Skip to main content
GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ The Games, Movies, TV & Comics You Love
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
flag of UK
UK
flag of US
US
flag of Canada
Canada
flag of Australia
Australia
  • Games
  • TV
  • Movies
  • Hardware
  • Video
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Guides
  • Deals
  • More
    • PS5
    • Xbox Series X
    • Nintendo Switch
    • Nintendo Switch 2
    • PC
    • Platforms
    • Tabletop Gaming
    • Comics
    • Toys & Collectibles
    • SFX
    • Newsarama
    • Retro Gamer
    • Newsletters
    • About us
    • Features
Total Film
Gaming Magazines
Gaming Magazines
Why subscribe?
  • Subscribe from just £3
  • Takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love
  • Try a single issue or save on a subscription
  • Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From$12
View
Trending
  • Summer Game Fest
  • New games for 2025
  • Upcoming Switch 2 games
  • Switch 2 stock
Recommended reading
The infamous "you're winner" trophy from Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
Racing Games 22 years ago, the worst game of all time launched to a Metacritic score of just 8, and now it's on Steam with 83% positive reviews from a whole new generation of garbage lovers
Atari 400 Mini on woodgrain desk connected to Dough Spectrum Black OLED monitor and Pac-Man on screen.
Hardware This tiny Atari console is naturally great for Pac-Man, but I use it to play one of the most cursed retro games from the '80s
MindsEye
Third Person Shooters Sponsored streams for former GTA dev's new game MindsEye aren't going to plan - sponsor apparently cancels one stream and another creator actually laughs while promoting it
Evercade Alpha closeup with Ryu from Street Fighter on screen
Platforms Best retro game consoles 2025: my favorite ways to play classic capers
Yoshitaka Amano's artwork for the Gex Trilogy, featuring the titular gecko character escaping shadowy creatures
Platforming Games The platformer trilogy we all knew was mediocre even in the '90s is back with a $200 collector's edition featuring artwork from Final Fantasy legend Yoshitaka Amano
Rat in Xbox commercial
Xbox Xbox channels PS2 era weirdness in a new commercial directed by David Fincher about rats finding their humanity through gaming
Ben starr dressed as jimbo the joker on the bafta podium accepting an award for balatro
Roguelike Games Balatro solo dev Localthunk "is really rich now," says Final Fantasy 16 star while dressed as a clown: "He has shoes made of gold and he thanks you for making him that way"
  1. Games
  2. Action

16 hilariously bad video game retro ads

Features
By David Roberts published 17 February 2015

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

You can practically see Don Draper throwing up in his mouth

You can practically see Don Draper throwing up in his mouth

Back in the olden-times (the 1990s to you and me), we had this thing called 'print media'. Essentially, you'd spend five bucks or so at your local supermarket or bookstore, and you could pick up a 'magazine'. Yes, it's unbelievably quaint now in the age of instant access to all information ever, but if you were a kid growing up without access to America On-Line, print was where it was at.

This was also an age before banner ads with scantily-clad women, meaning those magazines were also filled with advertisements for new and upcoming games. Many of them were complete garbage, filled with bad jokes, terrible imagery, scantily-clad women, and actual insults directed at the would-be consumer. But looking back, many of them were so bad that you can't help but laugh at the idea that at least one person thought these ads could actually sell video games. These are some of the most hilarious offenders.

Page 1 of 19
Page 1 of 19
Barkley Shut Up and Jam

Barkley Shut Up and Jam

Little-known fact: in the 1990s, it was against the law to release a video game ad which didn't mock the potential player's skills or point out their failings as a gamer (or even as a human). And b-ball bad-boy Charles Barkley wanted you to know that his game isn't for chumps, as even its title is a call for you to put up or, well... you know. I also love that Sir Charles' mug shows up on this ad three times, but there's only one actual screenshot of gameplay. Sadly, none of them chronicle the majesty of the man's Chaos Dunk or participation in the Space Jam.

