The Gamer's Quarter

[Six]

I'm usually pretty sensitive to advertising; doubly so if it's in a game. Glimpsing a Big Mac billboard from the corner of my eye while racing through alleyways at breakneck speed or seeing a hardened spy slather on his favorite brand of rejuvenation cream before bed tends to turn me off of a game rather violently.

That said, some games that cannot be fairly described as anything other than playable advertisements are still totally awesome. I'm talkin' Chex® Quest, a TC for Doom that was packed in with the cereal a decade ago. Naturally it was reworked to be supposedly nonviolent, but it's still Doom at heart, though with some nice touches. Your armor is a giant piece of Chex®. Enemies scream and spew gobs of snot everywhere, even though you're supposedly painlessly teleporting them back to their home planet. You replenish health by eating parts of a balanced breakfast. You spoon enemies to death. You spoon enemies to death.

ApM recently pointed me to a package that includes the original iwad set up for use with Doom Legacy. Probably it's just that I haven't played Doom in forever, but it's really fun. The intro is also a pretty good watch. This is some good, wholesome advertising!

By contrast, Pepsiman is really kind of disturbing. It's so saturated with logos that I find it difficult to play, even though the gameplay is simple and pretty fun. Example sequence: Pepsiman gets him by a Pepsi delivery truck, which knocks him onto a road where he has to run to avoid being crushed by a giant can of Pepsi while jumping over placards advertising Pepsi. Also, the second level is nightmarish - it's like the fucking L.A. riots or something, there are flaming cars crashing everywhere. Beggars in the street raise signs that read "Give me Pepsi." Oh, America!

Anyway, are there any other fun or otherwise notable mascot games? Everyone and their grandmother seemed to get one in the 16-bit era. (Off the top of my head, Chester Cheetah, Cool Spot, that other guy with the pencil - Fido Dido, I think? Oh, and the Noid, of course.) Is anybody planning on getting those Burger King games? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted, since it's been a lifelong dream of mine to play a game where I'm a man in a hamburger suit riding a motorcycle the size of a Shih Tzu.

[boojiboy7]

Just get the Burger King games. They are worth the 12 bucks total that they cost, easily. Just for the laughs and the creepiness of the King.

I had a game for my NES that was othello, but played with the 7-up spot. Actually, I never owned it, jsut rented it like 3 or 4 times at least because I liked all the different animations for the spot.

[dessgeega]

chex quest was my first first-person shooter. (doom squicked me out.) it's actually pretty special.

if you've never played it, check out kaettekita mario bros for in-game curry commercials!
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[TOLLMASTER]

I always bring this up, and I never remember it's name when someone else remembers for me, but there was a Skittles RPG that turned out to not be that bad. I never played it myself, though.

Darkened Skye, maybe?

[OtakupunkX]

I was actually going to make a thread for the Burger King games but I read this and decided that it would be arbitary after seeing this thread.

Sneak King is a decidedly creepy game. It taps into my fear of the Burger King King or whatever his name is. Also, my game likes to crash when I try hide in the log on the Lumberjack level. Other than that, it's an entertaining game for brief periods of time. I wish I could surprise someone so well that they have a Burger King-induced heartattack. That would be badass.

I hear you can unlock a Sneaking Suit when you beat the game. I hope it's as awesome as it sounds.


BTW, Darkened Skye was the Skittles RPG, but I think it was more an Action/Adventure than anything, Chex Quest is incredibly badass, and Pepsiman sounds absolutely disturbing but I would like to play it.

[Lackey]

Darkened Skye does indeed feature Skittles but I don't think the game was made primarily for the purpose of advertising. Actually it might be a coy joke about collectibles, from what I read the whole thing sounded rather tongue-in-cheek.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[Six]

oh hey, darkened skye. i always found it funny that there was no mention of skittles on the box except for the "taste the rainbow is a registered trademark of mars, inc."-type stuff. strangely enough, other than the tie-in it seemed like a thoroughly mediocre game. i might be wrong!

[friedchicken]

As many of you might imagine, I'm not the biggest Burger King fan, but am I the only one who thinks you can only go on so long subtly making fun of your product/mascot/selling point, all while simultaneously trying to sell said product, before the whole thing goes a little sour? Ah well.

