Artistically, this is one of my favorite flyers in TAFAs collection. It speaks to my many sensibilities with it's lurid colors and way-out Martian chick with her gravity defying hairdo. I happen to be a huge fan of psychadelia (I was born in the summer of love, so go figure...) and as far as game flyers go, this is one of the best examples out there. They just don't market games like this anymore which is a blessing and a shame in equal measures.

Grudge Match was put out in 1989 by Yankee Game Technology. According to KLOV and the internets, this may well be the only game that Yankee Game Technology ever made. Grudge Match was a fairly straightforward wrestling game that could be played by up to two players at a time. In the single player version, you would go through a slew of opponents on your way to becoming the world champion wrestler. Each opponent would have to be beaten three times before moving on to the next. The multiplayer version had a continuous play feature that would let the losing player join back in for a rematch with the addition of a few quarters.

Wow, I don't even know where to start with this one. It's not very often that a flyer leaves me not quite knowing what to say, but this one has managed to leave me near speechless. There are so many things to love. The obligatory giant 80's hair, the mismatched neon animal prints, the over abundance of spiked leather accouterments. And if that wasn't enough for you it's got a little person in a gangster suit with the world's biggest tie tack! (I hope you notice how blithely I side-stepped the whole midget/dwarf mishigos by using the politically correct term "little person".)

As you can probably tell from looking at the flyer and from the fact that you have probably never heard of this game or its publisher, it wasn't terribly popular. In a poll amongst the 900+ collecters of arcade games on KLOV, not one person has an actual cabinet of this game. Judging from this image, something tells me there is a really good reason why.

[flyer courtesy TAFA]

Hello, and welcome to Arcade Flyer Art Saturday at its new prime time! You can look forward to seeing it at this same time each week from here on out. This week's offering is the arcade version of Broderbund's PC classic, Lode Runner.

Broderbund came out with the Lode Runner arcade machine in 1984 as a direct response to the popularity of their PC version of the game. This was particularly notable since at the time, most games started as arcade games before eventually being ported to home consoles and computers. The home version of the game was also one of the first to include a level editor.

The gameplay consisted of running your little man through a series of mazes while collecting gold coins (sound familiar?). The mazes were made up of bricks and dirt and could be navigated using various ladders and ropes or by blasting holes through the walls with your blaster. As you can probably guess, your progress is impeded by a retinue of various monsters that change from level to level. Once all gold coins are recovered, an escape ladder lowers allowing the player to climb to victory and the next maze level. But don't lollygag! Each level is timed and if you don't get up that ladder before the timer runs out, it's game over.

While this flyer isn't as hilarious or mind bending as some, it does have some great points. At the time I'm sure those quotes from such hot magazines as Sky were impressive but on looking at the graphics of the game it's hard not to snicker a little. "The game of the year. Further proof that gamers' tastes are growing more sophisticated as the hobby matures." Sounds like something you could read in any game magazine or blog today. "Light years away from the simplistic arcade games of two years ago." Apparently "light years" referred to the inclusion of "shadows" underneath each level giving it that awesome 3D appearance.

I am also always amazed by the translation of a 2D 8-bit game into the "real life" drawings. So that's what that squishy little green block with a white head would look like if it was a real person! Amazing!

Flyer courtesy TAFA

Wow, what terrific art on this one. It really evokes a time period and I could easily see this graphic on the cover of a Choose You Own Adventure book. The central figure (Arthur) looks one of the myriad D&D stickers I had on my binders in school that got me regularly roughed up by the cool kids. Given it's comic book feel I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they used this for advertising the game in kid's magazines during its era. The logo is pretty great too. I always love the combo of flames and blood. Classic.

[flyer courtesy TAFA]

"EXCITING PLAYER ACTION occurs as coin is inserted and start button is pushed to activate the unit. A rocket ship appears out of nowhere and at the same instant the once friendly flying saucer begins firing missiles at the rocket ship. Now at the controls of the rocket ship, you begin to evade the missiles bearing down on you and maneuver into position to fire your own missiles at the saucers. The thrust motors from your rocket ship, the rocket turning signals, the firing of your missiles and the explosions fill the air with the sights and sounds of combat as you battle against the saucers for the highest score. Outscore or hit the saucers with your missiles more times than they hit you for extended play in hyperspace. Attain hyperspace and the playfield turns white and gives you a vision of daylight in outer space. Thrill to the reality of controlling your own rocket ship in gravity-free outer space. Battle the saucers in a duel of wits and coordination!"

