Awesome vintage game catalog scans right here

[FlightSuit]

I was feeling nostalgic for the good times I had as a child, shopping with my folks at Consumer's Distributing stores, and that lead me to the following thread:

 

Consumer's Distributing and Sear catalog scans

 

Just look at some of those prices!

 

$289 for a 2600! Back in those days, $289 was the equivalent of about ten thousand dollars in today's money.

 

OK, I'm exaggerating. A little.

[lushgirl_80]

Is that Bobby and Cindy Brady playing Intellevision???? lol I love the ad for the 2600 the best....looks really psychedelic.

[godslabrat]

I can't believe I ever bought a game based on such a bad screenshot, much less spent hours as a kid lusting over it in the catalog. I half expect to see these photos on TV as evidence of UFOs or something... gah!

 

Hah, and they're even advertising the California Raisins game.

[nathanallan]

Those sure bring back memories. Did anyone see on the NES ads, "Warranted by Nintendo"? So there was a warrant out?

[FlightSuit]

I can't believe I ever bought a game based on such a bad screenshot...

 

 

Look through the computer and video game magazines of the early to mid 1980s, and it's startling how many of them substitute artist's interpretations for screen shots, both in the advertising and in the articles. It's as if everybody concerned was afraid to let readers see how awful the home games actually looked.

[S1500]

Ahh yes, misleading screenshots for video games. A tradition that continues to this day(ie showing cutscenes instead of actual gameplay). The key for artist's renderings of screenshots is to have a motion blur for any sprite, super-sharp edges way beyond the capabilities of the system(that's non-orthoganal), etc.

[FlightSuit]

The other thing you see a lot of in those old magazines is that instead of even having an artist's interpretation of the screen, they eliminate that altogether, and substitute fanciful illustrations based on the game's general theme or story. I recall an article about Joust being illustrated with drawings of knights riding on ostriches, for example. Usually these articles would spend way too much time dwelling on the game's alleged back-story, which often made for dreadful reading.

[FlightSuit]

I even recall those magazines publishing full-on short stories based on video-games. You might think a work of prose fiction based on Mousetrap or Zaxxon might be kind of a cool idea, and maybe a competent writer could, conceivably pull it off, but that's not exactly the kind of assignment a competent writer would accept.

[godslabrat]

I even recall those magazines publishing full-on short stories based on video-games. You might think a work of prose fiction based on Mousetrap or Zaxxon might be kind of a cool idea, and maybe a competent writer could, conceivably pull it off, but that's not exactly the kind of assignment a competent writer would accept.

 

I dunno... as an aspiring writer myself, I don't think I'd turn down the chance to write a story based on Gyruss or Seicross. Work is work, unless your name is Stephanie Meyers or Stephen King.

[KIWASABI]

I even recall those magazines publishing full-on short stories based on video-games. You might think a work of prose fiction based on Mousetrap or Zaxxon might be kind of a cool idea, and maybe a competent writer could, conceivably pull it off, but that's not exactly the kind of assignment a competent writer would accept.

 

Argh well have you read the Centipede comic? Pretty frikkin horrible if you ask me.

 

 

By the way, speaking of artist interpretations of the gameplay, did anybody else notice "Jaws: The Revenge"? I guess that must've been the original title of the game. I didn't ever realize that Jaws for NES was based off of the garbage that is Jaws: The Revenge (I guess I never made the connection that they were released in the same year). Anyway, a google search for "Jaws The Revenge NES" brought up the following video:

 

 

-Adam

[FlightSuit]

Holy mackerel, that was bad! Here's what I just posted as a comment:

 

"OMG, it's like they wanted to save money on special effects, so they just filmed Roy Scheider taking the Universal Studios tour! They probably made him pay for his own ticket, too!"

 

That there was an example of a movie license that just did not translate well into a game. I mean, WTF? An airplane strafing the ocean, dropping bombs on jellyfish? And that's related to the film in what way? Other than there being a plane in the film?

 

What's next? Police Chief Martin Brody climbing ladders and running and jumping as Jaws hurls barrels at him? Hey... I could be on to something. Jawsey Kong! Donkey Jaws?