Nostalgia

[Daxdiv]

That old Mario Cartoon made by DiC.

[Neomysterion X. Prime]

All of my childhood anime favourites: DBZ, early Pokemon, Sailor Moon, early Yu-Gi-Oh, Cardcaptors (don't ask), and some others I forgot.
Fox Kids cartoons most definitely! 

[Rosalinas Spare Wand]

There's some old ass anime I barely remember but always evokes some huge nostalgia on me. Specifically, I'm talking about Ranma 1/2, Saint Seiya (or Caballeros Del Zodiaco as I remember it), Candy Candy, Dragon Ball and Captain Tsubasa.

SNES, PSX and N64 are also a great source of nostalgia for me. I did have an NES but I didn't play it as much as these 3, so I passed over a lot of NES classics for remakes and ports of them. But bring up Super Mario World, Donkey Kong 64 and the Country trilogy, Killer Instinct, Street Fighter II, Crash Bandicoot, Parappa the Rapper, or just about any other smash hit for these system and I'll remember having tried them. I don't get nearly the same feeling from this decade's games, but they're not bad either.

[gunswordfist]

Rare, Rare, did I mention Rare yet? I have a lot of catching up to do. Battletoads Arcade is there only game that I've beaten

[Avaitor]

Rare's N64 games, as well as the DKCs, were a set of beauty. We've talked about them plenty a time on AR, but most of the stuff from that age still rank around my favorite 3D platformers and FPSes.

It sucks that they sold their souls for Microsoft now, since they made some amazing shit back in the day.

[Kiddington]

It wouldn't matter so much that they belong to Microsoft if, 'ya know, Microsoft actually utilized them for a change. They've basically owned the company for nine years, but have barely done anything with 'em (outside of disappointing titles such as Kameo or Nuts and Bolts).

Now, we're basically watching this company slave away on nothing but the fucking Kinect, and that really pisses me off more than anything. There is still plenty of talent in that organization; why they choose to essentially ignore them outside of casual niche projects is anyone's guess.

[talonmalon333]

Rare's N64 games, as well as the DKCs, were a set of beauty. We've talked about them plenty a time on AR, but most of the stuff from that age still rank around my favorite 3D platformers and FPSes.

It sucks that they sold their souls for Microsoft now, since they made some amazing shit back in the day.

I'd take Donkey Kong Country over Super Mario Bros. any day.

[Foggle]

I hate to be the one to say this, but... if Rare had actually made good games for Microsoft, they wouldn't be stuck churning out Kinect shovelware. Perfect Dark Zero is an embarrassment to both the original and FPS games in general, Kameo is absolutely horrible in every conceivable way, Viva Pinata is one of the most boring games on the 360, and Nuts & Bolts is a textbook example of how not to revive a beloved franchise. That leaves Grabbed By The Ghoulies, which sold like shit, and Conker: Live & Reloaded, a port of an N64 title that actually featured MORE censorship than the original game. Their best games since the acquisition by Microsoft were actually on the Game Boy Advance. Sad.

They had many chances to prove themselves and failed miserably every time. It's a miracle they haven't been shut down by now.

[Avaitor]

They have really been on a bad luck spree since Conker came out. Even Star Fox Adventures, as adventurous as it was, overall was dull and the exact opposite of how to do a Star Fox game.

Kameo and PDZ were in development since the N64 days, and to be honest, I doubt they would have turned out much better if they came out sooner than they did. And while I thought Grabbed by the Ghoulies is underrated, it just doesn't compare.

[Foggle]

Star Fox Adventures wasn't even supposed to be a Star Fox title; as far as I know, Nintendo just had them reskin and tweak their Dinosaur Planet game into one so that they could milk more money out of it. Also, Perfect Dark Zero's level design would have still been horribly inept even if it had been released on the N64. That shit was bad.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to hate on Rare. If it were up to me, they'd still be making real games and not Kinect Joyride or whatever the fuck they're doing now. I can forgive all of their slip-ups aside from Nuts & Bolts... and that's only because the first trailer basically functioned as a bait-and-switch. I want them to succeed. I know they still can. They just need to actually try.

