sawada to play Ryu.
Raiden and Kano jumping out of an arcade cabinet to grab people and drag them inside would be the start of a rather horrifying isekai anime.
That time Kano dragged me into a Mortal Kombat cabinet and i had to participate into a deadly martial arts tournament.
That didn't happen of course, our primitive brains were merely fooled for a second when seeing real people in a videogame for the first time, like the old timey folks who ran from that film of a train, afraid it might hit them.
DONT WORRY WE WILL FIGHT FOR YOU @@LordofSadFac
THE CHEETAHMEN RAN OFF
. . . . AND NOW . . . .
THE CHEETAHMEN
That ad TERRIFIED Joel Lieberman LMAO, probably had nightmares of blood spraying out the cabinet after the kids were dragged inside "GET IN HEEEEEERE!"
@@theblocksays hey he needed to send those kids to Iraq in 10 years.
Fun fact from the recent MK doorstopper book, the kids in the MK advert are the kids of Roger Sharpe, who was the head of marketing at Midway at the time but is widely credited as"the man who saved pinball" by getting NYC pinball bans effectively lifted after showing their city council it was a game of skill not (gambling-related) luck by calling his shots and hitting them in front of the lawmakers.
Ah yes, I saw the movie "Pinball: The Man Who Saved The Game". Very good film. It's along the lines of the "Tetris" film, though I get the impression it's more grounded in reality.
@@JonLeung1 been meaning to check it out, heard good things. The Mortal Kombat: Round 1 book was actually the first I heard of the story!
Those kids, Josh and Zach, now run the International Flipper Pinball Association, the governing body of competitive pinball
Electronic Billiards 🧐
NYC : Protecting our kids, in the worst way possible.
I’d be down for a whole series of videos like this
Ok I think I get the Spanish bra one. Between the text of "Life is a constant struggle, train yourself with Tekken" and the target audience of teen boys, I think they're saying "you've heard horror stories about how hard it is to unhook a bra in the heat of the moment, but compared to Tekken combos, it'll seem easy."
I miss this kind of advertising. They really dropped the ball on game advertising post-2004
In the UK we had an advertising campaign from Sega with a guy getting cybernetic upgrades from a barber so he could keep up with Sega games.
Later, the barber would get their own comic in Sonic the Comic.
The Cyber Razor Cut!
There's a 4K remastered upload of that ad on here. :)
But it's no Johnny Turbo.
@@carn9507 I just looked it up and that commercial is amazing haha
A metaphor for how they kept trying to keep the Genesis/Mega Drive relevant with its add-ons, perhaps?
I find the retail ads (or whatever they are called), the ones directed to cigar chomping old men that own arcades to be the most fascinating. Some _try_ to explain the games but others just fall back on "Look, this is popular with the kids and has a high turnover/profit loop"
Real talk - the Killer Kuts cd bundled in with killer instinct was fire 🔥🔥🔥
Also in the killer instinct folding ad I think the bottom of it had had the “play it loud” slogan. Can’t believe I remember that one so well lol
1:59 There was actually a limited comic book that explored a kid getting pulled into an MK game and being forced to compete. The kid looks like a young Kobra to me.
Was he forced to...
Kompete?
Eh? Eh?!
The kid should have been the victim of a fatality, after a flawless victory from his opponent.
The super mega angry Jeanne D'Arc reminded me of that cover from Psycho Soldier with a really weird Athena who had Marge Simpson/Elvira's hair, a very weird torn schoolgirl outfit and for some reason elf ears... We call her Bad Box Art Athena
I remember an ad for, I believe, bloody roar. It had the tiger on it it and he says "who you callin' a pussy?!" I don't think I understood the double meaning at time haha
That World Heroes slander was out of pocket lol
Right!?!
Real
WH goes hard
Rasputin is so based
Mudman would easily fit into Clayfighter.
Just imagining 90s Jean-Claude, coked out of mind taking Rockso the Clown photos.