Page 2 of 19
Page 2 of 19
Contra 3

Contra 3

OK, Contra 3. I'll bite. What one thing do you have to say? Is it something about 'Mode 7' graphics? How many 'megs' the cartridge has? Or maybe something about how 'intense' or 'extreme' the game is? Let me just turn the page and

Page 3 of 19
Page 3 of 19
Contra 3 (cont'd)

Contra 3 (cont'd)

OH HOLY SHIT MY EYEBALLS WERE NOT PREPARED FOR THIS! Contra 3 is clearly not fucking around. Who needs words when you've got bolded text, upside-down screenshots flying towards the viewer, and a massive explosion? Also, Konami apparently had a few more things to say about Contra, if that giant essay on the right is any indication.

Page 4 of 19
Page 4 of 19
Crime Wave

Crime Wave

Wow, uh, I don't even know where to begin here. Neon logo. Random guns and bags of cocaine scattered on the ground. A mysterious woman in a negligee, seemingly lost somewhere between devastation and arousal. What appears to be a young Patton Oswalt wearing massive, fuchsia wrap-around shades. Three explosions, one featuring the face of an angry (possibly possessed) businessman. Oh, and let's not forget the 'actual 256 color VGA screens' and 'Real Sound'. Y'know I kinda want to play this now.

Page 5 of 19
Page 5 of 19
Eternal Champions (Genesis)

Eternal Champions (Genesis)

Video game ads in the 1990s didn't just berate the player. They were also all about creating as much beef between rivals as possible. Eternal Champions really loved to stir the pot, first by specifically calling out the vastly superior Street Fighter 2 as 'training wheels' for the real match that awaited players...

Page 6 of 19
Page 6 of 19
Eternal Champions (Sega CD)

Eternal Champions (Sega CD)

...and then upping the ante for the Sega CD version by ripping into Mortal Kombat, though with slightly more subtlety this time (emphasis on slightly). Of course, we all know that Eternal Champions went on to be one of the greatest fighting game franchises ever made, with both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat disappearing into the mists of video game history, never to be heard from again.

Page 7 of 19
Page 7 of 19
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

What is Squaresoft (no Enix) even insinuating here? Looking at this, there are only two things I could properly figure out. One: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is an easier RPG designed for genre newcomers. Two: I'm way behind on my brain's scheduled tune-up, and $39.99 sounds like a steal.

Page 8 of 19
Page 8 of 19
In the First Degree

In the First Degree

This ad is all over the place. Multiple font sizes and a collage of full-motion video cutouts (with not one, but two different face-palms) alone are evidence enough to convict this ad of murder of good design sense.

Page 9 of 19
Page 9 of 19
Light Boy Game Keeper

Light Boy Game Keeper

You have to love those infomercial 'before-and-after' shots, where a befuddled actor tries to jam too many forks into a blender, shrugs their shoulders at the camera, and exclaims to an audience of no one that 'There's gotta be a better way!' This one is practically perfect, as we have a kid so inconceivably lost that he's got cords, batteries, and video game doo-dads hanging off of every single appendage available. The real icing on this shitshow is the game sticking out of the kid's mouth. I've got an idea: how about you put everything down and do one thing at a time? Also, just so you know: every single suburban white kid in the early '90s looked exactly like this. It was awful.

Page 10 of 19
Page 10 of 19
Neo-Geo

Neo-Geo

How would you sell a $600 console (and $300 games) to an audience perfectly happy with much cheaper hardware? Do you show crystal clear images of the amazing, arcade-quality graphics they're missing out on? Or do you show a couple boring graphs and a picture of the nastiest hot dog ever conceived, all while spouting some elitist bullshit about how the higher cost makes it better? Well, if you're Neo-Geo, you went with the latter, then wondered why no one ever bothered to buy the thing.

Page 11 of 19
Page 11 of 19
Pipe Dream

Pipe Dream

Pipe Dream is a benign puzzle game that tasks you with connecting various bits of plumbing to keep an ever-encroaching rush of water from leaking. This ad, on the other hand, makes it look like a hellish nightmare designed as a collaboration between John Carpenter and M.C. Escher. I'm glad I didn't see this when I was a kid, because I would have never slept another night for the rest of my childhood.

Page 12 of 19
Page 12 of 19
Rival Turf

Rival Turf

Here's how I imagine the photo shoot for these two random dweebs went down:

"OK, guys, I want you to pretend someone's encroaching on your turf, and I want you to look TOUGH. OK, the fist in the air thing is pretty good, but do you have anything else? ...Sigh, OK, two fists in the air, that's sigh maybe cross your arms? You know, like Vanilla Ice, I guess? Whatever, we got what we needed. Your checks are in the mail." To producer: "Can you fix this in post? I dunno, add a building or something urban. Sure, put it at a weird angle, I don't care. Where's my cocaine?"

