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By Contributing Writer Jimmy Payne If you can remember back to the days of the NES and Sega Genesis, you may also recall their commercials, which were short, dull, and very scarce. This was not surprising because our culture had yet to catch on to video games. This was a time in which it was normal to see video game players called "geeks" and "nerds" and so forth. Video games (and their commercials) weren’t totally accepted as the norm. Well, times have changed and video games are now one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the world, and they're making more money than more established forms of entertainment like movies. So now video games commercials are popping up and more and more often, and if you ask me they've never looked better. Before I jump right into the present, I'd like to pay homage to one old video game commercial that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It was the commercial for Super Mario Bros. 3 and at the very beginning you could see a whole bunch of people standing around wearing either a red, blue, white, or black outfit. All of them are throwing one fist into the air and exclaiming "Mario!" Then the camera zooms way out (and I’m talking way out) until you get a shot of the earth from space. You can then see the face of Mario, which is made out of all the colored outfits the people are wearing. After seeing this commercial dozens of times I would still get a feeling of true excitement after every viewing. That is the goal that every video game commercial should try to reach, and in my opinion only a few have done so. Speaking of classic video game commercials, who could forget the three Final Fantasy 7 commercials? Another memorable commercial was the one for Wild 9. This was the one where the game developer went insane and started blurting out an in-depth idea for a video game. Then at the end one of his fellow developers asks, "How about another car racing game?" I actually burst out laughing after seeing this for the first time because let's face it, there are way too many racing games on the market and yet this guy thinks they should make yet another one. I thought they had set up hidden cameras in Midway's corporate headquarters for a minute there. Wild 9 may not have turned out to be a blockbuster game, but its commercial almost made up for it with laughs. Another group of commercials that were extremely hilarious were the commercials for Spyro the Dragon. More specifically, the one where the sheep ties himself the video game rack in protest of Spyro's game. These commercials actually made me interested in Spyro the Dragon... even after Ivan had warned me to stay far away from it. I don’t think I need to go into much detail about what makes a video game commercial great. I think it’s pretty obvious- excitement. If a video game commercial can make you so excited that you think you need the game, then the makers of the commercial have done their jobs. Not only have they showed you the game to make you aware that it’s out there to buy, but they have made you want to buy it immediately, which is the primary goal of any kind of commercial. Finally, there are always those commercials that try to break the rules just as much as they try to show us the game. These are the kind of commercials that could make mothers across the country automatically say "You're not getting that game for Christmas Jr.!" One perfect example of this would be the BattleTanx commercial which was eventually pulled from TV due to the threat of legal action. The commercial depicted Snuggles the Bear being chased down by one of the tanks from the game. Most people loved this commercial (the American public has wanted to see that darn bear get killed for decades), but I'm sure it also offended its fair share of people. Another commercial that refuses to stay behind the white line is the Vigilante 8 commercial. The giant hole in the middle of the school bus is enough to get any parent mad, but then the use of vulgar language takes it right over the edge. I have to admit that even I didn’t believe my ears when I saw it for the first time (I still laughed, though). All that commercial needed was a half-naked school girl prancing around and Senator Lieberman would have had a field day. As you can see, video games have really evolved since their early years in which lunch ladies yelled "Sega!" Now we've got a robotic voice saying "PlayStation" at the end of every commercial for a PlayStation game. More importantly, we are seeing more comedy and drama implemented into them than ever before. Personally, I’m really looking forward to the barrage of Sega Dreamcast commercials coming our way soon. The Final Fantasy 8 commercials should be a treat to witness as well. Someone once told me "Commercials don't sell video games, video games sell themselves." He was right in that commercials alone won't produce the next million-seller, but they sure won't hurt. You can e-mail Jimmy at jimmy@mastergamer.com
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