It plays a little bit like Asteroids and you can see a small snippet of the gameplay here. But in the end, who cares about the gameplay, they didn't even bother to put it on the front of the flyer. In this case it's all about the incredible cabinet and of course the sultry model with a flash of panty. Panties: selling video games since 1971.

[flyers courtesy TAFA]

So, today as i was browsing TAFA for tonight's AFAS I noticed that they had quite a few pinball games that were inspired by video games. Finally I had my chance to show off some pinball flyer art! So, for your pleasure I present some of the finest examples of vg inspired pinball games. The Joust one is especially great as they designed it like a tabletop arcade game. Too cool.

Psychic 5 was produced in 1987 by Jaleco. In the game you played one of five "Espers" on a mission to conquer two different enemies, Zara the witch and Satan himself! Players could do the normal jumping and running as well as hovering which would allow players to move horizontally through the air for a short period of time. It also had a complicated scoring system that rewarded players with bonuses for skillful gameplay as well as the regular scoring methods like destroying enemies, etc. The game was filled with tons of secrets and bonuses and although it was never what one would call popular, it did reach a certain cult status among a select group of gamers.

The art for this one falls in the same category as one of our former features, Kyros. A somewhat amateurishly rendered, obviously hand drawn image that looks like it was done by a bored high schooler in science class. You know, the kind of picture that would make the teacher send you to the principal and eventually the school psychologist. And why are we seeing that little girl's panties? She's just two peach colored brush strokes away from having a bare ass. Something about that is even more disturbing than the Satan's creepy googly eyes. Although I do love Satan's sweet medallion that is branded with an "S" for Satan. Just in case, you know, someone mistakes Satan's necklace for their own.

Sadly, the American arcade is a dying breed, relegated mostly these days to airports, truck stops and bowling alleys. There are still some good old fashioned arcades out there, but they are few and far between and soon the "arcade flyer" will cease to exist. This makes it doubly important (in my eyes anyway) to make sure that we document and remember some of these games that we may never see again outside of a MAME emulator.

Starting next year, Arcade Flyer Art Saturday will be back in a new format. One of the things I have discovered over the last year is that often there are amazing game flyers that have little to no explanation as to what the actual game is about. In an effort not to leave out some of these gems, the new AFAS articles will be a little bit shorter and more to the point, but still full of as much information on them as I can find. This way, it will be a bit easier for me to bring you some of this great art without pulling out my hair trying to find out what the enemies were in some obscure game no one remembers anymore.

So, today we take a look back at all the AFAS articles of the past year. Some were great, some were ridiculous, but they all did one important thing; they reminded us that gaming is (and was) more than just the latest console and HD game, but an industry with a rich and important history that shouldn't be lost.

Make the jump for the full list of past flyer features.

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Devastators

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Kyros

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Death Smiles

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Crazy Climber

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: B.Rap Boys

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Super Don Quix-ote

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: The Classics Edition

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Top Secret/Bionic Commando

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Punk Shot

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Aliens

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Rygar

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Night Stocker

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Cadillacs and Dinosaurs

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Berzerk

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Video Pinball

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Smash TV

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Crystal Castles

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Double Dragon II

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Dark Adventure

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Tattoo Assassins

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Skull and Crossbones

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Tunnel Hunt

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Special Sunday Edition

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Galaxy Wars

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Jungler

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Frisky Tom

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Bagman

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Vs. The Goonies

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Tecmo Knight

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Bouncer

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Kickman

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Shark Attack

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Disco No.1

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Moon War

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: The Adventures Of Robbie Roto

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: S.A.M.I.

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Gotcha!

There is no Arcade Flyer update this month because after posting 300 flyers a month since April I'm just plain burnt out. Stay tuned in January when the regular updates resume. Happy Holidays everyone!

