Rocket Science Games for Sega CD - Advertisement Review

Let's talk about hubris for a second. Hubris is when you have a game to promote, but you'd rather make a full page advertisement for yourself. That may not sound like the best business decision, but it's exactly what Rocket Science did! It's not that they didn't have a game or two to promote, when this advertisement ran they had the Sega CD "classic" Loadstar: the Legend of Tunny Bodine needing a commercial or two. But they opted to steer clear from showing you anything that would make you remember Loadstar when you're in your favorite game store, instead we get this guy and his Rocket Science tattoo.

The problem is, if I hadn't told you the game Rocket Science was trying to promote you would have probably never known. Loadstar is advertised in this commercial, it's at the very bottom of the page in the smallest text they could find. Even their phone number (with its extension) is larger than the name of the game. Instead of promoting the game they decided to give us a picture of one of the ugliest guy's I've ever seen. Now granted, I'm not sure if it's just the way they took his picture, or maybe even the fact that they decided to substitute his eyes for a picture of a space station, but whatever it is the guy is hard to look at without breaking up into the hard laughing that makes it hard to breathe. With his effect on his face it's hard not to notice his slicked back hair and goatee ... and when I say "notice" I really mean "make fun of."

But I didn't choose this advertisement just to make fun of the stupid looking guy (and his stupid looking goatee); I chose this commercial because it does something I truly hate. Take a look at the text at the bottom of the page (in yellow). In case you can't read it, I'll give you a sample: "D-OOYOUUREA-D ... TULLY! ... |||| | IS THAT YOUX? . )))) DO YOU R.EAD-ME ... TU-LLY?" Okay, that's enough of that! No really, I never want to have to go through another advertisement that has to purposely misspell words and use symbols like they are going out of style. What do they think this is, leet?? It's hard enough figuring out what this commercial is advertising without them trying to sabotage us. Perhaps that's why you never heard from Rocket Science again!

FROM: Bad Advertising: Guatemala