I'm a product of the First Great Advertising Generation, so I can enjoy ridiculous mascots with the best of 'em, but the king just doesn't resonate with me. He comes across as not-so-unintentionally sinister, and fast food marketing is already about as sinister as you can get.

Yeah, mascot/advertising games are pretty cool sometimes. Pepsiman is effing smooth. And what was that Virtua Fighter tea tie-in?

[Lackey]

Isn't Mario (by extension, the Mario universe) pretty much just a vast marketting chimera for Nintendo now? I would consider any Mario Blank games to be pretty much Nintendo marketting tie-ins.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[dessgeega]

[Winged Assassins (1984)]

[Six]

apparently yes!

edit: but only in europe? also, it still looks kind of awesome.

[TOLLMASTER]

Biker Mice from Mars are my favorite TMNT clones. Street Sharks can go to hell. I never saw the Samurai Pizza Cats, so I can't make a definitive call on this, however.

[Winged Assassins (1984)]

They should have acted more like bikers, had a hidden stash of automatic weaponry, an ice lab and had violent and bloody turf wars with rival bike gangs.
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[Cycle]

The Underdogs has a whole section for this kind of stuff:

http://www.the-underdogs.info/collect.php?id=10

Some of the ones I remember (apart from the three Chex Quest games) are Moorhuhn Jaqd, that turkey hunting game, The Lost Island Of Alanna, a myst clone created to promote cherry coke (I think it was cherry coke) and Cool Spot.

Why hasn't anyone mentioned Kool-Aid Man! It was the first game of this type, I think.

[Six]

Mobygames has a category too, I just noticed.

Oh yeah! And the Kool-Aid game! I remember seeing ads for it in old comic books.

And by "oh yeah!" I of course mean

[Cycle]

I just remembered one that isn't listed on either site and that I actually own - Global Gladiators. That McDonalds game where you play two kids who must clean the world from... pollutiony gloop or some crap. You get to high five Ronald! I think.

[Swimmy]

[Six]

[Cycle]

Here's something that may interest you!

Treasure (yes, THE treasure) actually made a McDonalds game! It was called McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure and was for the Megadrive.



This image here is kinda disturbing in an IT kinda way:



In another note, the guy behind the Global Gladiators game was David Perry who would shortly start his own company and become most famous for Earthworm Jim.

[OtakupunkX]

If I remember correctly, there was another NES game based on McDonald's that wasn't McKids. I might've dreamed this though, as I dream about playing obscure games that actually don't exist more than I should.

Also, if there was a next-gen Kool-Aid Man game where you got to bust through walls to deliver fresh, cold Kool-Aid to children in a rad-like fashion it would be the most awesome thing ever.

[Pijaibros]

If we're talking about McDonald's I think I can bring up this anti-advergame. I really dig the cute fisher price doll look to it. Since it lookss exactly the opposite of what an anti-corporation game would probably have done (in my mind). It was probably made after that one film "Super SIze Me" since some of the options deal with the health concerns that this documentary brought to the public eye.

There's also some fun and grim comedy sprinkled throughout and an adorable butcher. I would dig this on a DS.

[Karoshi]

[OtakupunkX]

So while I was walking to class last period I got a really interesting idea for a Kool-Aid Man game (because that's the kind of things I think about while I'm at school).

The whole game would take place in a Crazy Taxi-esque city, and the player, as the Kool-Aid Man, would have to bust through walls in order to get deliciously refreshing Kool-Aid to the children inside. The whole game would be timed, and you'd get a time bonus for making each appearance (plus there would be a system like the Flourish bar in Sneak King that you could use to get extra time, but it wouldn't really work the same. I haven't figured out how that would work). Traversing the city would be like playing that Incredible Hulk open-world title that came out not too long ago (I think, I only played it for a few minutes in a store), and there would be some kind of crazy realistic damage system so the Kool-Aid Man could take down entire houses by hitting the right part just to give children Kool-Aid (plus it wouldn't slow down the momentum of traveling around the city).
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[boojiboy7]