Looking back over the past year I realized I had written over forty different AFAS features and that I was feeling a little burnt out myself. Poring over the hundreds of flyers documented, you come to realize that not every flyer has artwork worth posting and often times the really good ones contain absolutely no information about the game itself. So in a Flyer Art Solidarity pact with Dan, I too am taking a flyer hiatus until the new year.

Don't forget that TAFA is going to be selling off a large portion on their collection at the beginning of next year for a paltry $1 a piece. So, while you're waiting for AFAS to return next you, be sure to peruse The Arcade Flyer Archive site and see if there's any of them you might want to take home with you. My bet is that you'll at least find one.

Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters was produced in 1994 by Konami as a follow up to, what else, Lethal Enforcers. The original game had you playing a police officer out to clean up the city where criminals are off on a crime spree. For the follow up, they went back in time to the old west where you played a sheriff out to kill outlaws off on a crime spree. Hmm... sounds familiar.

The game was a shooter and "controlled" with two plastic light gun six shooters that held six rounds each (obviously). To reload, you aimed off the screen and pulled the trigger, a device that would be used by many games that would follow including the ever popular House of the Dead. The graphics were all (badly) digitized photos that included all the backgrounds and the characters. There were five different levels: The Bank Robbery, The Stage Hold-Up, The Saloon Showdown, The Train Robbery, and The Hide-Out, each of which ended with a boss battle.

The gameplay was very much like a simple shooting gallery with different bad guys popping up in windows or doorways. The goal was to try and take out the enemies before they shot you which was usually pretty easy since most of them went down in one shot. If they did shoot you however, a bullet hole would appear on the screen made to look like the screen had cracked from the bullet's impact. Further challenge was added by putting innocent townspeople and other posse members into the mix.

At the end of each level, performance was evaluated by ranks that included Posse, Deputy, Sheriff, Deputy Marshal and finally U.S. Marshal. You started off the game as a Sheriff and shooting well and not hitting innocents would cause your rank to increase. If you shot an innocent, you lost your rank and would be demoted.

Additional weapons could be picked up throughout the game such as 50 caliber sharps, rifles, double rigs, shotguns, Gatling guns, and cannons. The latter two weapons were single use only but the rest would remain in your possession until you were shot, returning you to your normal six shooter.

While I was checking out the game this afternoon, my friend pointed out the awful cabinet art and I crossed my fingers that it would be represented in the flyer art and much to my delight, it was. the more of these flyers I look at, the more I've come to love these photographic ones. There's always a certain cheapness to them that I get a kick out of. This one is especially good with it's cheezy western town background and rental costumes. The "outlaws" are appropriately grungy and tattered and the good guys (and girl) even have the obligatory white hats. I love the girl's gunslinging pose; one hand resting on the hip as she easily blows the bad guy away. But the standout of the piece by far is the sheriff's hair. Because as we all know from the history books, a sweet mullet is truly how the West was won.

[Flyer courtesy TAFA]

In a different take on the normal side scrolling shooter, Devastators was a vertical shooter, designed much like the vertical shooting levels of Contra. The player characters were viewed from the back, eternally walking into the horizon while the background scrolled by in a forced perspective. It was controlled with a joystick and two buttons and could accommodate two players at a time. Each player had a small arsenal consisting of a machine gun and some grenades and additional rocket launchers could be picked up along the way that would lock on to enemies and armored vehicles. Levels covered such staples as the desert, the jungle and the beach with each one ending with a boss battle. Each level was timed and if you didn't make the end of the level before time was up, it was game over.

The art for this one, much like the game, was pretty typical for it's time period. The "two guys against the world" theme was used often in games like Contra, Double Dragon and others. The main character in the front is unmistakably modeled after Sylvester Stallone's Rambo character who's game (coincidentally?) also made use of the vertical scrolling technique. Unlike some of the flyers we've featured, this one is actually very well rendered with none of the bizarre body proportion issues that we often see.

This one also has a lot more text than usual, really pushing the whole plot of the game. Because these flyers were meant to entice arcade owners to purchase these machines for their properties, the text was usually some sort of pun that tried to let people know how much money they could make. The Devastators copy does mention money, but only within the context of the game itself. It also heavily pushed the whole team aspect of the game, no doubt trying to allude to the fact that a partner game would mean more quarters in the box. Still, the whole thing reads and looks like an action movie poster that it was obviously trying to mimic.

