Advergames

[classicgamer74]

 

In today's episode I discuss more advergames.  I'm surprised that they are still making games like this today.  Didn't they have a weird Burger King one for the Xbox?  Which were some of your favorite advergames from yesteryears? 

[+jgkspsx]

On 1/15/2022 at 8:46 PM, classicgamer74 said:

Didn't they have a weird Burger King one for the Xbox?

Three! For the 360. A Mario Kart clone, a bumper car sim called Big Bumpin, and a stealth game called Sneak King. They were all pretty good but Sneak King and the racer were better than Big Bumpin’.

 

Chex Quest was iconic for me as for so many. It helped that the WADs were very well designed. Cool Spot was a favorite too despite the claustrophobic and frankly unfair level design.

 

Yo! Noid was so weird - a full priced game that was a long form advertisement where you play as the bad guy. But it and the Treasure McDonald’s game are both solid.

 

The weirdest one to me was Global Gladiators. Nothing about it seemed McDonald’s-esque, but it was branded so.

 

Coca Cola Kid for the Game Gear is one of the most impressive games for the system, and a lot of fun too.

 

Mr Boston, a rebranded version of Clean Sweep, is one of the rarest Vectrex games. It was given out only to lucky employees of distributors of the Mr Boston liqueur company, and it sells for four figures now. There is no reason to play it as Clean Sweep is fine without the booze. The funny thing is that Clean Sweep is ideally suited to be an advergame - but for vacuums, not booze!

[+jeremiahjt]

2 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Three! For the 360. A Mario Kart clone, a bumper car sim called Big Bumpin, and a stealth game called Sneak King. They were all pretty good but Sneak King and the racer were better than Big Bumpin’.

 

Chex Quest was iconic for me as for so many. It helped that the WADs were very well designed. Cool Spot was a favorite too despite the claustrophobic and frankly unfair level design.

 

Yo! Noid was so weird - a full priced game that was a long form advertisement where you play as the bad guy. But it and the Treasure McDonald’s game are both solid.

 

The weirdest one to me was Global Gladiators. Nothing about it seemed McDonald’s-esque, but it was branded so.

 

Coca Cola Kid for the Game Gear is one of the most impressive games for the system, and a lot of fun too.

 

Mr Boston, a rebranded version of Clean Sweep, is one of the rarest Vectrex games. It was given out only to lucky employees of distributors of the Mr Boston liqueur company, and it sells for four figures now. There is no reason to play it as Clean Sweep is fine without the booze. The funny thing is that Clean Sweep is ideally suited to be an advergame - but for vacuums, not booze!

Kirby Sweep? Now that you mention it, it does seem like a missed opportunity.

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

The Xbox ones from burger King are surprisingly fun.  All Nintendo games now seem like advertising to me now, they are soooo dull.

[Tanooki]

Looking back and funny enough I did maybe 2 years ago by now, one that remains fun and has aged well thanks to the whole indie retro thing being hot so long would be CHEX QUEST and its quiet 2 sequels that just expanded more stages to the original.  Recently LRG took a swing at it too which was surprising releasing what used to be a free gimme, usually with some bundled AOL bs.  Strange game, oddly quite fun too.

 

 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Tanooki

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

Does M&M Kart Racing count? I really wanted to like that one on Wii but it really sucked.

[classicgamer74]

Yep. I think it would. It's going to be on an upcoming episode. 

[classicgamer74]

12 hours ago, NeonSpaceBeagle said:

The Xbox ones from burger King are surprisingly fun.  All Nintendo games now seem like advertising to me now, they are soooo dull.

I swear I'm going to get an Xbox someday. I promised friends, family and viewers that it f a playable build of the Big Comfy Couch game is found and dumped I'll get an XBox.

[jhd]

 

In about the early-1990s, General Motors distributed some advertising material on floppy disk that also apparently included some trivia game. 

 

Sadly, I never got to experience it as the computer I had at the time was unable to run it, and I could not find the disk a few years later when I upgraded to a better PC.  

[Leonard Smith]

15 hours ago, NeonSpaceBeagle said:

The Xbox ones from burger King are surprisingly fun.  All Nintendo games now seem like advertising to me now, they are soooo dull.

One other thing about the 3 Burger King Xbox games is that they actually work on BOTH the original 2001 Xbox AND the 360.  

If playing on a 360, they give you achievements and all the usual stuff.

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

Oh nice!! For some reason my OG Xbox has a very dark and washed out video output. Maybe will be better on 360. Just looked up if they are backward compat for the Xbox one or x and nope. Boo

[dendawg]

On 1/18/2022 at 7:48 PM, jgkspsx said:

Three! For the 360. A Mario Kart clone, a bumper car sim called Big Bumpin, and a stealth game called Sneak King. They were all pretty good but Sneak King and the racer were better than Big Bumpin’.

Those were dual format games. They played on OG XBOX as well as 360.

[ventrra]

23 hours ago, NeonSpaceBeagle said:

Does M&M Kart Racing count? I really wanted to like that one on Wii but it really sucked.

Oddly enough, the NDS version isn't anywhere near as bad. (It's not fantastic, though.)

[Tanooki]

Debateable as advergaming, but if you pre-ordered on gamecube Rogue Squadron III you got a free stand alone full on game box, papers, and disc which was mostly just advertising for the full game, other products from Lucasarts, and then the disc was largely demos but sold with the arcade star wars game to play for free too.  So a paid advertisement with a free retro game included.

[classicgamer74]

Tanooki, don't you miss the days when you got all that packaging and other goodies with games? 

[classicgamer74]

Question for you guys, is it true that Xbox One is backwards compatible? 

If I ever see a playable build of that Big Comfy Couch game I want to make sure I get a system that it and the BK games will work on. 

[+jgkspsx]

2 hours ago, classicgamer74 said:

Question for you guys, is it true that Xbox One is backwards compatible? 

Xbox Series X apparently has better backwards compatibility. That’s what I’m banking on, anyway.

[+neogeo1982]

1 hour ago, jgkspsx said:

Xbox Series X apparently has better backwards compatibility. That’s what I’m banking on, anyway.

The upscaling is ok if thats what your banking on. Its not 100% of the games. Its not like say PS2 fully bc with ps1, pop in a disc and play. Thats not how it works. You can't just put in an original xbox disc and think it will work. It has to be on the supported games list from Microsoft.