Feature: 10 Of The Most Blatant Snack Sponsorships In Retro Gaming History
Last month the Philippines arm of KFC grabbed the headlines (well, our headlines at least) when it created its own KFC restaurant in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and invited its Twitter followers to visit its island, with the hope of finding Colonel Sanders and getting a voucher code for free chicken in real life.
While Nintendo obviously had nothing to do with this and the whole thing was just a marketing ploy conjured up by KFC, it’s far from the first time video games have been associated with food brands. In fact, ever since the very early days of home console gaming – we’re talking the Atari 2600 here – there have been games containing product placement for snacks. Some of these are subtle, others have entire games built around them. Here are some of our favourites.
This list is by no means complete: there are plenty of other examples. Honourable mentions go to Death Stranding and its infamous Monster Energy consumables, Pepsiman on the PlayStation, Fight Night Round 3 (which lets you unlock the terrifying Burger King mascot to accompany you to the ring) and the strange Space Invader-style Commodore 64 game Weetabix Versus the Titchies. Two games we haven’t forgotten, though, are the Chester Cheetah games for the SNES and Mega Drive, partly because even though they star the Cheetos mascot, they don’t actually mention Cheetos at any point.
That said: sit back, grab an ice cold refreshing Irn Bru™, and enjoy.
Zool – Chupa Chups
There are two examples of snack food product placement in games that many people cite all the time, so let’s start with those. Probably the most commonly mentioned (especially in Europe) is Zool, the fast-paced platformer starring a ninja from the Nth Dimension which was originally released on the Amiga before coming to a bunch of other systems including the SNES and Mega Drive.
The first world in Zool has a candy theme, and the stage is absolutely packed with cakes, candy games, gingerbread and chocolate as far as the eye can see. Deciding to turn this into a marketing opportunity, publisher Gremlin Graphics arranged a deal with Spanish lollipop company Chupa Chups and slapped its lollies and logo all over the stage,
If you owned Zool on the SNES and are a bit confused about all this, you probably lived in North America. The Chupa Chups sponsorship was removed entirely from NTSC versions of the game, whereas the European PAL SNES version still has its big garish logos proudly beaming out at you.
James Pond 2: Codename Robocod – Penguin
The other instance of snack sponsorship that regularly gets brought up is the presence of Penguin biscuits in Millennium Interactive’s much-loved platformer James Pond 2: Codename Robocod, which starred everyone’s favourite piscine protagonist as he attempts to rescue Santa Claus from the evil Dr Maybe.
For those not familiar with Penguins, they’re a brand of chocolate biscuit that have been a part of British tea-drinking culture since they were first produced in the early 1930s. For a certain generation of Brit the marketing slogan “p-p-pick up a Penguin” is widely recognised, even though most people don’t actually get what that means. In fact, most don’t know why they’re called Penguins in the first place.
Regardless, because Robocod involves finding penguins at various points, large Penguin biscuit wrappers can be found in certain stages in 90s versions of the game (they were removed for the GBA, PlayStation and DS versions released in the 2000s). It’s a pretty tenuous link, but it’s reported that Penguins outsold Kit-Kats in the UK for the first time after Robocod launched. We’re not sure we believe that, mind.
Bubba ‘n’ Stix – Bubbilicious
If you live in North America and are starting to feel a bit left out, here’s one for you. Bubba ‘n’ Stix is a puzzle-platformer that was developed by Core Design. Although Core also published the game in most regions, when it came to the Mega Drive version (or Genesis, if you will) Tengen took over publishing duties in America.
Tengen also negotiated a sponsorship deal with Bubbilicious bubble gum, with a big sticker on the cover telling people they could win a Sega CD console if they bought special packs of Bubbilicious and entered the competition on the wrapper. To make sure the deal went both ways, the game’s bonus stage included large packs of Bubbilicious which could be collected for bonus points.
If you’re sitting in the UK and scratching your head at all this, that’s because none of this happened in Europe. There was no Bibbilicious tie-in in PAL regions, and the Bubbilicious collectibles were nowhere to be found in the bonus stages. It wasn’t any great loss, though, so don’t worry.
Superfrog – Lucozade
This Team17 platformer came to the Amiga in 1993 and told the story of a handsome young prince who’s turned into a frog by a witch, who then kidnaps his girlfriend for good measure. As he sits by the side of the river feeling sorry for himself the frog spots a bottle of (famed UK energy drink) Lucozade floating downstream, so he picks it up and takes a drink and, lo and behold, becomes the heroic Superfrog.