Page 13 of 19
Page 13 of 19
Rollerball

Rollerball

Here exists the single image associated with the cancelled MGM-published Rollerball video game movie tie-in. No screens showing off gameplay, no announced platforms, not even any hackneyed copy describing what you might do in the game (but probably actually wouldn't). I don't know what MGM was hoping to do by advertising a game that for all purposes likely didn't exist when this ran, but you have to appreciate its optimism.

Page 14 of 19
Page 14 of 19
A totally different Rollerball

A totally different Rollerball

From the studio that would eventually bring you amazing titles like Kirby's Dream Land and EarthBound comes Rollerball - essentially, a video pinball game. And what better way to sell the excitement of pinball than a full-page spread of an eight-year-old's attempt at drawing Clipart? Sold!

Page 15 of 19
Page 15 of 19
Secret of Evermore

Secret of Evermore

I get what they're trying to do here - your dog is one of the main selling points of Secret of Evermore and generally helps you tear shit up - but we don't need to see up the snout of a snarling canine. The ad copy is also ridiculous. '24 megs. With rendered graphics'? I hope the graphics are rendered, because I'm sure as hell not gonna sit here and render them myself. The screenshots even feel like they were slapped on as an afterthought, with the box art (and title of the damn game) placed at an awkward 90-degree angle. Guess we really needed that angry puppy front and center, right?

Page 16 of 19
Page 16 of 19
Tetrisphere

Tetrisphere

Nothing sells a game quite like a disgustingly up-close shot of some random dude's mouth chomping down on a metal ball - complete with shoddily Photoshopped teeth fractures. I don't know about you, but I'm super stoked to see what Tetrisphere is all about - in between dry heaves, of course.

Page 17 of 19
Page 17 of 19
Wild Snake

Wild Snake

Shortly after finishing his work on Tetris, creator Alexey Pajitnov started breeding snakes. But what began as a hobby quickly turned into an obsession. Pajitnov started talking to the snakes, and the snakes started talking back. The slimy reptiles covered his body, enveloping him until he became more snake than man. Then they whispered the code and design of Wild Snake (and Hexic) into his ear. He currently awaits further orders from Serpentulus, Queen of the Snakes, and has placed himself in stasis until he is summoned once again. Or, that's the impression I got from the ad. I could be reading into this a bit.

Page 18 of 19
Page 18 of 19
I can't believe people actually ran these things

I can't believe people actually ran these things

Those were pretty bad, huh? Kinda makes you wonder how video games ever sold at all. The worst part? They really haven't gotten much better. Do you have any favorite hilariously bad video game ads you remember from your childhood? Let us know in the comments!

Looking for more video game business-speak to chuckle at? Check out these 15 ridiculously NSFW ads (for totally unsexy stuff), or some of the worst uses of the word 'extreme' in video game titles.