Kano in the MK ad is Quan Chi in MK Mythologies. Blown, my mind is. Also, Retroarch has this feature to download cover art for roms, and since arcade machines don't have cover art, it will download advertisements like these instead for sets like MAME. The neat thing about arcade game advertisements is that they're often more directed at arcade operators rather than patrons. Some will boast that their game will suck your customers absolutely dry and have said customers beg for more. It's an interesting shift of perspective.
You've only shown us the tip of the proverbial iceberg today, Matt. Looking forward to more.
Seeing that "AOL @keyword: NOA" in the Killer Instinct ad sent me back in time. God. My God! It was all real!
The Third Place was PS2 UK ads by David Lynch.
Advertisements in the 90s were really just like "this female character will take you out AND break your balls!!!" No wonder guys on Twitter are the way they are.
Do more of these game ad commentaries! There is a bottomless wellspring of bizarre material to work with!
The "third place" was a tv ad for PlayStation 2 directed by David Lynch. It involved a man with a ducks face.
brought me back to the crazy time of 90's/2000's child hood. This is some good content, thanks man
I stole every EGM, game pro, Nintendo power, game informer pc gamer magazine from longs drugs 92-98 I remember all of these
I think that the Street Fighter Alpha ad is meant to convey that the game is so intense that it blew up the house shown in the photograph.
It's not the most well executed visual metaphor, but it was the nineties and pretty much everything in adverts for toys and video games aimed at kids was exploding because we weren't inundated with news stories about suicide bombers like we were post-9/11.
Could be worse: back around that time, half of the adverts for games we had in the UK were photographs of sweaty people with nosebleeds looking like they'd done a bunch of coke and fallen asleep in an alley.
It took until the Shadowman ad campaign where they offered to pay you to place a permanent ad for the game on the gravestone of your recently deceased relative for the ad industry over here to start toning it down.
Ahh yes, the ad for the first Wipeout.
The ad so infamous, they spliced it and news articles regarding the outrage to the ad into the ads for the sequel.
The best one is from Bill Clinton reading a Guilty Gear ad on TV.
"Kill your friends... Guilt Free"
- Bill Clinton
that's like, the exact opposite of what guilty gear is about!
Norm Macdonald "Didn't Bill Clinton kill that guy"
"Daisuke Disliked That"
Push the stick that pushes back, and feel your pain.
OJ could have read it.
"The Third Place" was the initial ad campaign for the PS2 in the UK (and probably Europe?), where they basically tried to continue the advertising weirdness that worked well for the PS1.
Kind of gave way to the more generic ad campaigns they ran later in the console's life.
god i have so many memories of some of the.....weirder adverts we had in uk magazines during the nineties....a lot of weird shit
so I'm pretty sure "The Third Place" thing is in reference to like, a psychology thing about how people need at least 3 stable places to frequent for better mental health: home, work, and a place for, y'know, general relaxation and socializing (like a bar or an arcade). A PS2 is almost certainly in your house so it can't really Be That
Not just a reference, it's what David Lynch based and named his infamous PS2 advert after.
U have let me relive my childhood with these game ads, gamepro gameplayers ,egm. Thank u man.
Old ads and commercials are some of my favorite media. Definitely would love to see you cover more!
Aw yeah, there's VS. and Mace: The Dark Age! 90s magazine ads are a lost art (for better or worse). Sometimes you get a bland 3D render that we thought was amazing because 3D was still pretty early on so just the prospect of a 3D boob was enough, or sometimes the ad just makes fun of you. Maybe both!
So many of the Street Fighter or Darkstalkers ads feel like they decided that they had to avoid the gorgeous Japanese art cuz some Capcom USA guy thought it was "too foreign" and also thought that the Sega Saturn E3 video was the height of cool.
That Street Fighter Alpha ad is a perfect representation of 90's game print ads in general. A two page spread of something gross or depressing, with a couple tiny screenshots of what they're actually selling.
Should've showcased the other Clay Fighter ad that mocks the MK "Prepare Yourself" ad. I remember laughing when I seen it back then.
