"Dad, Can I Get the Octopussy Video Game?"

(Click to Octopussy-size it!)

On the back covers of many DC Comics in late 1983, this ad appeared for a James Bond video game that tied into the film Octopussy. The game advertised here appears to be a simple side-scroller where the player has to jump from one train car to another while shooting bad guys. And although I did have an Atari 2600 at the time (the last video game system I would ever own) and I was a huge James Bond fan, I never got this game.

Turns out, the game being shown in the ad had nothing to do with the final game that was produced, as explained here. The actual game was more of a "Moon Patrol" knock off, with four adventures vaguely based on Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker, The Spy Who Loved Me, and For Your Eyes Only (for example, in the Diamonds Are Forever level, you had to drive your Bond car and shoot diamonds while dodging attacks from helicopters and satellites).

The ad also states that the Bond game was "Coming soon for Intellivision," though that version of the game never actually came out.

The ad features a rather specious use of fake pull quotes. The sources of these quotes are all parodied names of real publications and writers, but the quotes themselves don't seem that much different from what one might find in a normal review, so I'm not real sure what the joke is supposed to be here. In fact, everyone knows about the real Morley Safer's penchant for "karate kicks, jumps, lasers and more," so it shouldn't be that hard to find a real quote to that effect.

My favorite part of this ad, though, is the phrase in "Vincent Can'tbe's" quote: "Octopussy Circus Train." I am going to learn to play the guitar just so I can join a band and name it "Octopussy Circus Train."