For the GLORY, the MONEY... and to feed the BEAST inside of their body!!!!!

As I have always said, nothing says hardcore action like capital letters and five exclamation points. NOTHING!!!!!

Kyros was released in 1987, created by Alpha Denshi and licensed to World Games for distribution in the U.S. A relatively rare game, Kyros was known as Kyros' Mansion in Japan. Things get a little fuzzy here as the game's name some got changed to The Halls of Kairos and then eventually Desolator and seems to have gone through some gameplay changes as well although allegedly it is an exact port of the original arcade title.

The game put the player in the role of Mac who is out to rescue all the children of land who have been kidnapped by the evil Kyros/Kairos and imprisoned in the many mirrors of his castle. It was a relatively short game consisting of only five levels and offered a top down view of the action reminiscent of Gauntlet. Enemies were a bizzare mix of cats, firemen, flying eyeballs and other such creations. Mac's health was tracked via an energy bar that would be drained if he came into contact with any of the enemies. The kidnapped infants could be rescued by smashing the various mirrors and for every nine kiddies saved, Mac turns into his invincible alter-ego, Machoman and can roam about freely killing enemies right and left. Unlike many titles of the time, Mac actually starts off with no armor or weapons and must power them up throughout the game, adding a bit of challenge to the beginning of the game. Extra points could be garnered by by collecting various treasures that would appear along the way.

As I mentioned earlier, the reason for all the research that went into this particular feature was the flyer art. Something about it just drew me in although I couldn't pinpoint exactly why. Everything about it screams amateur artist from the badly drawn logo to the distorted faces of the enemies. The giant bat looming in the background just screams heavy metal inspiration. So many strange features in one image makes one feel like whoever drew it just kind of dis whatever they felt like with no real attention to what the game was about. I especially love the fact the the grey suited enemies are wearing sandals. Didn't the artist know that feet are one of the hardest things to draw on the human body? Maybe he/she should have saved some time on the feet and concentrated on making something that didn't look like it was drawn by a grade school student on the back of a piece of notebook paper.

Death Smiles was released in the middle of October 2007 by Cave. The title is a side scrolling shooter that features girls with magical powers and the ability to fly. The whole game has a macabre atmosphere with traditional gothic horror trappings such as pumpkins, witches, bats, familiars, worms etc. The game is controlled with a joystick and three buttons: One button shoots left, one shoots right and the other throws a bomb. A lock-on guided missile attack is also accessible by hitting a combo. Your regular attacks mostly consist of shooting electrical rays at your enemies or jabbing them with your demon scissors or sword. Seeing as it has just come out there's not much more I can say about the game having not really played it (you can see a clip of it here) , but the real fun comes in the form of the flyer, or at least the back of it.

The thing that attracted me to this flyer in the first place was the girl in white. While I was in Japan, I became obsessed with the "Gothic Lolita" girls that I saw hanging around Harajuku. For those of you not in the know, Gothic Lolita is a fashion trend that consists of gals dressed in overly frilly, Victorian doll-like outfits. And these are no thrown together outfits either. Each one is meticulously put together with matching shoes, aprons, tiny hats, bonnets and sometimes even wigs. It was quite an amazing thing to see them walking down the street on a Wednesday afternoon in all their finery with their parasols out to protect their delicate skin.

So, needless to say, one glance at the flyer and I was hooked. Then finding out more about the game and it's gothic horror style play I became more interested. Spooky things have always fascinated me and I am a huge fan of survival horror and Castlevania type games dating back to Ghouls and Ghosts and beyond. So there we were two reasons for me to love the game. So I clicked through to the page that contained the back of the flyer and I was completely sold.

On the back there is a little game that you can put together that shows the back of a girl's lower half in stockings and panties. You attach a petti-coat and a skirt to the girls body and then set up little tokens of some graves and jack o' lantern's. Then, according to the drawn instructions (I can't read the written ones as they are in Japanese - is anyone wants to translate, feel free!) you inexplicably blow on the tokens, sending them and the hapless girl's skirt into the air revealing her panties. (They really need to make a version of this with Kratos or perhaps Dante) I'm not really sure how you actually score the points, but does it really matter? Now I guess we know why Death smiles.