Ngl the domestic violence poster would be perfect for Tekken also I like to think the butcher poster with Killer Instinct is what made Max fell in love with KI lol
Keep this series going Matt
Thanks! I'll look into doing more!
@@flophouseplaysand i do remember the life's a bih one 😅
There was a time when Toshinden was a system seller. The mid 90s were ker-azy.
Tekken wasn't there yet
The 90's Brazilian marketing was aggressive as well, a good example was Sega's brazilian representative Tectoy when they were promoting MK for Mega Drive (Genesis) and Master System, the ad was like this:
"Yes, there is blood here. With that name, what did you want, soup?
This game definitely isn't for softies. That's why if you have a strong stomach, the fighter's sensational and violent adventures will invade your videogame to promote real fight. There are 7 fighters for Mega Drive and 6 for Master System with incredible digitalized photos. Among them there's Johnny Cage with his terrific Shadow Kick. Fight for your Mortal Kombat. Or go play with dolls!"
"You've got to be fast to last."
That pretty much explains how Sonic is still alive, given the fact that Sega themselfs screwed the IP over the years.
GOTTA GO FAST
Gamepro actually printed a letter of a reader stating how they were so offended by the World Heroes life's a beach ad.
Would love to see more videos of these, 90s and early 2000s were a wild time for video game ads. Some like Crash Bandicoot really leaned into the nonsensical
As far as I know, "The Third Place" was a bizarre marketing campaign for the PS2. There were some really strange ads that came out of that.
Quake 2 also had a weird meat theme add and I can’t express how happy I was when that add was in the extras for the remastered
I hate when I take too many Cyber gashes to my groin and become ground beef as a result.... relatable marketing.
Last I checked, Neo America was from G Gundam.
How about a sequel to this video...
...but with bizarre beat em up magazine ads!
"Tekken has all these great characters, let's focus on those!"
*Tekken has a brown bear, a panda, and a velociraptor wearing boxing gloves
Yeah, they're great.
You think the print ad for 'Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance' was weird in the UK. You have seen the advert which went with it.....the theme was these players of the game, had blood on their hands!
Fun fact the guy who did the character design for Toshinden also did the designs for Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer. He went on to do hentai and just straight up used all his female characters, including Sophia, in the soon to be Criterion classic Angel Blade
From what I understand, the spanish text in the Tekken 4 one is trying to say something more like "Life is full of fights, so since you have to fight something, why not Tekken 4?", with a joke that taking off a bra is one of these fights, because it's hard. That part is in English to make it more obvious that it's a fight.
For SNK I can only remember those ads with Shinkiro illustrations and those were great, I used to buy gaming magazines in the 90s and they were always full of them. I'm from Brazil though, not sure if those more crappy ads got here or I just forgot about them.
I remember a fold-out magazine ad that revealed a muscular arm was actually ripped off at the shoulder. No idea what game that was for, but as a kid it was a bit discomforting to look at.
Spawn the Eternal! I remember that one!
Still got my Fatal Fury 2 figures. They had more than the ad showed. Got Terry, Big Bear, Billy and Jubei. Wish I'd gotten the whole set.
33:19 I love this one because it reminds me of a friend's art style and they're totally draw Yamazaki like this!
Now I want to take this ad and challenge my friends and I to do a collab redrawing of this.
*Mai does fireball in KOF Maximum Impact ad*
Matt: That's not a move, that she does.
Well, Andy Bogard sometimes has a move like that, and Mai's grandfather Hanzo taught him, and Hanzo is explicitly referenced in the backstory of Maximum Impact 1 or 2, somewhere, so maybe Mai COULD do that move, but she prefers to fight with her fans.
God this all takes me back. Where's my fuckin' time machine?!
Oh god. I remember now. “The third place” was the PS2 ad-catchphrase for a cup of coffee. Didn’t last long I think. Went in tandem with the super weird David Lynch commercials? I don’t remember.
