10 Company Branded Video Games That Didn't Suck

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Video games are a great tool for selling many things. The best of them can sell ideas, emotions, and sometimes even unique viewpoints. With such powerful engagement, it’s no wonder then that marketing companies have been trying to use video games to sell products for decades. We’re not talking about the usual movie tie-in games, or the odd branded content within an otherwise regular game; marketers have funded production of entire video games devoted to the brands and products they’re paid to promote.

Naturally, most of these are absolute rubbish as they’re the equivalent of 20 hour long interactive commercials. Even worse, you’re paying for the privilege of having brand messaging shoved down your throat the entire time. Occasionally though, through all the horrid pleas for your dollars, a few of these playable advertisements wind up having a smidge of fun within them. Because of that, we'd like to celebrate these 10 Company Branded Video Games That Didn't Suck.

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Chester Cheetah: Too Cool To Fool (1992)

 

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Platform: Sega Genesis, SNES

Publisher: Kaneko

Snack foods and video games have gone hand-in-hand since the dawn of time, so it’s no wonder that Frito-Lay would try and merge the two with a side-scrolling platformer starring their own mascot, Chester Cheetah. Released for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, Too Cool to Fool was a pretty standard for the genre but offered a surprising challenge within its absolutely nonsensical levels.

As it would turn out, gamer themselves weren’t too cool to fool and the game actually sold enough copies to produce a sequel the very next year. With the same horrible graphics and rather banal gameplay, Chester Cheetah: Wild Wild Quest was just as dangerously cheesy as its predecessor, proving that when it comes to powdered cheddar dust, gamers can’t get enough.

Avoid The Noid (1989)

 

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Platform: Commodore 64,MS-DOS

Publisher: ShareData

Way back in the Commodore 64 days, Dominos saw fit to release a ridiculous pizza delivery game featuring its then mascot, The Noid. In this one, players are tasked with racing a hot and fresh pizza to the top floor of an apartment building while being pursued by legions of wacky Noids who are trying to steal a slice for themselves.

Armed with pizza-seeking missiles and bazookas, the Noids relentlessly chase the pizza around 30 different stages. To make things even more difficult, some doors are locked, forcing players to hunt down keys and break into each floor of the apartment building, making whoever ordered this pizza a complete jerk.

Doritos: Dash of Destruction (2008)

 

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Platform: Xbox 360

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Back in 2007, Doritos sponsored a contest to let players design and produce their own nacho-inspired Xbox Live Arcade Game. The result was winner Mike Broland’s Doritos: Dash of Destruction, a game where you played a Doritos delivery truck escaping the clutches of a T-Rex with the munchies or said T-Rex in pursuit of some cool ranch flavour. The game was designed largely around easy achievements, but it was released for free, so it’s hard to complain.

The game turned out to be so popular that Doritos held the same contest the following year, but expanded their selection to two games, producing Doritos Crash Course and Harm’s Way. All three of the games had at least a little novelty to them, but with average players inventing the games it’s no huge surprise they weren’t award-winning examples of game design.

Darkened Skye (2008)

 

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Platform: Gamecube, PC

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, TDK Mediactive, Oxygen Games

At first glance it's kind of hard to tell that Darkened Skye is an advergame at all. A medieval fantasy adventure, the game puts players in control of Skye, a mage on a quest to find her missing mother. The thing about her magic powers though, they're all powered by Skittles.

While the most damage Skittles are likely to do in the real world is maybe causing a stomach ache from eating too many, Skye uses them to kill attacking vampires and goblins. The game's combat is mostly competent, but like most action-adventure titles of the late 90's and early 2000's, it features way too many platforming sections to be called anything other than frustrating. Still, it carries a level of production that most advergames simply don't have.

McDonalds Treasure Land Adventures (1993)

 

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Platform: Sega Mega Drive

Publisher: Sega

With McDonalds being the world heavyweight in fast food, it’s no surprise that they’ve also produced more video games than any other company to peddle their junk. Most McPlayers will likely remember the surprisingly popular M.C. Kids for the NES, but McDonalds Treasure Land Adventures for the Sega Genesis was by far a superior game.

