Promotional Consideration: King of the Monster Ads

by Eric Caoili { May 18th 2008 at 8:00PM }

Rawr!

Of the three Godzilla: Unleashed games released (Wii, PS2, and DS), the DS version is, without a doubt, the worst of the bunch. That's saying a lot considering that GameSpot described the Wii version as "the worst thing to happen to Godzilla since getting killed by Mothra's babies." In its review of the DS game, Godzilla: Unleashed Double Smash, Nintendo Power opined, "The slow descent in Godzilla games has finally hit rock bottom."

Nevertheless, publisher Atari had a job to do -- sell copies of the game -- and it did its best to win over fans with monster-sized ads befitting of the radioactive monster. Lurch past the post break to see what we mean!

Anguirus! Jet Jaguar! Gojira!

This mural was spotted in New York City, threatening to stomp on passing pedestrians and fire atomic rays at stopped traffic. Godzilla almost looks like his eyes are squeezed shut, afraid that this badass ad is a too-good-to-be-true dream that he'll soon wake from.

The circles at the bottom have miniature outlines of the different creatures, providing each of their names just in case people have trouble distinguishing them from the dozens of other monsters that've appeared in Godzilla's films. The same guide (and the same artwork) was used in the Godzilla: Unleashed poster included with Nintendo Power's holiday issue:

(Click for larger, awesomer image)

Hachi machi, this is rad. Konami's Contra 4 poster has some serious competition here. This is like an exact replica of the scenes we used to sketch in our notebooks during Math class in 5th grade, except drawn well. Too bad Godzilla: Unleashed Double Smash was only about .01% as great as this fold-out piece.

Here's the page that was included to help readers identify the monsters: