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Video game related merchandise

By: Benjanime

The impact in popularity among video games over the years has come in many forms of collectible items, whether it be lunchboxes, foods, tv shows or heck even book novels. Today I'd like to share some of my personal favorite merchandise that branched from the video games I came to know and love.

Sonic Hot Rings Lifesavers

At the peak of Sonic's popularity in the 16-bit era of consoles, the blue blur had his own brand of Lifesavers known as Hot Rings, a Lifesavers candy flavored like Hot Tamales, and on top of the Sonic branding there was also a sweepstakes contest to win a copy of Sonic 3 as well as a Sega Genesis!

How to draw Crash Bandicoot

Probably one of my favorite Scholastic book orders from school had to have been the time I got this neat little book from them, it's just like any other character drawing tutorial book, but at the time it was rare to see something Crash related showing the characters in plain 2D outlines, and as a bit of trivia about myself it was a great way to improve upon my cartoon art.

Gex book novel

Another book order related product was a novel written as a tie-in for Gex, and narrated in first person. The book basically brings together the plot combined from the three games from the instruction manuals, how Gex lost his father in a NASA accident, living in Maui and being a couch potato to drown his sorrows and saving Agent Xtra from Rez, who was revealed to be Gex's father, made up of rocket parts.

Super Mario Bros. 3 Happy meal toys

While hogging down those chicken Mcnuggets and fries that came with our meals, seeing video game characters as Happy meal toys always left a grin on my face, and I was only a tyke when these came out. My older brother got the Goomba and I had the Koopa Paratroopa (the flying Koopa) while my older sister had the Mario. Whenever our time was over to play the games, we went straight to playing with the toys.

Dragon's Lair board game

To itch that gaming scratch on a family game night, video game branded board games began to surface, and the hit arcade game Dragon's Lair was among one of them. Although the experience for this particular board game is the same as playing a game of Mario Party and screwing over the other players. The object of the game is to make it to the end of the board to make it to Princess Daphne, rolling a die takes you to a number of spaces, but landing on a black one starts a battle, which your friends can use to their advantage depending on the outcome by using the deck of cards you're given at the start. You can win by either using a Sword card or a Shift card, or lose the battle and go back to a space colored yellow, so the game relies on strategy.

Sonic bath game/shampoo

Even though you'd mostly spot these water ring games at say, a dentist office, seeing one doubling as a shampoo bottle along with a familiar game character on it was probably the most random, if not obscure game product I came across and possibly why was because it came out during the launch of the Sega Dreamcast, so hey, Sonic Adventure hype!

And that wraps up this oddity of an article. Do you have any memories of your own collected video game merchandise? let me know in the comments, and as always, see you next article!

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Benjanime Posted on Sep 22, 2018 at 05:18 PM

@Superman

oh how i wish i wasn't too old to have those, lol.

Superman Posted on Sep 22, 2018 at 03:51 PM

I had some Nintendo 64 beanbag plushes just like the ones pictured in the below link.

https://d1w8cc2yygc27j.cloudfront.net/1963742461178360071/-2945963023744087864.jpg

Benjanime Posted on Sep 08, 2018 at 01:19 AM

i had a couple of those how to draw manga books myself, but looking back the characters they used samples of were drawn in a hilariously ugly style lol.

jkatz Posted on Sep 08, 2018 at 12:05 AM

Those "how to draw" books take me way back. I had a bunch that supposedly would teach you the manga style.

NLogan Posted on Sep 05, 2018 at 02:04 AM

My brother has the Dragon's Lair board game.

Vaporman87 Posted on Sep 05, 2018 at 12:06 AM

There was a Gex novel? That's so odd. So odd that I want to own it now. LOL

Hoju Koolander Posted on Sep 04, 2018 at 08:43 PM

Very cool stuff. I remember seeing a comic book ad for the Sonic Hot Rings sweepstakes and definitely had those SMB3 Happy Meal Toys. I really enjoyed the Nintendo Power Pack sticker/game trading cards, as well as the Super Mario Bros and Zelda fruit snacks.

Mr Magic Posted on Sep 04, 2018 at 04:26 PM

Sonic pasta.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/05/36/2b/05362b6afa42b27a4ea927fa0ebad1d5.png

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