Page 19 of 19
Page 19 of 19
CATEGORIES
PC Gaming Platforms
David Roberts
David Roberts
Social Links Navigation
David Roberts lives in Everett, WA with his wife and two kids. He once had to sell his full copy of EarthBound (complete with box and guide) to some dude in Austria for rent money. And no, he doesn't have an amiibo 'problem', thank you very much.
See more PC Gaming Features
Read more
The infamous "you're winner" trophy from Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
22 years ago, the worst game of all time launched to a Metacritic score of just 8, and now it's on Steam with 83% positive reviews from a whole new generation of garbage lovers
Atari 400 Mini on woodgrain desk connected to Dough Spectrum Black OLED monitor and Pac-Man on screen.
This tiny Atari console is naturally great for Pac-Man, but I use it to play one of the most cursed retro games from the '80s
MindsEye
Sponsored streams for former GTA dev's new game MindsEye aren't going to plan - sponsor apparently cancels one stream and another creator actually laughs while promoting it
Evercade Alpha closeup with Ryu from Street Fighter on screen
Best retro game consoles 2025: my favorite ways to play classic capers
Yoshitaka Amano's artwork for the Gex Trilogy, featuring the titular gecko character escaping shadowy creatures
The platformer trilogy we all knew was mediocre even in the '90s is back with a $200 collector's edition featuring artwork from Final Fantasy legend Yoshitaka Amano
Rat in Xbox commercial
Xbox channels PS2 era weirdness in a new commercial directed by David Fincher about rats finding their humanity through gaming
Latest in Action
Link is in a barrel in The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker on Nintendo Switch 2
Twink Link is being freed: Nintendo apparently backtracks, says you are allowed to call yourself Twink Link as it works to unban a Switch 2 it "flagged by accident"
Protagonist Jordan in a screenshot from the reveal trailer for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
Naughty Dog boss Neil Druckmann is leaving HBO's The Last of Us season 3 to turn his "complete focus" to Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and the studio's "future projects"
Death Stranding 2 PS5 screenshot
Death Stranding 2 has a "completely hidden mechanic" that lets you fire lethal rounds, meaning voidouts are now inevitable
a robot being shot with a gatling gun but still approaching menacingly
Rockstar remembers Red Dead Online exists and puts out a new update trailer for the first time in 4 years, leaving fans hopeful it's not dead after all: "Are we back?"
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Nintendo Switch 2 could revolutionize Zelda technology: Tears of the Kingdom tinkerers confirm lasers are way deadlier now – "We always knew 60 fps would be insane, but I didn't expect it to be this insane"
Death Stranding 2 Sam touching Lou and Fragile
Hideo Kojima says he "kind of hates" the AI assistant in his phone, which is why Death Stranding 2's message is that people shouldn't just rely on technology
Latest in Features
A screenshot from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 showing Maelle fighting an enemy.
I accidentally became a god in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and it broke combat so badly that I had to nerf myself to keep things fun even on Expert mode
Multiple Jans discuss their situation in The Alters
My current GOTY contender sold itself to me with an out-of-nowhere musical number, and I can't praise that choice enough
Death Stranding
6 years too late, I bring lukewarm takes: Death Stranding rules, and we should all play more games outside of our comfort zone
María Gabriela de Faría as The Engineer
James Gunn's Superman may be setting up The Authority movie with its enigmatic villain The Engineer
Sam sits in a bike looking across at a city in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
70 hours in, Death Stranding 2 is one of few open world games that justifies having such a huge map
Nintendo Switch 2
I can't use the Switch 2's handheld mode, so I'm hoping a Lite is on the horizon
  1. Sam fires at the ghost mech squid boss in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
    1
    Death Stranding 2: On the Beach review: "This tarpunk delivery epic is more Metal Gear Solid than ever, for better and worse"
  2. 2
    Rematch review: "As with Rocket League, the just-one-more-game pull is magnetic"
  3. 3
    Tron: Catalyst review: "Disc slinging is a thrill in this gorgeous rendition of the series, but I'm let down by a time-loop story that falls flat"
  4. 4
    FBC: Firebreak review: "A disappointingly bland multiplayer FPS that's missing far too much of what made Control special"
  5. 5
    Dune: Awakening review: "Both extremely compelling and extraordinarily boring, sometimes at the same time – yet still a true Dune love letter"
  1. A T-rex in Jurassic World Rebirth
    1
    Jurassic World Rebirth Review: "An unscary sequel that needed a little more time in amber"
  2. 2
    M3GAN 2.0 review: "A bold sequel with a slightly underwhelming conclusion"
  3. 3
    28 Years Later Review: "Enough terror, splatter and suspense to satisfy”
  4. 4
    Predator: Killer of Killers review: "Great characters, thrilling action, and gorgeous Arcane-esque animation"
  5. 5
    From the World of John Wick: Ballerina review: "Brilliant action, even if the plot gives you a sense of déjà vu"
  1. Lee Jung-jae as Gi-hun in Squid Game season 3
    1
    Squid Game season 3 review: "A staggeringly excellent final season wraps up one of the greatest Netflix shows ever"
  2. 2
    Ironheart review: "A relic of Marvel's content-at-all-costs era"
  3. 3
    Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 review: "The show's most assured run of episodes to date"
  4. 4
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 8 spoiler review: 'The Reality War' is "a mix of the good, the bad, and the truly baffling"
  5. 5
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 7 spoiler review: 'Wish World' is "an exciting and ambitious" start to the season finale, with hints of WandaVision

GamesRadar+ is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Review guidelines
  • Write for us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...