Regarding the Deadly Alliance advert, Loaded was a magazine.
Sofia says get on your knees and bark like a dog
Matt: Not to weird🤣
World Heroes was actually kinda popular here in Brazil during the 16-bit era in the early-to-mid '90s. I dare say almost as popular as Fatal Fury and more than Art of Fighting.
I assume that was true in other places as well, that would explain why the people behind the ClayFighters ad felt the need to diss the game lol.
35:40
That's not an Urkel reference, it's a LifeAlert reference - it was their tagline for commercials depicting old people who have fallen and need to press the little LifeAlert button around their necks to call 911.
You may know the line from Fighting Vipers' training mode music, which samples a LifeAlert commercial.
I like the Rival Schools ad. "Meet me after school...to see who's ahead of the game."
There was one that I remember from a UK gaming magazine that was essentially a heart on a butchers' hook, I think that might have been for Eternal Champions? That one grossed me out as a kid
With how easy it was to use sex appeal in ads back in the day you'd think it would be INCREDIBLY easy to make a super eyecatching Darkstalkers ad that sells the game in an instant.....
But nope, Prude Joe was in charge that weekend i guess?
I have a vivid memory of an SSFFII _billboard_ in Lancashire, that said, in front of kids and God and everything: “For the next best thing, shout ‘NORTHERN BASTARDS’,” emphasis _theirs_
A new Pocket Fighter would be a great excuse for them to use some hand drawn graphics. Imagine the sprite detail of the last 2D KoF with the cartoony fun of Cuphead. If they just start with the good concept, a small roster, and tight gameplay, it would probably catch on, and they could just add a couple characters and further balancing every now and then.
That wall of text MK3 ad is absolutely horrible. Reader is going to just skip right past it.
That second Sophia art is PEAK!
"Why World Heroes and not Fatal Fury?"
Even 90s Interplay knew not to insult Terry Bogard, the Legendary Wolf.
regarding the Fatal Fury Butt Kick, the other things that the ad is talking about is in the background (More Characters, More Fighting, More Selection)
13:58
Yep, actually this ad is actually the most tame I've seen as I've been researching as much gaming magazine scans for DOA, fanservice really did start from the beginning, it just became even more prevalent over time (the first Xtreme game probably helped with that)
I mean I'm fine with it in the actual series, only a couple times with a few costumes I think go too far, but that's only in 5 and 4 I think
It's always been with the series since the beginning, so it makes more sense why people didn't like when they said 6 going away from fanservice.
DOA needs to be both the fanservicey stuff while also being a great game, it just works for success
I remember seeing a ad (teaser?) for DOA3 where the image is showing a grassy hill and it says “the grass is always greener” with dead or alive 3 written on the grassy hill!
Also did you know that it along with other OG XBOX games were supposed to come out on November 8th 2001?
Spare Rib of Spinal
"There's so much meat on it! He's a fuckin' skeleton!"
It's somebody else's meat.
My main takeaway from this was that the 90's REALLY liked the word "butt."
Tee hee!
We really did.
Those little fatal fury character figurines reminded me of kinikuman figurines
there was an ad that I think about constantly. it was for Gundam Battle Assault for PS1, and it was a picture of someone’s hand, all cut and burnt. each different wound had notes on how the injury was acquired with a selection of screenshots.
Now the DOA ad makes sense! Seeing all these ads reminds me of PSM back in the late 90s!
50:36 Mai casually hitting that Shinkiro Geese stare perfectly
FWIW I think the rational with all of the non-sequater ads that are just random pictures, is that if you pick up a gaming magazine, all of the actual pages of the mag that are like reviews or whatever are mostly going to be single or double page spreads with a load of screenshots of games so that they don't have to pay for as many column inches; so the idea is that a big random image stands out while you're flicking through the mag and you stop to work out what the hell it's actually an ad for. It's basically pre-click era click bait.
