Dangerously Cheesy!

When I was scanning game ads quite a few years ago before ever launching the blog I happened to notice Frito-Lay's Cheetos mascot Chester Cheetah nabbed two video game magazine covers in the same month. Atop his motorcycle, the cool cat is impersonating Santa Claus on the December 1992 issue of GamePro and replacing Rudolph on the November/December 1992 issue of Game Informer so this is sort of a Christmas post, even though the game has nothing to do with the holiday. Platform games starring mascots were quite popular during the decade and they weren't all original characters as there were a handful of food mascots that made the jump to video games, including The Noid from Domino's pizza and even Spot, the red dot from the 7UP logo. 

Chester actually starred in two titles, both 16-bit side-scrollers. Kaneka USA published Too Cool to Fool in 1992 and Wild Wild Quest in 1993 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis consoles. I've scanned reviews for both games, though I didn't actually see any from GamePro as the issue above only has a preview which I did also scan. From Game Informer are a review of Too Cool to Fool and winners of a Chester Cheetah contest. There are also reviews for each game from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) and as I tend to do with that magazine's reviews, I edited the pages to line up the review crew next to them which is why those scans look off. Normally the reviewers are only on the first page of reviews next to the game of the month (Mike Weigand is not part of the scores for the second game). 

 

Toys "R" Us Canada

Last week I visited Canada where Toys "R" Us stores actually still exist so, of course, I checked one out. Back in 2018 when the U.S. stores began closing I wrote The Time of Toy Stores post about that and my time working at a couple stores. There are now Toys "R" Us-branded departments in Macy's stores but it's certainly not the same as wandering around a store overloaded with toys. I took quite a few photos as I covered most of the Oakville, Ontario store and did my best to avoid the customers. These were all taken on a phone which is something I rarely use for photos but I didn't want to stand out carrying my regular camera.

1992 Electronics Boutique Holiday Catalog

I believe this is the third Electronics Boutique (EB) holiday catalog post on the blog with the previous two being 1989 and 1991. While the other catalogs were 34 and 36 pages each, this catalog from 1992 is a whopping 64 pages! It took a bit longer to scan and, due to the size, I didn't spend a lot of time editing the pages too much as far as clearing up shadows or marks pages might have. The latest generation of consoles has seen $70 game prices starting to become the norm but those prices did exist 30 years ago as well. Although I purchased games in the '90s, I'm still surprised at how much some of these games are, and EB did price games around the MSRP. The Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System isn't included in the catalog or you'd see $199.99 games. 

In the pages below you can find SimEarth for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) priced at $69.99 which I wouldn't think is even a very appealing game to play on a console. Final Fantasy II matched SimEarth and Street Fighter II, also for the SNES, was more at $74.99. For the Sega Genesis Streets of Rage 2 and Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool were $64.99 and Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun (a rather short RPG) cost $67.99. The most expensive games in the catalog are $79.99 computer games, including SubLogic's flight sim add-on USA East (not shown is USA West which likely was the same price) and The 7th Guest on CD-ROM. The catalog also features a variety of expensive productivity software and hardware, and don't forget the all important screen savers.