Check out this Mortal Kombat ad! Here's where I lifted it from:
It8bit is a cool video game blog with a nice design aesthetic. There's neat retro ads like the one above, and a section dedicated to indie games, including some of my favorites: VVVVVV, Abobo's Big Adventure, and one I plan on playing soon - To the Moon. Also a preview of a new game called Riot that looks exciting and interesting.
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Let's take a moment to reflect on the above advertisement. Apart from being kind of awesome, I want to establish some context. Mortal Kombat was a turning point in video game violence. Prior to this, blood was something games tiptoed around, even games where the point of the game was to shoot people, or beat them into submission. Still - not much in the way of blood. Mortal Kombat had more blood in one punch than almost every previous game combined. Its popularity led to the founding of the Entertainment Software Rating Board.
But this is how they chose to advertise it? Look at those kids, they're tiny, and still wearing gaudy 80's styles! Great scared expressions though. The tagline, while mentioning that it will hurt, also focuses on the game being 'so real.' I guess this is a tip to the rendered photo graphics style. But come on, the game was about blood and guts! And generally pretty hokey looking gore, to tell you the truth, but gore nonetheless.
I sometimes wonder how they even got the game into the arcades, and based on this advertising, I imagine they just, sort of, didn't mention the unprecedented levels of bloody violence. Meh?
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Thanks again to J.P.Bruneau for originally pointing me to this image. Go check out his tumblr, there's a link to an upcoming game called 'riot' that looks really.. wow!
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oh, and here's a goofy little image mod I did for the blog:
-D
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