Lucozade doesn’t just feature in the intro sequence: bottles of the stuff can be found dotted around each of the game’s levels and will restore Superfrog’s health when he picks it up. Which makes sense, given that back in the day Lucozade was traditionally what you were supposed to bring as a gift when you were visiting sick people in hospital.
A number of years later Lucozade teamed up with another British gaming icon, and this time it was a biggie: a TV ad campaign saw Lara Croft drinking the stuff, and the drink was renamed Larazade for a limited time. It never actually appeared in any Tomb Raider games, though, which is why we’re going with Superfrog instead.
Pushover – Quavers
It’s becoming pretty clear by now that Britain in the early ‘90s seemingly had some sort of obsession with putting snacks in video games, and Ocean Software’s puzzle game Pushover didn’t really do anything to change that. This time the brand in question was Quavers, the floaty crisp snack that tasted like cheesy air, and also included Quavers’ then mascot Colin Curly.
Colin’s lost his packets of Quavers down a giant anthill so it’s up to a soldier ant called G. I. Ant (hah) to enter said anthill and retrieve said curly potato puffs, which he did by knocking over a bunch of dominos in what’s actually a fiendishly difficult puzzler.
After a stint on the Amiga, Pushover came to the SNES with all the Quavers branding removed. Colin Curly, meanwhile, would go on to star in another Amiga game called One Step Beyond, which was also packed with Quavers branding. Hardly anyone seems to eat Quavers these days, and we’re putting that directly down to the lack of an HD remaster of Pushover.
Cool Spot – 7 Up
Here’s one that’s subtle (at least until you reach its bonus stage). Cool Spot is an entertaining platform game starring – get ready for this – the red dot on the 7 Up logo. Yes, slap a pair of sunglasses and some arms and legs on that dot and you have one of the funkiest mascots in town. Or something.
For the most part, Cool Spot is a fairly innocuous platformer: you have to explore the game’s numerous stages in search of your fellow Spot pals, who’ve been imprisoned in cages, presumably due to their comparative lack of coolness. It isn’t until you reach the bonus stage – where you’re trapped in a giant 7 Up bottle and have to bounce off bubbles to reach the top while spelling out its marketing slogan UNCOLA – that the tie-in reveals its true form.
The European versions of the game had all the 7 Up branding removed (starting to see a theme here?), mainly because 7 Up’s mascot in Europe was another character called Fido Dido and it was decided not to confuse things. In the bonus stages, instead of UNCOLA you had to spell out VIRGIN. Stop laughing, that’s who published it.
M.C. Kids – McDonalds
If you thought McDonald’s wasn’t going to try to get involved in this useful new way to market directly to children, we admire your naïvety, but no. M. C. Kids (known as the slightly less subtle McDonaldland in Europe) was a serviceable platformer that contained more big M’s than Mario’s hatstand.
Ronald McDonald’s magic bag has been stolen, so it’s up to two plucky young tykes called Mick and Mack to enter McDonaldland and try to get it back. Along the way they encounter other characters from the McDonald’s Cinematic Universe™ including Grimace, Birdie and the notorious Hamburglar (who’s the one responsible for stealing the bag in the first place).
Mick and Mack returned in Global Gladiators, an environmentalist Mega Drive game in which they had to use a water gun to clear up slime and various other types of toxic gunk in order to clean the world up. While collecting more golden arches, obviously.
Chase the Chuck Wagon – Purina
If you think snack tie-ins were mainly a ‘90s phenomenon, you’re in for a surprise: in the early ‘80s the humble Atari 2600 had its fair share of sponsored games too. These included strange collect ‘em up Kool-Aid Man and the extremely rare Pepsi Invaders, a Space Invaders clone created by Coca-Cola to be handed out at its 1983 sales convention.
The oddest example of the Atari 2600 era, though, is possibly Chase the Chuck Wagon. If you were an American citizen in the ‘70s and ‘80s you were probably aware of a TV commercial for Purina dog food in which a dog chases a little chuckwagon (it was referenced at the start of This Is Spinal Tap as well, and Family Guy spoofed it at one point because of course it did).
Purina commissioned game publisher Spectravision to make a game based on this commercial, and it was programmed in a mere three days, so yes, it was awful. It was a mail order game, and could only be bought if you sent in proof of purchase labels for Purina dog food products. Which sort of defeats the purpose of the game if people are already buying the stuff.
Biker Mice from Mars – Snickers
The Biker Mice From Mars game is something of a hidden gem on the SNES: it’s an isometric racing game developed by Konami and it’s packed with power-ups and all that good stuff. It’s also notorious, however, for being the only game in this list that’s a TV show tie-in with a snack tie-in included. We believe the phrase is “yo dawg, we heard you liked tie-ins”, or at least it would be if it was 2008.
