This week on Game Ads A-Go-Go, I’ve cooked up another little quiz using out-of-context snippets from classic game ads (see the first one here). Take the quiz and see how well you do!

Check out the latest Game Ads A-Go-Go column here.

There was a time in the late 1980s when Nintendo was so powerful that they could unleash whole hoards of Nintendo Power Cyborg Zombies (NPCZ), like the one pictured above, without so much as even a muffled cough from local law enforcement. These days, one half of a NPCZ couldn’t even step an inch outside a replication plant without a swarm of submachine gun-wielding feds swooping on him.

Man, how times have changed.

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While walking the lonely streets of San Francisco, Mike Melanson spotted this Mac-heavy exhibit in the Million Fishes arts collective display window. Naturally, he took some pictures of it and sent them to me. Of course, this puts my former “Mac Shelf” (R.I.P., *sniff*) to shame.

I have the feeling that a Simunovich is behind this piece of techno-art. Devan, that is.

This week on Game Ads A-Go-Go, I examine three colorful ads for video games with bad names. Oh, and this time it’s actually funny.

Check out the latest Game Ads A-Go-Go column here.

WANTED: People of ethnicity to fill out pandering, tangentially video-game-related comic book “superhero” team. Must be comfortable wearing skin-tight crotch-grabbing uniforms and fixing ridiculously unrealistic spaceships. Extremely perky breasts and indelible toothy smiles a big plus.

Today we’ll be looking at Atari Force #1, which is a mini comic book (5″x7″) that came as a free pack-in with the game Defender for the Atari 2600 in 1982. Much more after the jump!

Here we have a handy BASIC-slanted guide to computer terminology (circa 1983) from an “educational” comic book titled Electronics, compliments of Tandy-Radio Shack (the “TRS” in “TRS-80”). Considering the source of this publication, I have a strange feeling that the definition for “Information Retrieval System” might be a little suspect…

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Sure, you’ve probably seen this picture before — it’s the cover of the Atari 2600 version of Galaxian.

But look again. Have you really seen this picture? Have you ever stopped and thought about what’s actually going on here?

No, I’m not going to tell you, because I have no idea either. But the commenter with the best description wins a free chocolate donut.

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Every Sunday morning, it’s a family tradition in Senator John Kerry’s household to have breakfast in bed with the kids…and his Apple IIe computer system. After a few heated rounds of Karateka over who will get the last piece of bacon, it’s back work for Mr. Kerry — plotting his next political victory without ever having to put on slippers.

Seriously; I thought I was the only one who set up heavy computer equipment on unsturdy, impermanent places like couches and beds. After all, nothing screams out “computer desk” like an imitation goose down comforter.

[Scanned from from a 1982 Apple IIe Sales Brochure]

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Proving once again that there are indeed morons in the world is this scan from a 1982 Apple IIe sales brochure:

[Interior. Well-lit office building.] Larry Anderson, Executive Comptroller of B.G. Enterprises, Inc. (stage right), has spent all morning meticulously entering eleven months of raw sales data into AppleWorks on the firm’s new Apple IIe to plot next year’s business projections. Enter Bob R. Stevens III, VP of Corporate Sales (stage left), strolling carefree through the office while humming a tune…

“Dum-dee doo doo…hey, what does this button do?”

*Click* [BEEEEP] *CHUNKA CHUNKA CHUNKA*…

“Holy mother of $%&*balls, Bob. I just spent six hours on that!”

… “So I take it that wasn’t a good sound?”

[Camera cuts away as we hear the normally reserved Larry punching Bob violently in the face.]

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