Weirdly prominent coverage of irrelevant games in old magazines

[peanutbutter]

Van Helsing, it had a game, iirc the writeup just went on and on about how cool it'd be to BE Hugh Jackman. Just an utterly desperate attempt to have an exclusive over other magazines or blatantly paid-for promotional content?


I imagine there were loads of these, what ones can you remember?

[Dewt]

I remember Super Putty 2 being massively covered and then never released.

[darth andy]

I remember Gamesmaster magazine doing a big feature on that jurassic park game where the aim is to move your arms around and that is the hardest part

[peanutbutter]

I remember Gamesmaster magazine doing a big feature on that jurassic park game where the aim is to move your arms around and that is the hardest part

Tresspasser? It was a pretty ambitious game that generated some buzz iirc, it's even got a "legacy" section on its wiki

[darth andy]

Tresspasser? It was a pretty ambitious game that generated some buzz iirc, it's even got a "legacy" section on its wiki

yes thats the one - I was a playstation boy and had Jurassic Park The Lost World as my first Playstation game, which was essentially just a 2d platformer with a few 3d elements thrown in but my cousin was a big PC chap and he had this Gamesmaster issue that ran through the details of this new REAL Jurassic Park game and it was going to be amazing but by the time it came out he never bought it and it just disappeared  really

[Bazooka]

Different times back then,we all know the legacy of Superman 64, it probably made it on a few covers of multi gaming mags, but Superman with his giant tombstone jaw was certainly a cover star on a few Nintendo mags.

But Van Helsing? Well I know I'd also brag about being the first to play test. Film games have largely died unless it's Disney/Lego/Marvel.

[greenman]

But Van Helsing? Well I know I'd also brag about being the first to play test. Film games have largely died unless it's Disney/Lego/Marvel.

In the early 90's especially I'd say there was a strong tendacy to give film(and comic/sport) games the cover story just to attract a bit more casual interest, remember lots of Batman covers especially in that era.

I'v got a copy of Mean Machines from that era somewhere with Parodius on the cover which seemed more akin to the NME sticking Michael Head on the cover back in the day trying to get more attention to something of quality which was never going to be more than niche interest in the UK.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I remember Super Putty 2 being massively covered and then never released.

That brings back some memories. I remember it being the cover story in Total one month. There hadn't been any talk of it before that and I don't recall it ever being mentioned after that either. It must have been post Donkey Kong Country/Rise of the Robots, because I remember them using the trendy buzzword "rendered" when talking about the graphics.

[Kryton]

Everyone wanking themselves silly about Rise of the Robots in the Amiga days. Every magazine.
Then it turned out to be shit.

[Steve Lampkins]

Everyone wanking themselves silly about Rise of the Robots in the Amiga days. Every magazine.
Then it turned out to be shit.

This is almost half an hour long, but a great overview of the silliness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4udiQq5gpY

[Grendle]

Worse game in the history of games.

[beanheadmcginty]

That has scratched a memory itch for me. In all the recent publicity for the PS5 they keep talking about ray tracing and I kept thinking "haven't they had that for years?" and that video has just reminded me that all the publicity for Rise of the Robots constantly banged on about ray tracing. Doesn't bode well for the PlayStation because that game was dogshit.

[Mister Six]

Ray tracing is when you replicate the way light travels and interacts with various surfaces. It takes a lot of processing power, so while it's standard for pre-rendered CG images and animation (it's how Pixar films look so pretty), it doesn't tend to appear in games, at least not in the sense of the ray tracing being done "live" as you play. Stuff like shadows and reflections in games at the minute are usually tricks rather than "real" phenomena created by virtual light.

It turned up a lot in games like RotR because they were using pre-rendered (or "ray-traced") 2D sprites, as opposed to ones that had been hand-drawn.

Haven't read up on PS5, but I guess the excitement is over having ray tracing done in-game, which would be novel, rather than using all that computing power to make a better game.

[Dewt]

In short, real-time versus pre-rendered. Donkey Kong Country on the SNES uses pictures of things that were raytraced slowly on expensive machines. Just like a photo you can't change the angle or the light sources or anything about it.

The PS5 will do it as you play, so everything will be dynamic. It will look very cool.

Interestingly, Pixar didn't use raytracing until Monsters University. They used it a little bit for Cars, but not the entire movie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reyes_rendering

[Phil_A]

I had raytracing software on my Atari ST way, way back when, you basically had to input a "scene" in text form and then wait for it to painstakingly render, line by line. Although it could produce stunning results for the time, it could take literally days to produce anything worthwhile.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Also not to be confused with ray casting, which is how Wolfenstein 3D and that sort of thing worked.

[KennyMonster]

Also not to be confused with ray casting, which is how Wolfenstein 3D and that sort of thing worked.

Also not to be confused with Ray Parker Junior who was a one hit wonder in the 80's with a song I think was called 'Those Bastards'

"Who you gonna call?

"Those Bastards!"

[KennyMonster]

Everyone wanking themselves silly about Rise of the Robots in the Amiga days. Every magazine.
Then it turned out to be shit.

How about during the late 80s/early 90s, every platform based game with a crazy character that was sure to become the next 'Mario' or 'Sonic'

Silly Putty has already been mentioned,

'Zool' was one I remember being particularly unimpressed with as well as 'Donk' a platform game with the main character being a duck, originally the creators wanted to call him 'Dong' but weren't allowed to.
Unfortunately having a duck called Dong (snigger) was about as far as their creativity went into that game's design.

[KennyMonster]

'Zool' was one I remember being particularly unimpressed with

I've just looked up Zool and totally forgot it was sponsored by Chupa Chups lollipops.

Was this the first time games got sponsored in this way?
What other examples are there (aside from Movie/Toy ties-ins obviously)?

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

The year before Zool saw the release of Pushover, with Colin Curly the Quavers mascot. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushover_(video_game)

The year before that, James Pond 2: Robocod had Penguin biscuits in it. Seems to have been an Amiga thing. 

[KennyMonster]

The year before Zool saw the release of Pushover, with Colin Curly the Quavers mascot. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushover_(video_game)

The year before that, James Pond 2: Robocod had Penguin biscuits in it. Seems to have been an Amiga thing.

I had a Clumsy Clumsy Colin Quavers game on my C64 that pre-dates that one too, thanks for reminding me.
(anyone know how to do split topics so we don't derail this thread)?

Edit: Sorry, Clumsy Colin was Skips not Quavers wasn't he?

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Edit: Sorry, Clumsy Colin was Skips not Quavers wasn't he?

No idea, but I want a bag of crisps now.

[bomb_dog]

Yes, 'Action Biker' on the C64. Crazy Colin was on the cover but the game had no references to crisps at all. You didn't even drive around picking up quavers or summat.

[falafel]

Heart of Darkness!

[thecuriousorange]

South Park 64 got 90% in some magazine and muggins here bought it.

[Huxleys Babkins]

South Park 64 got 90% in some magazine and muggins here bought it.

Plenty of magazines got caught up in reviewing that highly. It feels like they reviewed the game they thought they were getting (Turok with a South Park skin) rather than the game they actually got (Turok with AIDS).

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/n64/198710-south-park/critic