In fact, not only did the Biker Mice game have a snack sponsorship – in just one region, naturally – it was also a rare case of a sponsorship that actually affected the gameplay. The PAL version of the game had Snickers branding slapped all over it, but you could also pick up a Snickers power-up which was by far the most powerful in the game: it makes you invincible, speeds you up and makes fireworks appear.
In keeping with the general theme of this article, the North American version of the game didn’t have any Snickers sponsorship. This meant that it also didn’t have the power-up, however, making it a slightly harder game as a result. Oh Snickers, you rascals.
Kaettekita Mario Bros. – Nagatanien
Finally, it may shock you to learn that not even our good pal Mario has been able to resist the clutches of snack sponsorship in the past. The culprit in question was Kaettekita Mario Bros., an enhanced port of Mario Bros. for the Famicom Disk System that made some notable improvements including new levels and the ability to change direction in mid-air (which, if you’ve played Mario Bros, you’ll know is a literal game-changer).
However, it also added advertisements in between some of the levels. Some of these ads were for other Nintendo games, most notably Super Mario Bros. 3 (which had just been released on the Famicom a month earlier). Others, however, were for food products created by Nagatanien, a Japanese company who specialised in premixed and instant food (miso soup mix, sushi toppings and the like).
What’s more, it included a special Nagatanien World mode, which adds a slot machine when you get Game Over which gives you the chance to continue playing. If players scored 100,000 or 200,000 points in this mode, they’d also be given a promotional code that they could mail in to Nintendo to try to win a copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 or some playing cards. We’re not angry at you, Mario; we’re just disappointed.
Have these blatant snack sponsorships left you feeling a little peckish? Let us know which other brand deals you’ve noticed in games with a comment below…
Xbox Insider Release Notes – Beta, Delta and Omega (2007.200709-1200)
Hey Xbox Insiders! We have a new Xbox One update preview coming to the Beta, Delta and Omega ring. It’s important we note that some updates made in these preview OS builds include background improvements that ensure a quality and stable build for Xbox One.
We continue to post these release notes, even when the noticeable changes to the UI are minimal, so you’re aware when updates are coming to your device. Details can be found below!
System Update Details:
OS version released: RS_XBOX_RELEASE_2007\19041.3503.200709-1200
Available: 8 p.m. PT – July 10, 2020
Mandatory: 3 a.m. PT – July 11, 2020
Fixes Implemented
Thanks to the hard work of Xbox engineers, we are happy to announce the following fixes have been implemented for this build:
System
Various updates to properly reflect local languages across the console
Note: Users participating in Preview may see “odd” text across the console, for more information go here.
Known Issues
We understand some issues have been listed in previous Xbox Insider Release Notes. These items aren’t being ignored, but it will take Xbox engineers more time to find a solution.
We’re still tracking these known issues:
Audio
Users who have Dolby Atmos enabled and console display settings set to 120hz with 36 bits per pixel (12-bit) are experiencing loss of Dolby Atmos audio in some situations.
Workaround: Disable 120hz or set Video Fidelity to 30 bits per pixel (10-bit) or lower.
Some users have reported that Dolby Atmos for Headphones audio setting changes when the console is rebooted/updated.
Note: If you attempt to set the audio to Dolby Atmos for Headphones and see a message advising you to launch the Dolby Access App, please file feedback before launching the app.
Game DVR
We are aware game clips (non-4K and 4K) are not recording at all or recording the incorrect length with recent updates. We are investigating.
Note: Make sure you report the behavior on the console as soon as you record the clip and notice either behavior.
Workaround: We’ve implemented a fix where clips that do not record in 4K will instead record in 1080p instead.
Guide
When installing or updating a game/app, the installation progress bar may not show progress. The issue is known and being investigated.
We’ve received reports that the Friends tab is not showing the correct status of online/offline friends.
Some users may notice that the Guide has changed appearance and functionality, this is expected behavior as there are certain experiences being flighted among a random subset of users in Preview.
Messages
Users are reporting that Message notifications that have been marked as read are re-appearing as new. We are aware and investigating the behavior.
My Games & Apps
Users have reported seeing black tiles instead of game artwork when browsing their collection.
Note: We are still investigating the issue, please report the issue again from the console if you have done so with a prior update and are still seeing this behavior.
Some titles in collection may appear with a “trial” tag incorrectly in collection.
Profile Color
Sometimes users may encounter the incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.