You can click here to get the full sized version from TAFA.

Unlike in the real world, climbing the sides of buildings in Crazy Climber was fraught with much danger. Tin cans, soda bottles, flowerpots, fruit baskets and buckets of water were all potential hazards, dropped haphazardly out of random windows by a crazed bald headed guy with an apparent penchant for littering. Other hazards included an egg laying, pooping condor, King Kong, falling girders and signs, electrical wires, and dumbells. Opening and closing windows also posed a threat, but as long as you had one arm on a non-dangerous window, you would be fine. Certain levels contained a balloon that, if you were lucky enough to catch it, would take you up ten stories and add a nice number of points to your bonus. Once your climber finally reached the top a helicopter would swoop in to pick you up and carry you away... to the next giant building to begin your adventure anew.

We've seen quite a few flyers on the past that have mixed their mediums, but this one really goes the distance. We have a photo realistic painting as central image framed by comic book looking graphics and then embellished with real photographs of the cabinet and screenshots. Talk about an overload. The central image is a bit misleading as it presents a Towering Inferno-like scene of helicopters rescuing people off the top a burning building while the fire trucks below try to extinguish the flames. The side images also promote this "fire" theme with the illustrated climbers ascending clouds of smoke. Flames are also seen in the game's logo and smoke clouds are represented on the cabinet art, but no sign of a fire threat is present in the actual game leaving one to wonder if it was originally supposed to be part of the game and eventually exorcised for whatever reason. Or maybe it was just back story, who knows.

As an added bonus to this week's feature, iIhave included a YouTube video of some of the gameplay so you can relive the magic for yourself. Enjoy!

[Flyer courtesy TAFA]

Various enemies would attack brandishing weapons and throwing bottles and in some cases, hamburgers. Enemies would also drop weapons that could be picked up and used against them. Some bizarre touches included the ability to fight in a mech suit and an attack tuba (don't ask). The game was most notable for it's soundtrack that consisted of many lines of pre-recorded dialog, sampled music clips and several full rap songs that accompanied your beatings. Everyone knows there's nothing better than kicking ass on your skateboard, bike or roller skates while enjoying some hot rap.

Wow, there is just so much wrong with this flyer I don't even really know where to begin. Ok, let's start with the weird style of the game characters. Everyone looks kind of roundy and chubby, not that there's anything wrong with that but it ends up making the player characters look like deformed midgets. The three guys in the center however have a more realistic look to them as they often do in these flyers but I have to say the guy in the center is wholly unimpressive as the center of attention. I mean jeans and a plain white button up? Come on, give us something a little better than that. At least the black guy has a hip hoppin' cool sleeveless denim vest and red bandanna with matching ball cap and roller skates. THAT is what I expect from the hero of a game called B.Rap Boys. The guy on the bike isn't terribly awesome either, but the green vest does add a bit of flair. All this is placed inexplicably in front of a the Statue of Liberty for a subtle patriotic flair and then splashed over an aerial view of New York. Utterly bizarre, much like the game itself. I guess we know why this never became an arcade classic.

The game was controlled very similarly...ok, exactly like Dragon's Lair with the player using the joystick to put in the appropriate moves. Like Dragon's Lair, Super Don Quix-ote was a laser disc game and the player was less controlling the character and more controlling the playing of the laser disc. Universal tried to make it a bit easier on the player by actually showing the correct direction in which to move, but it didn't really make the game any more popular. The animation was clearly inferior to DL and the gameplay derivative. The death sequence for Don was almost identical to Dirk's. The game would finally end when Don killed the witch and rescued Isabella.

The art for this flyer definitely shows how derivative and substandard this game was in comparison to the likes of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. It's not the the animation was terrible per se, but more like the quality just wasn't there. It's kind of like comparing Disney and Hanna-Barberra. The real proof of course is all in the details. And speaking of Disney, the evil witch in this game is a direct rip off of Sleeping Beauty's Maleficent. Pretty much all they did was change the interior color of her costume from purple to red, add some fangs and give her a slightly uglier face. Just goes to show you that re-purposing the good elements from a bunch of different sources doesn't necessarily make a good end product.

