NEW (VIDEO GAME) BILLBOARD DAY @newvgbillboardday - Tumblr Blog

Illbleed (Crazy Games, Dreamcasr, 2001) - Stage 2 (The Revenge of Queen Worm) Illbleed is a very, very strange sorta-survival-horror game with a very dark sense of humour and an apparently undying love of horror movies. One of the many ways it shows that is in these fantastic movie posters found in a plot of land that was once a drive-in movie theatre. We've lead with the clear winner at the top- Godlla (please don't sue, Toho) but the runner-up has to be House of the Lightning, and the Clash Heat poster seems to advertise how many stunt-men died while it was being made. The trilogy of Dummyman movies are a nod to one of the recurring enemies in the game, crash test mannequins. No, really. If you can, definitely zoom in on these to closely inspect the text!

Monte Carlo (Atari, Arcade, 1980) Well, this is technically a billboard, ain't it? It's advertising something- in this case, Cola (what brand? Who knows)... Unless it's just a box with Cola written on it. We can't rule that out as a possibility.

Night Slashers (Data East, Arcade, 1993) - Bonus Stage Essentially a little game of Whack-a-Mole but with zombies, this bonus stage in Night Slashers is brought to you by Hungry Burger- the fast food restaurant where the burgers might take a bite out of you, but not your wallet- and Drug Zombie- for all your pharmaceutical needs from beyond the grave. Please also note that the meat at Hungry Burgers is 100% freash and the audience is... More zombies. Makes sense.

S.C.I. - Special Criminal Investigation (Taito, Arcade, 1989) - Intro Nothing fancy here. I just think you really need to see this Violence Fight advert.

Armed Police Batrider (Raizing/Eighting, Arcade, 1998) - Round 1 (Manhattan City) So, we've been merely observing these adverts so far around here. Let's trash 'em instead!

These billboards are a little tricky to actually see undamaged in-game- they're actually upright as they scroll on screen, so you only see the top. When you shoot them enough, they'll topple over and you see them unscathed... Milliseconds before they hit the floor and get destroyed.

Still, I'm not sure I'd buy a used car from that guy anyway. Not that he's got any left to sell once I've passed by.

Power Wheels/Double Axle (Taito, Arcade, 1991) - Car-Crushing!!/Demolition Derby stage A more subtle use of the old 'advertise your game inside your game' trick employed here. The dinosaur billboard is a modified version of the logo bearing the game's name on the Japanese flyer and the dedicated cabinet. The other big billboard here though? Yeah, that's just for telling you to crush everything. Also, there's some far smaller adverts/banners in the background. I'd like to imagine the Tony Oil banner is for a company run by Tony Gibson after he left Chase H.Q. (the previous sentence is not canon).

Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Arcade, Capcom, 1998) - Guy's Stage (Left) & Cody's Stage (Right)

These two stages have billboards in the backgrounds, but they can't be seen that well during gameplay. If you're playing on Kawaks, though, you can remove background and sprite layers to get a better look.

Let's start by removing those pesky Mad Gear types from Guy's stage:

That's better. Now we can see that Megaman Drink billboard on the left! Megaman in a Capcom game, who'd have thought. If you look carefully, there's a billboard to the right too, but it's blocked by the subway entrance. Let's get rid of that layer as well.

Well, that's that mystery solved. Although beyond Castro I can't read the sign...

Anyway, let's move on to Cody's stage now, the prison. There's a billboard (a tiny bit's cut-off from the top of the screen, so you have to jump to see all of it) with our Street Fighter III pal Hugo (who may or may not be the wrestler formerly known as Andore). Half the billboard's obscured by the building, though. Just who is he gonna fight? Let's see what's behind the...

... Oh.

Can't win 'em all.

Ridge Racer Turbo/Hi-Spec Demo (Namco, PS1, 1998/1999) A mini history of PS1 Ridge Racer, in billboard form. This version of the game was included as a bonus disc with Ridge Racer Type 4, and while it's basically a fancier version of the first Ridge Racer but running at 60fps with a few things left out (like most of the music, but then again, you only need Ridge Racer, don't you?), the billboards were changed. It's almost like they're saying, "Look, this is how far we've come since 1993!"

Mystic Warriors (Konami, Arcade, 1993)

The drive-in theater at the end of the first stage is a plug on Konami’s earlier Western run-n-gun Sunset Riders (1991). (Submitted by ArcadeQuarterMaster- text and the top shot is theirs, the other's one I took myself- it shows a brief clip of Sunset Riders' intro, which is essential viewing. Yeah, we'll accept movie screens too, as long as they're an advert of some sort!)

Pocket Racer (Namco, Arcade, 1997) Pocket Racer is a pint-sized version of Namco's Ridge Racer games, in case that's not obvious. Look at that cabinet! How tiny is that? Anyway, let's focus on the billboards. The first three here are your standard billboards- the first one is for a prize machine made by Namco, and the other two should be obvious. The next three are some billboards at the side with various game logos, and another prize machine as you can see here. They're a little tricky to get decent shots of, as Pocket Racer has no brakes, making it harder to stop in the right place.

Violent Storm (Konami, Arcade, 1993) - Stage 2

"Enjoy Ora-Ora" "Super Drinks"

"For OFFICE & LOFT SPACE" "A.C. RING ASSOCIATIS (3265-1256)"

Ora-Ora: A super drink approved by Ryo Sakazaki, Joe Higashi and Jotaro Kujo. (picture and caption submitted by hokutonoshock)

Outrun (Sega, Arcade, 1986) - Stage 1 Anyone else think they missed a trick by not advertising Hang-On here instead? Also, I guess you'd feel left out if you were playing on an upright machine instead.

Ninja Baseball Bat Man (Irem, Arcade, 1993) - Stage 1 A high-tech billboard! This one keeps rotating between three adverts. Although Dragonfly Air-Plane Company is made up, Gan Hōki is supposed to be an advert for Mahou Keibitai Gun Hōki (of which there are several spelling variants), a magic-themed shoot-em-up released internationally as Mystic Riders. (A bit of housekeeping: Since many video game billboards are found in racing games, I'll try and post something that's not a racing game between them so things don't get too boring)

Top Speed/Full Throttle (Taito, Arcade, 1987) - Start

Amongst the obvious adverts for other games- specifically uzi-em-up Operation Wolf and obscure-ish Breakout-em-up Plump Pop, we have an advert for Manhattan Vice which is... Well, it's straight-up Miami Vice, isn't it? Seriously. Not at all related to Chase H.Q.. Nope. Definitely not. Honest.

Vigilante (Irem, Arcade, 1988) - Stage 1 Just what is the mysterious MARIA sign/billboard advertising here? We may never know.

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NEW (VIDEO GAME) BILLBOARD DAY