Make sure to use Report a problem to keep us informed of your issue. We may not be able to respond to everyone, but the data we’ll gather is crucial to finding a resolution.
How to Get Xbox Insider Support
If you’re an Xbox Insider looking for support, please reach out to the community subreddit. Official Xbox staff, moderators, and fellow Xbox Insiders are there to help with your concerns.
When posting to the subreddit, please look through most recent posts to see if your issue has already been posted or addressed. We always recommend adding to threads with the same issue before posting a brand new one. This helps us support you the best we can! Don’t forget to use “Report a problem” before posting—the information shared in both places helps us understand your issue better.
Thank you to every Xbox Insider in the subreddit today. We love that it has become such a friendly and community-driven hub of conversation and support.
For more information regarding the Xbox Insider Program follow us on Twitter. Keep an eye on future Xbox Insider Release Notes for more information regarding your Xbox One Update Preview ring!
Smite Adding Tsukuyomi, The Japanese God Of The Moon
Smite, third-person MOBA, has announced the Japanese god of the moon Tsukuyomi will be coming to the game in August 2020. Tsukuyomi is the 111th playable character to be added to the game and the 7th god in the Japanese pantheon.
The trailer announcing Tsukuyomi shows him facing off against his sister Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun. More information about Tsukuyomi will be announced during the Smite Update show on July 22.
Tsukuyomi is a ruthless perfectionist, demanding order and obedience from those who oppose him. His conflict with Amaterasu runs deeper than a grudge, as neither deity is willing to yield to the other.
Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection & Ubisoft Sale
Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection at 70% OFF
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Crypto Sale Day 4: Ubisoft Forward Sale (EMEA ONLY), up to -85%
[www.indiegala.com] Join our Crypto Sale, and get an EXTRA 30% OFF on all bundles and 15% OFF on all store deals when paying with a supported cryptocurrency! (ends on 24 July)
Team17 And SMG Studio Unpack Version 1.2 Of Moving Out For Nintendo Switch
If you love high-tension co-op games like Overcooked, Team17’s other multiplayer game, Moving Out – by SMG Studio, might be worth a look. We rather enjoyed the game, when it first arrived in April – awarding it seven out of ten stars – but said it was a shame there wasn’t more to sink our teeth into.
Now, SMG has rolled out version 1.2 of the game. It adds a new mover (T.Pott), new challenges, squashes some bugs, includes a few quality of life adjustments, and more. Here are the full patch notes, courtesy of the Team17 website:
– New Mover: Meet T.Pott! When the heat is on and the pressure builds, it’s T.Pott’s time to shine! – Platinum Times & Medals: If you’ve beaten all gold times then this is the challenge for you! – It’s time to dance: We’ve added four new dance moves for you to perform AND a fun new feature we’re calling ‘Disco Detector’… – General bug fixes & improvements – including a fix for achievements/trophies that would not unlock – Added ‘Disco Detector’ – Disco ball appears when all players dance at the same time – Added additional controller layout options – Added Platinum Times and Medals for base game levels – Updated text and localisations – Added best times visibility for all player counts on the level results screen
Team17 is also hosting a sale at the moment where you can grab moving out for $19.99 / £15.99 instead of $24.99 / £19.99. Various other games from the publisher are also on sale:
Save across a vast array of titles, including Overcooked 2, Moving Out, Golf With Your Friends and many more!
Will you be returning to Moving Out to try out this new update? Leave a comment down below.
Phantom Thread Director Paul Thomas Anderson Is Gearing Up For His Next Film
Paul Thomas Anderson, the auteur director behind Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Phantom Thread, is moving to MGM for his next film. Deadline is reporting that the director's next feature is currently having its deal ironed out, with production not yet starting after a COVID-19 related delay.
Anderson's previous film, Phantom Thread, was distributed by Focus Features on a budget of $35 million. It was nominated for multiple Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won for Best Costume Design. The plan was for Focus Features to release the director's next film, too, but this will no longer be the case.
Deadline reports that the move to MGM is not contentious. Universal, the parent company of Focus Features, will likely still be involved, as they have previously helped with distribution on MGM titles (including upcoming Bond title No Time To Die).
Tiletkit is a new tile based map editor available for Windows and Linux. The key feature of Tilekit is a rules based pattern driven map editing, define your tiles and rules and the map editor takes care of the rest.
Features:
Unique pattern-based-rule autotiling system
Map export to JSON
Code-export of final ruleset to C or Lua
Basic object system for game-entity placement
Simple animated tile system
Tilekit is available on Itch.io, with a demo save restricted version available for download. Tilekit has a $20 price tag. You can learn more and see Tilekit in action in the video below.