[Flyer courtesy TAFA]

PS: I managed to dig up this little clip of some of the gameplay. It has no audio, but you can at least see what the animation is like for yourself.

Pong:
The granddaddy of them all. The flyer art is minimal, just a single Pong machine being ejected into the void. But then, when you were the first and only thing going, you didn't need a fancy flyer to sell your wares.

Asteroids:
Atari strikes again with Asteroids. Who knew blowing up rocks constructed from simple lines could be so much fun. When it made the leap from arcades to consoles, the asteroids went to color to make them more interesting and the flyer art became the label for the 2600 cartridge.

Ghosts n Goblins:
I've actually featured this one before but it's so good I decided to bring it back for a repeat performance. This is one of my favorite flyer art styles and it appears in many of the flyers from that period even last week's AFAS feature, Bionic Commando. Also note the title. Seems to be missing something.

Donkey Kong:
The game that launched multiple franchises and characters that are now game icons. Mario's a little squinty eyed here and looks like he should be spinning a pizza on that finger. And this Daisy is a far cry from the brown haired, Victorian gowned gal from the game and looks more like a sweaty slut with a rather revealing ripped dress. Sexy!

Street Fighter II:
Street Fighter was one of the greatest 2D fighting games of it's time so you think they might have tried a little harder with the flyer for II. Poor Ryu, something is really wrong with his back. Whoever this artist was, I hope the learned a little bit more about proportions in subsequent years. That peanut head sitting atop that giant back is somehow just disturbingly wrong.

Missile Command:
Another classic flyer art that ended up on a cartridge. As a kid I had this game for my 2600 and was completely enthralled. This image is burned indelibly into my brain, especially that weird helmet the guy is wearing. Classic flyer art at its finest.

Burger Time:
One of my favorite arcade games of all time along with Crystal Castles. I spent more money on this game in the arcade than almost any other. Rather than go with a completely illustrated piece, the creators decided to go with a photo of a real burger and add their cartoon characters on top of it. Subsequent versions of the flyer would be completely hand drawn and much less well executed.

That concludes our AFAS classics gallery post for this week. Tune in next week when we pull another old game flyer out of the TAFA vaults and give it the old Arcade Flyer Art Saturday workover.

In 1987, Capcom released Top Secret into Japanese arcades and simultaneously released the same game in the US under the name Bionic Commando. The game was a side scrolling platformer/fighter starring Super Joe who had formerly appeared in a previous game, Commando. This time around, Joe had a grappling hook-like bionic arm that would allow him to swing over gaps since unlike most games of the time, he could not jump. His robotic super arm could also be employed to take out various enemies, along with his gun which could be used to collect the bonuses and weapons that would arrive from the sky via parachute. Once the game moved from arcades to consoles however, things got really interesting and the games themselves became more diverse.

Capcom waited until 1988 to bring Bionic Commando to the NES and by that time it had undergone a bit of a change moving from platformer to action/adventure title. The Japanese version was called Top Secret: Hitler's Revival and this time, the player was pitted against Super Nazis and eventually Hitler himself who had been resurrected from the dead by mad scientists. Needless to say, when the US version was released a few months later, all references to Nazis were expunged from the storyline and graphics reworked although the final boss, Master-D, was still unmistakably Hitler. One shocking moment at the end even had Hitler's head exploding which was kept in all versions of the game despite Nintendo of America's strict policies.

The flyers for the arcade game reflected the different styles of the cultures the machine was being sold to. The Japanese version is done in an anime style with blue spiky haired almost Dragon Ball-Z style heroes, a bizarre giant squid robot thing in the background and old school army enemies with guns and bayonettes. The US version has a much more typical American comic book look with Aliens-esque robot loader suited enemies, bats, helicopters and a solitary hero. The Japanese flyer inexplicably includes a second hero although the game itself was strictly single player.

And thus ends our first Japanese to American flyer comparison. Stay tuned next week for another special edition of Arcade Flyer Art Saturday where I'll dig up a gallery of flyers for some more well known games that you might know how to play, but who's advertising to the arcade owners at large you may have never seen.

Flyers courtesy TAFA.

