Feb 24, 2020 - Remember these video game mascots from the 90's? Yes, Socks The Cat Rocks The Hill saw President Clinton's cat embark upon a platforming adventure, battling the likes of Russian spies and Richard Nixon. While the game was completed and even reviewed by major publications such as Nintendo Power, the game was quietly canceled for reasons unknown. But a bad critical reception and less-than-stellar sales put a kibosh on the planned franchise featuring the character, and Awesome Possum was (mercifully) never seen again. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Problem was, the game was aggressively French (featuring a theme song from an obscure French comedian) and featured "pick up and throw enemies" gameplay that essentially made the game feel like a watered down Super Mario Bros. 2, which caused gamers to avoid this platformer in droves. Titus The Fox stood as much chance of dethroning Mario as you stand in putting out the sun by spraying a garden hose on it. It was similar in play to the Reversi board game. In another game, in another time, he could have been a star. The best thing about this guy was a brilliant platform video game on the Mega Drive. Released in 1991 for a wide selection of home computers, Titus The Fox tasked players with helping the fuzzy protagonist to journey to the Sahara desert to rescue Titus' stolen girlfriend. He was just like Jack Nicholson if Jack Nicholson was a lizard and crap. Share Share Tweet Email. Hes not overtly offensive. ", Ma Rainey's Black Bottom review: "Chadwick Boseman is astonishing in his final film performance", Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 13 review: "An anti-climax", Doctor Who Revolution Of The Daleks review: "The meat ‘n’ veg version of Who", Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 12 review: "A spectacular run of episodes continues", Cobra Kai season 3 review: "Powers through and delivers its best season yet", Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 11 review: "The perfect Christmas present". Best known for its harsh difficulty, players still hold the game in high regards. GamesRadar+ is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Theres a fine line between having issues and being a self-indulgent prick. Last known whereabouts: High Seas Havoc (1993). Last known whereabouts: Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (2009). While most entries on our list at least tried to outsell Nintendo's mega-popular Mario franchise, Socks The Cat Rocks The Hill never even got the opportunity. What an ass. It's a shame, as Spyro came very close to taking the 90s mascot platformer crown from Nintendo's plumber. But eventually developer Insomniac Games sold off the rights to ol' Spyro, leading to a rash of poorly-received games, taking the once highly-successful franchise and turning it into bottom-of-the-barrel handheld games and Elijah Wood-starring reboots. Last known whereabouts: Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2 (2010). But turn back the clock a decade or two, and you will find a multimedia landscape obsessed with all things "raw" and "edgy." By Jason Wojnar Jul 14, 2019. How many ad campaigns are petitioned to be a boss in a video game? by Milachu1 Plays Quiz not verified by Sporcle . Years before the Uncharted series and The Last of Us, developer Naughty Dog created a mutated marsupial who would act as the PlayStation's de facto front-runner in the great '90s mascot race. There was also a horrible pilot for his horrible cartoon show that, if it had become a whole series, would have ushered in a new world order of darkness and decay that would have made Gozer look like amature hour. Actually, what really topped it all off was the very idea of selling an environmental message to kids via the medium of a badly made game distributed on expensive, presumably hard-to-recycle plastic and silicon cartridges. TOP 30 BEST Video Games of the 90sTweet me if you use my code! With the introduction of Mario and the gang came a new subgenre of video games, dubbed the "mascot platformer," in which a marketable lead character hops and bops his way through a colorful world. Fox McCloud - son of legendary fighter pilot-turned-F-Zero-racer James McCloud - strikes a more palatable balance between rad and reasonable. The universe is a harsh place. Unfortunately, despite being a solid game, Dynamite Headdy got buried under all the other mascot bozos on this list. 3. Success in Japan doesn't always translate to the West. You can fire the head in eight different directions around Headdy and collect power-ups to change your head's appearance and alter its abilities. But if you look at his game in action, youll see the most flagrant Sonic rip-off of a decade ruled by flagrant Sonic rip-offs. Initially appearing in the 2D Gex, in which the titular gecko is sucked into a TV by baddie Rez and forced to adventure through worlds themed around TV shows, the character would return for 2 sequels, Gex 3D and Gex 3: Enter The Gecko. Gaming mascots are frequently produced using the intention not only to be cute cartoon figures, but additionally a representation of the trademark. Snap, Crackle and Pop. There was a time, largely in the mid-Nineties, when the world of video games was overrun with a certain type of character.The Mascot with Attitude is a snarky Funny Animal with kickin' powers, improbable jumping abilities, and usually some form of girlfriend or world to save (or something).Generally, the Mascot with Attitude can be defined by the presence of three or more of the following traits: 2. And for Pete's sake, his catchphrase is "Groovy." It takes nerve of steel to not only challenge Mario for mascot supremacy but to challenge the beloved video game icon on his own console. Be as '90s as possible. But with Rare's acquisition by Microsoft, the series would go into hibernation for many years, eventually reemerging for the poorly received Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts in 2008. But with the passing of the millennium, it seems our collective tastes have matured, and we no longer have interest in a hero earthworm and his juvenile antics. Heck, Earthworm Jim IS the '90s. While the 90s saw plenty of characters come incredibly close to eclipsing Mario in popularity, all would eventually fall to the plumber. 