Online Retailer Lists Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit For Nintendo Switch
During the EA Play conference this year, a representative of the company said the third-party giant was planning to bring “seven new games to Switch” over the next 12 months. Not long after this, industry insider Jeff Grubb revealed one of these titles – according to his own source – was likely to be a remaster of Criterion Games’ 2010 racer, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.
While there’s no official confirmation from Electronic Arts just yet, a listing has now popped up on the Australian and New Zealand online retailer, Mighty Ape. It’s unknown how long it’s been live, but on both versions of the website, it’s listed for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch.
There’s no mention of a release date, but you can apparently pre-order the game right now. Here’s an image of it listed alongside the original 2010 release (on the NZ webpage), as well as the AU listing which includes some screenshots.
While there’s no guarantee this is necessarily the real deal, it’s definitely interesting timing. We had a look around on the same website for the other rumoured EA games (also mentioned by Jeff) such as the Mass Effect trilogy and a Switch version of Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, and couldn’t find any evidence.
Mini Review: Rez Plz – Not Quite A Game To Die For
Searching for a dose of that old The Lost Vikings magic on your Nintendo Switch? We’d love to push Rez Plz forward as a blood-soaked candidate, but unfortunately there are just too many sore points for our liking.
In this co-op puzzle-platformer, you’ll find yourself guiding a pair of wizard twins through a SNES-era fantasy world. These aren’t your usual boy-wizards destined for greatness, mind, with their sole ability (at least initially) being to resurrect one another from the dead. The game gets a lot of mileage out of this ‘live, die, repeat’ system, as you sacrifice one brother to further the progress of the other.
Fans of dark and twisted humour will appreciate how you can deliberately slaughter one twin and use their lifeless body as a platform for navigating a pool of lava. You might impale one on a pillar of spikes and then wall-bounce off them with the other, or use one as a literal human torch. In the second world, you’ll even need to start thinking about dismembering your heroes to activate some of the hellish sacrifice-driven level equipment.
The most pleasing element of Rez Plz is the way that the twins have a real physical presence in this otherwise generic world. Even aside from the grisly stuff, they can hoist each other up to higher platforms and stand on one another’s shoulders. Enemies, too, can be slaughtered and their bodies utilised to hold down pressure-sensitive switches. Thankfully, all this morbid stuff is handled with a light touch, and everything’s rendered in a bouncy Saturday morning cartoon style.
The main issue with Rez Plz is that it lacks the polish and precision tuning that its mechanics demand. The frame rate is frequently horrendous – especially in the first world – which can directly impede your progress, as some of the jump sequences you’ll need to make are rather exacting. There are also numerous technical gremlins, from game crashes to situations where the camera doesn’t keep up with the action or switch focus to the correct twin.
This sense of frustration is exacerbated by overly twitchy platformer physics that fall just a little short of where they need to be, and a control system that never quite feels instinctual and second-nature in single player. It’s all too easy to lose track of which twin is the active one and which button you need to press, especially when the twins are close together, or when the puzzles start to place a time pressure on you, such as during ‘boss’ levels.
Somewhat ironically given the game’s central gimmick, it doesn’t handle death particularly well. When you run out of respawn crystals, a Spelunky-like ghost will start stalking your remaining twin. Which is fine when there’s another crystal within reach, but much of the time there won’t be. It just feels a little tacked on.
All in all, the fun and challenge that’s undoubtedly present in Rez Plz dies a death of a thousand irritating cuts. A resurrection isn’t entirely out of the question, but it’ll require a couple of hefty updates to jolt it into life.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 07-20-2020, 10:35 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Ghost Of Tsushima Fox Den Locations: All 49 Inari Shrines
There are lots of collectibles to find in Ghost of Tsushima, as well as locations across the island to uncover in order to increase your strength and unlock new abilities. One of the largest groups of things to find are Inari Shrines. These small shrines are hidden on cliffs, in forests, behind rocks, and in caves, and finding them unlocks more slots for equipping Minor Charms, which give you useful passive perks.
There are 49 Inari Shrines across Tsushima, and locating them not only earns you new Charm slots, but also some of the better Minor Charms in the game, if you're willing to keep searching. Shrines are always marked by Fox Dens that are marked on your map; meet a fox at its den and it'll guide you to the shrine. Though finding the dens isn't too difficult, there are quite a few of them, and they're easy to miss. Here's a full rundown of all 49 Fox Den locations--honor them all and you'll earn the Favor of the Kami Trophy and a special mask for Jin.
