Bull$hit Magazine Articles

[+Stephen]

Wow - never knew the 2600 version of PcaMan was such a stellar copy of the arcade,

[Justin Payne]

That's actually a stellar copy of the 8-bit computer/5200. I heard the 2600 version was ashamed to show its face in public so they went with a better looking model. Don't you just love false advertising.

[BillyHW]

Early ads and box art often showed arcade versions too instead of the console ports. A lot of shady business all round back then.

[Mclaneinc]

Didn't stop then, the N64 had a car racing sim with a 3 letter name (MRC?), all the screen shots shown were complete mock ups and when the game was released it was an ugly fog (draw distance) mess but it never stopped Nintendo promoting it as something else, Sony also did the same thing, all previews of the game The Bouncer looked AMAZING, people vaulting over barriers, fighting in motion cap style and facial detail second to none with Sony saying it was all down to their Emotion Engine chip in the PS2, sadly what was being shown was all pre rendered movies and when the game came out it was a flop as none of what was seen actually was in the game.

 

Around then they started banging the drum about false advertising really loud..

 

Its a bit of a shame as back in the Apple days they would publish a shoot em up title with the box showing a beautiful space scene with great looking ships and explosions etc, you KNEW the game would not look like that but people like me loved the box, it sort of got me hyped for the game even though it was going to look nothing like that, it was just great artwork.

Edited November 30, 2016 by Mclaneinc

[SIO2]

You just have to switch your TV to channel 1 like and put in your special ATARI cart like in the photo.

 

Those Sony TV sets always did have a better picture.

Edited November 30, 2016 by SIO2

[ryanmercer]

Early ads and box art often showed arcade versions too instead of the console ports. A lot of shady business all round back then.

 

This has never changed either, box art and 'screenshots' was often misleading for Nintendo, Sega, Super Nintendo and still occasionally are on current generation consoles. Hell, with No Man's Sky they flat out lied about multiplayer and put stickers on physical boxes at launch to cover it up.

[Omega-TI]

Dressing up a product with special lighting, photo-shopping and even with some eye candy is S.O.P.

If the product sucks... use the arcade version, who's gonna sue right?

 

A while back a few Atari Age guys got together and made some fake advertisements for an old out-of-date computer system...

 

 

Carlsson made this one...

 

While this one is totally FAKE and never existed, I like this thread and would love to see more examples of Bull$hit advertisements from the classic computer era.

[Jetboot Jack]

Didn't stop then, the N64 had a car racing sim with a 3 letter name (MRC?), all the screen shots shown were complete mock ups and when the game was released it was an ugly fog (draw distance) mess but it never stopped Nintendo promoting it as something else,

 

 

You are conflating Nintendo with the publisher - this game was not by Nintendo so laying the blame at their feet is silly - Nintendo had nothing to do with the adverts, they were done by imagineer and ocean since they developed/published it - and to be honest my memory of this is that the box shows very accurate images of the game :-)

 

Edited November 30, 2016 by Jetboot Jack

[Mclaneinc]

Yeah, should have said the publisher, its easy to forget as Nintendo iirc ok'ed the software was 'suitable' hence I named them (not that I remembered who made it). I remember the original screens and they were clear as day and the detail was much higher.

Edited November 30, 2016 by Mclaneinc

[bfollett]

The magazine almost had it correct (if they just published a few decades later). Here's the new 2600 pac-man that released a few years ago.

 

 

 

 

[Gentlegamer]

These are called bullshots.

[kiwilove]

I think it is around November? 1984 that there were the praising of the 7800 hardware and it's games - which appeared in Electronic Games and other magazines but the screenshots did not show the quality that was suppose to be in the graphics - and so I felt this was very odd - along with the fact that it was not released and available for sale at that time - that it got delayed until it eventually appeared - but by then time (and hardware) has moved on. Like how the 5200 should have got released soon after the 400/800 appeared - instead of Atari trying to milk the 2600 for all they could out of that before the 5200 eventually appeared.

 

I never got the chance to see a 7800 running - to be able to assess what is it really like? There was one Atari die hard - who loved the system and got all the games he could get for it - but unfortunately - He met a very unexpected and untimely early death - which I do not know the full details of. He looked like a normal fit sort of guy and would have been in his early 30s. He was the only person I knew that had the system - this would have been in the 90s?

 

I still haven't gotten a good look at a 7800 running - and I am somewhat puzzled that they did not seem to support having large and detailed playfield (backgrounds). To me it seemed odd that they improved the sprite hardware - and came up short with playfield support. Likewise with being too cheap with the sound chip - that the console needed a decent soundchip as standard.

Of course, it's only years (decades) later on - I listened to how that the 7800 was not developed by Atari at all - but that Atari probably screwed it up anyway - by trying to keep it as cheap as possible.

 

Harvey

Edited November 30, 2016 by kiwilove

[Keatah]

Wow - never knew the 2600 version of PcaMan was such a stellar copy of the arcade,

 

Yup. Those marketing types are sly and stupid. And take you for a flunky.

[atx4us]

Unfortunately, I was one of the many suckers who paid USD $50 hard earned cash (in 1982!) for the Atari 2600 Pacman cartridge. And, I actually played with it for a while. Desperation, I guess.

 

No Amazon Reviews back then. I remember reading the first negative Amazon review and couldn't believe my eyes that negative reviews were actually allowed by a company. Now, I often read some reviews of products before I chose and buy.

[atx4us]

You just have to switch your TV to channel 1 like and put in your special ATARI cart like in the photo.

 

Those Sony TV sets always did have a better picture.

That just hits my funny bone

[fujidude]

The magazine almost had it correct (if they just published a few decades later). Here's the new 2600 pac-man that released a few years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

Nice.