Sunday, June 20, 2010

The First Violent and Adult Video Games

Back in the dawning home VCR era, Wizard Video was a pioneer in bringing exploitation movies to VHS and Betamax.  The company was ready to leverage some of the movies it had licensed into another new medium for Christmas 1982, running this full page ad in Electronic Games magazine:


The Texas Chainsaw Massacre actually made it to market, but wasn't really as violent as the ad would have one believe -- the Atari 2600 didn't have the horsepower to render realistic blood spatter.  As promised, the game did cast the player as the vengeful Leatherface, but the innocent victim looking for safety mode failed to arrive at retail.

The titillating X-rated space adventure promised by Flesh Gordon sadly failed to show up at all; its place in Wizard's brief two-game venture into the industry was occupied by Halloween instead.  Based on the ad copy's description, it sounds like Flesh Gordon was planned as a maze/adventure game, loosely based on the movie.  But as it never saw the light of day, kids longing to visit the planet Porno would have to wait until they were older, and would find it to be a sad, pathetic place.

1 comment:

  1. My son just downloaded the Atari 2600 HALLOWEEN and TCMASSACRE for his droid!!

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