Now weather that actually lead to any sales is a totally different matter
There's only a few ads here that I don't think would have sold me as a kid. As long as I get some cool looking characters, box art or screenshots somewhere in the ad, I could be sold. The World of Heroes and Tekken 4 ads at the end give me nothing.
Loaded was a magazine aimed at late teen, 20 somethings males in the UK. It was all about half naked ladies, beer and rude jokes. It was trash and if they were using a review from that on the advert then its a bad time for all.
Also The Third Place was like the PS2 tagline in the UK
So those FF figs had way more than just the three shown. I got Billy Kane.
Nintendo's whole "Play It Loud" campaign should be in a museum.
im gonna be real if my local meat shop has a Gameboy propped up as window dressing next to the meats id be questioning my life too.
People complain about modern game ads all being the same, but at least they actually represent the game. Old game ads were weird.
You could make a decent one-shot game show where younger adults try to guess what genre a game was based on the art from The ads.
"I guess maybe a dungeon crawler RPG?"
"It's actually for a platformer where you're a marble"
"What"
27:00 "their ad is no ad" 🤣🤣
I appreciate 90s culture in general, not just in fighting game ads. It wasn’t the high point of culture by any stretch, but it was the era that gave the least amount of shits, and that’s beautiful in its own way
93-95 had a run of entertainment that is difficult to match. You could easily argue that it’s the high point for cinema and music, while television churned out several iconic shows as well.
VHS Anime
Adult Swim
Liquid Television
Part of me has NEVER left 1998
It'd be nice to see some video advertisements and see your takes on them, Matt. I know there were some cringe worthy video advertisements growing up, but then also the famous, classic Mortal Kombat 2 city ad with the kid screaming "MORTAL KOMBAT!!!" was there too.
I really hope Matt continues this for a few more videos; cause we all know there are so many more fighting game ads to look through =)
Like all 32X ads....Sega conveniently tucks away the fact you need to hook up 37 wires and it looks like a nightmare rig when done.
I get PTSD as a former 32X owner when I see that AVGN video and he's trying to figure out how to plug in all the boxy adapters
I never had one so I thought you simply just plugged it into the cartridge slot but that's not the case, huh? :O
@@carn9507 Hell no.
@@carn9507 32X has its own wall outlet, and then a proprietary cable that goes to the Genesis/MD and then Genesis?MD is the full output signal....won't work without it.
@@DSMTheEditor I didn't know about all the wires myself until I got on dirt cheap (early 2000s) then went to hook it up. I wasn't even looking for a 32X at the time. It was pocket change so I just grabbed it.
On the SF2 Turbo box art, Between Honda and Sagat is Dhalsim, it's crazy he was always there and I never noticed till a few years ago (google the artwork without the title font)
I miss when there were 5+ good videogame magazines.
Mai is also on the side of the Maximum Impact box, so as much as they were going in on the new protags, they were REALLY banking on Mai for the marketing.
You know how games listed bullet points of features on the back of the box? For DoA1, one of those was "beautiful women".
Sorry you got beat up for wearing a KI pendant. You must have feared for the youth when the RE5 Kijuju necklace dropped.
I could swear that World Heroes ad in the thumbnail said "So kick her ass!" instead of "Want to fight about it?!"
My husband saw that Mai Shiranui ad in MAD Magazine back in the day and of course his mom walked in when he had that page open. Needless to say, she was not thrilled
5:16 That's Lee.
There's a German version of the "domestic violence" ad where the text instead says "good parents hit their kids!"
Nahhh that's FOUL 💀😭
I remember that "The third place" subtitle was a thing back in the day here in europe, too. Was a bit surprised that Matt didnt know this, so I suppose it wasnt a thing in NA?
The Flophouse Plays and Matt McMuscles' channels are a true free for all.
They might be my go-to on video game content (Sorry, Scott the Woz and others). :)
That SF Alpha ad using what appears to be a photo from World War I is just horrible and confusing. I am mystified...
I miss those abstract ads. Back when we were kids we just needed it to look cool. Also, a lot of times the magazine had a preview or review of the game from the ads