AFAS : Art Samedi D'Insecte D'Arcade : L'Édition De Classiques

<p>After last week's Arcade Flyer Art Saturday, I promised you something a little different this week. I went through TAFA and dug up the flyers for some of the more seminal and popular games that took video gaming from arcades and into our homes. Sure, a lot the art for these is not what you might consider terribly interesting but sometimes it's good to go back to your roots. You can peruse the gallery at your leisure and after the jump, check out some short explanations of each flyer.</p> <p></p><p>Pong:<br />
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.</p> <p>Asteroids:<br />
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.</p> <p>Ghosts n Goblins:<br />
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.</p> <p>Donkey Kong:<br />
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!</p> <p>Street Fighter II:<br />
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.</p> <p>Missile Command:<br />
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.</p> <p>Burger Time:<br />
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.</p> <p>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.</p>
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