The gameplay was pretty generic and rather dull with the player piloting a space ship from a "behind the ship" perspective, avoiding obstacles and shooting down enemy ships. The ship's speed could be controlled by using the two buttons and the steering of the ship and shooting done via the joystick. Levels had you speeding through tunnels and cityscapes to reach your goal, and according to the inside of the flyer, the game even had some sort of cobbled together "plot."

In the 25th Century, buck Rogers is confronted by a wicked Warrior World... the Planet of Zoom. It is a gargantuan out-of orbit world that devastates everything in it's path, and is ruled by an evil Source Ship. Buck Rogers' mission: To destroy the Source Ship and liberate the Planet of Zoom.

Sounds intriguing, no? I always love the way that some of these early games always had a story attached to them that was rarely if ever communicated during the actual game. Come to think of it, similar things could be said about a lot of games today. Take away the cut scenes and you've got very little substance.

So what do you do when your game is so boring it can't sell on gameplay alone? Make a flyer that shows people having an unreasonably good time playing it! It's all that poor guy can do to hang on to the controls he's having so much fun and his date is so elated she's even kicking up one leg. That sort of saucy action is usually reserved for kissing so you know that must be one terrific game! Then there's the unexplainable old guy on the other side of the cabinet who seems to be happily satisfied with just watching. I'm suspecting this is supposed to be the arcade owner, filled with immeasurable glee at the prospect of all the money this game will haul in for him. To bad he will probably be terribly disappointed later when he opens the coin box to find two quarters, a Chicklet and Canadian nickel.

Be sure to check out TAFA for the inside and back of this flyer which has some pretty decent comic style art on it.

Punk Shot was produced by Konami in 1990 and gave arcade goers a different perspective on the average sports game. Up to four players could choose between two teams, The Ramblers and The Slammers with each team consisting of two members. Basher and Stallion represented The Ramblers while the aptly named Hair and Spike comprised The Slammers. Four different playing fields were available including an alley, a docking pier, a vacant lot and a park.

The game was controlled with a joystick and three buttons allowing your team to either pass and shoot when your team has the ball or you could choose to beat the crap out of the opposing team when they were in control. Obstacles were placed throughout the game on each level to add some challenge like oil slicks, manholes, crates and people including children, bike riders and an old lady fond of hitting people with her broom.

Despite being made in 1990, the game and in turn the flyer have a heavy 80s theme. From the gaudy leopard print top bar to the distinct over use of the color pink, this flyer is about as 80's as you can get. Of particular note is the absolutely wretched "break dancing" outfit the black guy is wearing, the hideous ensemble of the mohawked guy and the "tag" style logo that tries really hard to look "street." I also particularly love the guy in the background with the muscle shirt, suspenders and Kid n' Play haircut. The "sexy" referee, the seemingly out of place Latino guy on the barely visible motorcycle and the aforementioned old lady with the broom all add a certain bizarreness to an already ridiculous picture. It just goes to prove that the 80s will always be remembered for bad pattern combinations, worse hair and a penchant for overly large Terminator sunglasses.

Flyer courtesy of TAFA

Players worked their way through six different levels such as the Factory, the Queen Alien's den and the Battle Ship Sulaco. Different Aliens would try and impede your progress each with it's own attacks. Extra weapons could be collected throughout the different levels as well as bombs that could be deployed by pressing both shoot buttons at the same time. At the end of the game you could even get in the famous Exo-Skeleton Loader suit to fight the final boss. It was pretty standard fare as far as shooters were concerned with the Alien franchise name used to draw players in. Despite it's general gameplay, the game was a lot of fun and quite popular amongst arcade goers.

Ah, the photographic flyer. They obviously thought that given the four year gap between the movie and the game's release, that people would forget that Sigourney Weaver was actually a rather butch gal with short dark hair and no breasts, replacing her with a busty blond gal with hair held over from the eighties. The obviously flat backdrop is in no way benefited by the forced perspective, but at least they tried I suppose. The Alien silhouette is rather unforgivable as it's obvious that it's completely drawn on and once again, as in the previous AFAS entry Night Stocker, the lack of a real alien is made up for by the addition of a bit of fog. I do give it extra points though, for at least including Newt in the picture. "They mostly come out at night. Mostly."