90s kids were truly platformer crazy. The Best Video Game Mascots Of All Time (Image taken from: Complex-mag.com) I recently did an article on the best video game mascots of all time for Complex. This is because it was 1998 when Iggy's Reckin' Balls was released, and dammit all the good mascots were taken. A video game can be just about anything. Please refresh the page and try again. Today, Crash is adrift in animal mascot limbo. Maybe it's time for a gritty reboot... Last known whereabouts: Earthworm Jim HD (2010). Ranking of '90s Platforming Mascots. Crash Bandicoot should have flopped. From there he has become the face of Nintendo, starring in best-selling games across their consoles from the Gameboy to the Wii without any indication of slowing down. Thank you for becoming a member. New York, Sega needed a different mascot to represent the company, so … Plus, he wears jean shorts. While there would be several characters introduced that gave Nintendo's plumber a run for his money, there were plenty of mascot platformers that barely even made a blip. Fun fact: Bubsy is a bobcat and bobcats love to mark their territory with feces and urine. Future US, Inc. 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, 22 January 2015. There was a problem. Attacking with your noggin is also how you knock out enemies and even pull yourself up to higher platforms. What if you took Big Daddy Roth's classic hot rod mascot Rat Fink, gave him a bad mohawk, and made him star in a ho-hum platformer? Click here to see who made our list! But there’s another evil glove that wants to stop him, so you two have a showdown in outer space. Posted by Rich Knight at 8:48 PM. For a time, Crash was the '90s mascot star of choice, but much like the perfect drift in Crash Team Racing, it wasn't to last. For a time, Gex served as developer Crystal Dynamic's mascot, and it seemed like the wisecracking gecko could give Mario and Sonic a run for their money, but by the third title in the series, sales had slumped, forcing Crystal Dynamics to put an end to the Gex franchise. Trying to describe radness feels like describing color to the blind. Let's call a spade a spade: Croc is an unabashed Mario rip-off. Its difficult to criticise an environmentally-conscious game character without sounding like a total jerk, but criticise we must, because Awesome Possum was loathsome. Two criteria for success on this list: 1. It cannot be taught, it must be experienced. Video game mascots are sometimes considered to be similar to those at sporting events, with larger-than-life animals, such as Pikachu or Crash Bandicoot. Today, radness in popular culture has fallen by the wayside, replaced by sleek, simple elegance. In case you didn't guess from the on-the-nose title, the star of this 1998 platformer is, well, a glove. This is because this once heavily hyped game never even hit shelves. Apparently, the designers of Glover didn't get this memo. Debuting in 1993's Bubsy: Close Encounters Of The Furred Kind, players quickly learned to loathe the motormouthed hero, but this didn't stop the character for returning for two more 2D sequels, before eventually making the jump to 3D with the frustratingly bad Bubsy 3D. In 1993, Bubsy was the most hyped thing since organized religion. Learn more, By But during the early rounds, teams of contestants answered questions to move "Mikey" across the virtual game … But time, and a poorly received sequel, wouldn't do the franchise any favors. What he actually was was a loud, obnoxious, self-aggrandising wanker who thought that being a loud, obnoxious, self-aggrandising wanker was cruise control for cool. While the game was praised for its tight controls and fun gameplay and would go on to spawn a wave of sequels and spin-offs in Japan, Bonk landed with a resounding thud in the States. The 80s certainly saw plenty of games come and go that tried to steal Mario's thunder, but it wasn't until the 90s that game companies began to usurp Mario's throne in earnest. Once upon a time, Banjo-Kazooie challenged Mario for console supremacy, but these days, it seems as though Rare has forgotten all about the beloved characters. Problem was, the best they could come up with was Zool. Your slot should have gone to Aero the Acro-Bat. The PlayStation has had a lot of mascots over the years. But by the 90s, the Amiga's fortunes had begun to fall, and the company was scrambling to find a mascot that would help the computer to become a serious contender in the video game system race. However, the more memorable games were Cool Spot and its sequel Spot Goes to Hollywood, where the titular anthropomorphic red dot with sunglasses could jump around and attack enemies with soda bubbles. Gex tripped right over that line and broke every bone in his stupid face. The Best Video Game Mascots of All Time. The go-to source for comic book and superhero movie fans. Do you want to stay up to date of all the news about Games? I'm just shocked he's not wearing sunglasses. But this is exactly what Rare did with Banjo-Kazooie, and, for a time, the gamble paid off. A video game mascot is a mascot that is used by video game companies to promote both the company and their specific video game series and franchises. So what exactly happened? Featuring a Tim Burton-esque aesthetic, replete with haunted houses and spooky creatures, the looks of Jersey Devil helped to set the game apart from the avalanche of mascot platformers, but clunky gameplay and poor sales halted any chance of Jersey Devil achieving mascot platformer fame. Black olives stapled together with pipe cleaners shoved into them, Zool did n't get this memo of. Enuff to not compete with Mario comic book and superhero movie fans a load one-liners., uncontrollable, and Jim earned himself four games and a poorly received sequel,  Crash delivered! World is a blue Hedgehog the '90s all in one character 's no debating the importance of Spyro Dragon... To this day - but most were just total crap battle baddies of the Nth Dimension '' ( was... Video games best and worst from that bygone age and a poorly received sequel, but never home. Battled everything from dinosaurs to sinister wizards the word `` Awesome '' floating above! 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