With level aesthetics reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog and a soundtrack as addictive as their crispy, golden fries, Treasure Land Adventures let players take on the role of Ronald McDonald himself as he searched for the missing pieces to a treasure map. It’s important to note that one of the bosses is literally an evil anthropomorphic tomato, proving once and for all that McDonalds wants you despise healthy food as much as possible.

Pepsiman (1996)

 

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Platform: Sega Saturn

Publisher: Sega

When it comes to advergames, Pepsiman has the more logos-per-second than any other. In it, you play the eponymous hero, and run through levels full of hazards while collecting cans of Pepsi for points. The weird thing about it is that a good number of the hazards are actually other Pepsi branded obstacles ranging from a giant Pepsi can that'll chase you to Pepsi trucks that'll smash into you.

The game may look like garbage compared to today's standards, but mechanically it's nearly identical to current iOS favourite, Temple Run. If you can stand the ridiculous level of advertising saturation, it's not a bad game for those with quick reflexes.

Cool Spot (1993/1994)

 

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Platform: Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega Master System, Game Gear, Amiga, Super NES, Game Boy, DOS

Publisher: Virgin Interactive

Though his career as a mascot was short lived, the sunglass sporting spot from the bottles of 7 Up was around at least long enough to garner himself a lead role in a video game. As far as blatant branding goes, Cool Spot was rather minimal in its depiction of the product. Sure, the eponymous character may have been part of the company’s logo, and sure, his main weapon may have been soda bubbles, but that was about it as far as branding went. Interestingly, the European version of the game didn’t even feature any 7 Up branding, as their mascot was completely different at the time and the company didn’t want to confuse consumers.

Although the game itself was relatively unremarkable in terms of gameplay, its soundtrack was recorded by Earthworm Jim composer Tommy Tallarico and went on to win several awards; something no other branded game can claim.

Chex Quest (1996)

 

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Platform: MS-DOS, PC

Publisher: Digital Café

If while playing Chex Quest things start to feel familiar, that's because they should. Rather than going through all the trouble of designing a game, General Mills completely reskinned the original Doom, slapped on a few animated cutscenes and called it a day.

Sure, they may have changed the setting from Mars/Hell to a cutesy space station and all the enemies from demons to quirky phlegm monsters, but the game is still the same. The biggest difference between Chex Quest and id Software's game is that rather than using shotguns and chainsaws to defend yourself, players are given a "zorcher" which teleports enemies away. There's no word on what happens to the Chex Warrior's armor if you leave it in milk too long though.

King Games (2006)

 

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Platform: Xbox, Xbox 360

Publisher: Burger King

For a mear $3.99 each (with the purchase of a value meal), Buger King offered players not one, but three different Xbox 360 games. Complete with achievements and Xbox Live multiplayer, Sneak King, Big Bumpin', and PocketBike Racer created a trifecta of burgery gamey goodness that was too hard to pass up.

Sneak King saw players taking on the role of The King himself as he snuck around, delivering sandwiches to unsuspecting citizens and Big Bumpin' was as close to Mario Party as one can get in a budgetware advertisement game. The real surprise of the pack though was PocketBike Racer which for all intents and purposes played just like a heart-clogging MarioKart.

America's Army (2002/2009)

 

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Platform: PC, Mac OSX, Linux

Publisher: United States Army

Leave it to the world's largest military industrial complex to produce the world's best advergame. America's Army may not be on par with Call of Duty or Battlefield in terms of features, but it's probably the most mechanically authentic first-person shooter on the market, and just like any good recruiting tool, it's made available completely for free.

On its third iteration now, the game is used both as a means to draw young impressionable kids into the military and as a training tool for soldiers running simulations. Unlike most FPS titles, AA forces players to follow proper rules of engagement and penalizes players harshly for breaking them, allowing players to get a small taste of how actual combat takes place in the battlefield.

There's a great deal of controversy over this game, largely around the ethics of promoting military life to children (the game is rated T for Teen). Unlike most advergames that are merely there to sell cheeseburgers or soda, this is selling a job and a lifestyle that many would agree is rather hazardous. It's hard to be definitive in judging the game this way though, because even though it's a recruiting tool, it does a great deal of good educating would-be candidates about the realities of enlisting.