Flyer courtesy of TAFA

Rygar contained twenty seven different levels for your hero to travel through, laying waste to enemies with, among other weapons, his Diskarmor. The Diskarmor was a sort of big shield/circular saw blade looking thing with a chain attached for good long distance fighting. A myriad of different monsters were available to slay and extra points could be earned by collecting various insignias and stars. Level thirteen of the game contained a special hidden bonus star that would grant the player a whopping 1000000 points.

The original arcade version was your standard side scrolling action game but it turned into more of an action adventure game when it was released on the NES in 1987. The game was also ported to the Lynx and C64 here in the States. A PS2 game was eventually released and the original appeared on a Tecmo collection for the Xbox. At Tecmo's recent "Nite Out '07" a new Rygar title was announced to be in the works for the Wii.

While the American version of this poster was ok, the Japanese one really caught my eye. As I have been doing this column for quite a few months now, I've started to pick up on a lot of similar styles. I really wish I could find out if some of these were done by the same person. This one for example shows a style seen in a lot of the Japanese flyers of the time. It's a sort of over the top attention to detail. The clothes have too may wrinkles, the giant hand sports huge talons and more lines on the palm than are really necessary. This is especially evident in the drawing of the hero, I mean this guy has muscles on top of his muscles. And what the hell is exactly going on on the sides of his abdomen? It looks like some kind of bad growth, not to mention his frighteningly enormous veins. It makes one question the availability of steroids in olden times. Governor Schwarzenegger, eat your heart out.

As always, this lovely flyer was made available to us by the good folks TAFA.

The player is given control of a tricked out, futuristic care which was driven with the use of a steering wheel controller. While driving along the planet's surfing collecting crystals (it was the eighties after all) the player was expected to simultaneously fire a gun (also attached to the control panel next to the steering wheel) at approaching enemies. At certain distance marks, bonus rounds would occur where you would be attacked by hordes of enemies and you would try to take out as many as possible in the given time. Apparently, due to it's rather unwieldy control system, the game was popular amongst people playing with friends where one person would drive the car while the other would take care of firing the gun. Even in the picture it looks awkward trying to man both of those controls at the same time. According to KLOV, the cabinet itself is rather scarce with only four known existing cabinets, and only three of those are dedicated machines.

I always go back and forth with flyer art. Sometimes hand drawn seems the best, while other times the photographic ones are my favorites. This one is a bizarre combination of both (much like the game itself) with a real player and cabinet combined with an obviously painted on alien. The player is sporting a very nice Tron style jump suit with matching helmet and although the alien drawing is nice, it would have been much funnier if it was a guy in a crappy suit. And what do you do if you have no budget for a guy in a suit? Why, add some colored lights and a fog machine, of course. A fog machine makes everything better, just ask any mediocre rock band from the seventies.

Flyer courtesy the fine folks at TAFA

In Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, players could choose between four playable characters: Jack Tenrec, Hannah Dundee, Mustapha Cairo or Mess O'Bradovich. Jack was the main character from the comics and a decent all around fighter. Hannah Dundee, a diplomat and explorer was good with knives and a great thrower. Mustapha was super fast and had a super powerful ranged kick. Mess was large and slow but had more damaging attacks. A pretty typical range of characters for this type of game and it could be played either as a single player experience or as a 2-3 player co-op.

Unlike it's predecessors Final Fight and Streets of Rage, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs utilized weapons as well as fists and kicks. The special moves and their controls were the same for each character but certain characters were better at some attacks than others. A 360 attack, a dash attack and a rising attack were all accessible through the use of simple button combinations. Towards the end of the game, the Cadillac finally makes an appearance as a vehicle for your heroes, but keeping it running long enough to actually be any use was tricky due to grenade lobbing enemies.

The art on this one is extremely well executed, showing the games comic book roots. It seems that special care was taken with Hannah in particular, as she looks the most realistic of the bunch. This team also seems to have quite the affinity for boots. The Arcade Flyer Archive, where I find all these treasures, has the rest of this particular version of the flyer on display as it was actually a booklet with six inside pages that included a discription of the game, the moves, and a three page illustrated enemy guide. Definitely one of the finer examples of well done flyer art out there.