[Spark Of Spirit]

It was bad management that lead them to be sold in the first place. After the N64 they slowly degraded in quality with each title before they hit the nadir with Perfect Dark Zero. Since the N64 generation they've lost pretty much everyone that made their games great and, the worst thing to me, those people have not moved on to other projects.

[gunswordfist]

Rare's N64 games, as well as the DKCs, were a set of beauty. We've talked about them plenty a time on AR, but most of the stuff from that age still rank around my favorite 3D platformers and FPSes.

It sucks that they sold their souls for Microsoft now, since they made some amazing shit back in the day.

Didn't Nintendo treat them like shit near their last few years with them? Either way, it's the core members splintering off to form Free Radical that did them in. Now MS has IPs they aren't good enough to tap into themselves

[Rosalinas Spare Wand]

As a follow up to that comment I made in the old school CN thread, anyone interested in talking about their favorite marketting campaigns? I could probably do a whole article about some of mines if my laptop wasn't busy being tsundere as hell right now.

I'll go ahead and post some anyways to refresh some memories, and maybe show off some people missed. For instance, Corn Pops and their Gotta Have My Pops slogan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLvgZj9IUcg

I don't know how they got away with implying Pops are like drugs, but the 90s was a weird time like that. Anyways, this one was totally effective for me. Back then, my favorite cereal was Cocoa Puffs, and I ultimately caved to Pops honey glazed kernels. I'm not a big cereal eater nowadays, but Pops is one of the few sweet cereals from childhood that still tastes good, and they're one of the rare ones that don't become disgusting when stale. Strangest thing, I know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwlMHJE82Mk

Here's some from Good Humor's Popsicle brand. Ice Cream is pretty much a guaranteed sell for most kids, so how do you stand out from the competition? With wacky humor and talking dogs. Truly a campaign from the 90s, from the large messy room setting to the near-death trap like gimmicks of each bar, these were some of the only commercials I never got tired of. The actual products are pretty hit or miss, but all of them are messy. Beware the Rockets, those seem to always drip the fastest and stained clothes pretty damn bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agok_TVaDms&feature=related

Took me a while to realize Pizza Head was a parody of Mr. Bill. But that aside, I can't remember the last time Pizza Hut had a campaign with any semblance of personality since this one. But then again, its probably hard to market greasy pizza to kids since, ya 'know...I don't remember this one lasting long to be honest. The X-Men and Goosebumps promotions I do clearly remember though, Fox Kids ran the hell out of those spots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMQAbQ1hJZw

Yup, Play It Loud is a relic of the past. Still, I totally bought into that 90s grunge and rebellion theme. I think this is where my love of gaudy clashing colors comes from. Oh yeah, and video games. You just don't see stuff like this anymore. Most of the big game releases have similar commercials to movie ads, and anything under the Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo umbrella always seems to follow a generic formula now. I also liked the Get N or Get Out campaign, but I barely remember any commercials for that besides an F-Zero and Mario Party one. Speaking of Mario...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJwFUNHtCJQ

Got Milk. Two words that either struck fear into the hearts of kids (no thanks to commercials like this and this) or made you wonder just how much leverage that company had to feature so many celebrities and fictional characters in their ads. I always prefered the print ads because they left something to the imagination, and they used far less scare tactics. I'm sure those guys are responsible for some milk going sour due to kids leaving a whole gallon out for dick Santa too.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yeah, I miss when games were advertised like games instead of movie events or something. Sega used to always be competing with Nintendo on who could make the better game commercial and grab attention, and Sony didn't employ some art school dropout for their campaigns. Most Sony commercials don't even have game footage anymore.

Game commercials rarely grab my attention anymore, since they never seem to have any energy. I think I saw some Sonic Colors ones that were pretty noisy (Sega, of course) and Nintendo's Mario commercials always have the theme to grab attention, but most tend to just stink.

[gunswordfist]

Oh yes, I've been sick and tired of game commercials not having actual game footage for years. How hard is it to show game footage and go over the game's best features and try to sell that? I believe Saints Row 1 or 2 was the last time I've seen that. Now games have to be sold as music videos, apparently.