Manifesting a press kit, or how much I love War of the Monsters…

This is the second to last blog of 2024. Thank you all very much for joining me this year. In fact, thank you for inspiring me to have two highly productive years. I cannot guarantee to keep this manic pace into 2025, but I am going to try. If I need to take a break I will let you know. Today I’d like to share a sort of follow-up to my poster series. I have a massive poster that I want to share, but I think the story of how I got it is even better. The poster immediately below is not the one I'm talking about. This double-sided poster is made to look like a classic monster poster on one side, and on the other it looks like the front page of the Global Observer newspaper. This is included with the game itself. How cool is that?!

I am a big fan of the Sony Playstation 2 cult favorite War of the Monsters. In fact on this blog I mentioned that War of the Monsters is one of my favorite games of all time. The game was designed by David Jaffe, and his team at Incognito Entertainment. It was a collection of some of the best game creators ever. They worked on, or released many of the first generation Playstation hits, including Twisted Metal, and Warhawk. On the PS2 they created Twisted Metal Black, Downhill Domination, and a little gem called God of War. Can you imagine how great the world would be if publishers stopped insisting on sequels, and let developers come up with unique experience. But I digress…

I loved the game so much that I collected a copy of the game demo, and even a copy of the Japanese release of the game. I am trying to figure out how to get my hands on a copy of the Korean version of the game. In addition to playing exceptionally well it also celebrated the golden age of the giant monster films circa the 1950's-60's. War of the Monsters captured a moment of American history much better than games with a bigger budget, or even bigger licensed names like King Kong or Godzilla. If you've never played the game here’s part 1 of my deep dive, and part 2 of my deep dive.

I'm such a huge fan of the game that I tracked down everything that I could get my hands on that featured it. Whenever they made the cover of a magazine I would make sure to collect it. I then started searching for items that would have been used in stores. The Playstation 2 games would sometimes have gigantic boxes acting as displays. I got a copy of the War of the Monsters one.

The hardest things to track down were for press releases. One of which was a ViewMaster, you know those red or black toy binoculars that show you a 3D scene? They had one made up of 3D game screens, and it was mentioned in an old 1UP article. I asked the 1UP editors if I could buy their copy, but they had already gifted it to someone else. I searched high, and low but could never get my hands on it. If you are reading this, and happen to have one in your collection you don't want any more please let me know. I can offer you a fair price, but just a reminder I'm raising a family on a teacher's salary. So money is the thing I'm always short on. Just as rare as the ViewMaster was the press kit that Sony sent out with a demo of the game, an extra disk of assets, and a massive poster.

The album-sized press kit looked like a record but with three claw marks scratching through the center of it. It was a recreation of the opening cinematic. We can see some of the monsters peeking through the scratches. When you pull out the sleeve you can see all of the monsters featured in the game. On the back of the insert was information about the game and two discs. One of them had a demo of the game, and the other had screenshots, and graphics for the media to use in their articles. I was so happy to get my hands on this because I’ve always wanted high-quality reproductions of the loading poster art. Unfortunately not every loading poster was in the assets.

The poster in the press kit was HUGE. Also it featured art that was not seen in the game, or in the magazines. Some people were selling the smaller game store versions of the posters for hundreds on eBay, however the one in the press kit was a “two-sheet” in size or about 40-inches by 60-inches. It’s maybe the second or third biggest poster in my collection. My largest poster is an AND 1 ad featuring the work of Kadir Nelson. That poster is six-feet by four-feet. I believe the War of the Monsters press kit landed in my hands thanks to the power of manifestation.

One summer I was walking around the Disneyland Hotel with my kid. We were talking about games we wish we had. I mentioned that I have most of the rare games I want, but I wished I could find a copy of the WOTM press kit. My kid wished that there was a Psychonauts sequel (this was before the game was announced). Without missing a beat we turned the corner and walking right towards us was Tim Schafer, the founder or Double Fine. I said “hey it’s Tim Schafer!” He was surprised that I recognized him. We said hello, I got a picture of my kid talking to him, I wish I could find it so I could share it here. Tim was very nice, we said our goodbyes and he went on his way. A few days later the press kit that I was talking about to my kid turned up on eBay for a ridiculously low price. About a month later the Kickstarter funding started for a new Psychonauts game. Ever since that day we believe in the power of manifestation. Speaking of which, I hope to win the Powerball Lottery in 2025. Anyhow, I hope you had a great 2024. I look forward to sharing stories with you in the new year. Take care, and tell me what you are up to for New Years! As always if you like my blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!