Splinter Cell ad giving fabricated praise? [update 2]
by Ross Miller 
{ Apr 17th 2006 at 6:20PM }
- (page 1) "[Sam Fisher] was one of the best and brightest personalities of the early days of the Xbox." Right series, right protagonist, but wrong console.
- (page 1) "One of the things that made the Splinter Cell series so great was the fact that ... you had complete control over the camera, allowing the player to put it in the best possible position for any situation. While you can still move the camera around, the lack of a second analog stick on the PSP makes it difficult (actually, annoying might be a better word)." Hmm ... nope, can't find it there. Again, right series, but not this title.
- "Over the past few years, the Splinter Cell series has become one of the best in the multiplayer arena ... It's a shame, then, that the multiplayer action in Essentials is easily weakest part of the game." We don't think one could misinterpret that declaration."
So we are not sure where the quote came from -- not this review, at any rate. Did they confuse Essentials with the PlayStation 2's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (which received 5 out of 5 stars, being dubbed "one of the best stealth games of all time"). Not even GameSpy's parent company, IGN, has a "best" quote that can match this. Nor could we find one in Google (not even from some fan on Amazon.com or its like). So where did this fabricated quote come from? We'll keep you posted when we learn more.
Update 1: Here are two quotes from GameSpy's preview of the title:
- "one of the best looking and sounding games on the PSP"
- "one of the best games we've played on the PSP"
Update 2: Moved some information to after the jump, so as not to clutter the main page.
[Thanks, tengaport]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
EzPz @ Apr 17th 2006 6:23PM
It could've come from a preview that said something like ". . .this looks to be one of the best psp games. . ." I haven't read any of the gamespy previews, but it might be worth looking into.
I know for sure ads tend to use quotes from previews since they are almost never negative.
James @ Apr 17th 2006 6:25PM
Yeah, a preview said, "one of the best looking and sounding games on the PSP." So, there you go.
BG @ Apr 17th 2006 6:28PM
(page 1) "One of the things that made the Splinter Cell series so great was the fact that ... you had complete control over the camera, allowing the player to put it in the best possible position for any situation. While you can still move the camera around, the lack of a second analog stick on the PSP makes it difficult (actually, annoying might be a better word).
Throw in "game" and remove "the".
Sean @ Apr 17th 2006 6:30PM
Does gamespy have like user reviews? Perhaps one of those?
BG @ Apr 17th 2006 6:30PM
...d'oh, comments parse bold tags. So, here's my previous comment with brackets instead of bolding:
(page 1) "[One of the] things that made the Splinter Cell series so great was the fact that ... you had complete control over the camera, allowing the player to put it in the [best] possible position for any situation. While you can still move the camera around, the lack of a second analog stick [on (the) PSP] makes it difficult (actually, annoying might be a better word).
striderhayasa @ Apr 17th 2006 6:35PM
It's called, trying to play on the ignorance of the average consumer to generate sales for a game that is lackluster at best. I think it's safe to say that Splinter Cell is not yet destined for the handheld world.
Noah @ Apr 17th 2006 6:37PM
This ad is also in the latest Game Informer, it made me scratch my head and say, "Really, one of the best? huh"
Sicknic @ Apr 17th 2006 6:39PM
Hopefully, if the reader is reading EGM, then they can base their purchases off of EGM's reviews. Frankly, if someone were to buy a game just because of an ad's quotes, then maybe they deserve to get screwed over. Do your research. Games aren't getting any cheaper...
Joel @ Apr 17th 2006 6:41PM
I read this ad in Game Informer. My first thought upon seeing it was that Gamespy must be trash, or Ubisoft must be lying.
Probot @ Apr 17th 2006 6:42PM
Using quotes from previews in ads is pretty common. I remember Game Informer commenting on the same thing happening with a preview they wrote, though the name of the game escapes me.
Is it ethical? It's an ad. It's meant to convince people to buy the game. They do what they have to.
What's astounding to me is that you people actually pay attention to magazine ads?
Lynx @ Apr 17th 2006 6:54PM
Like "One of the best games on PSP" is really saying much.
SuicideNinja @ Apr 17th 2006 6:55PM
Or it means that a bad game is the best you'll get out of a PSP?
Just kidding.
Chaos Theory on the DS was horrible, so I can't imagine that SC Essentials could be worse than that. I just don't think that Sam was meant to be on a portable game device.
Besides, we should all know NOT to believe advertisements anyway. We'd be better off. But then how would Sony take advantage of the consumer?
SonicRift @ Apr 17th 2006 7:01PM
Maybe it's all part of a plan to lower the bar in terms of quality of PSP games. As in, from now on, Splinter Cell Essentials is the best developers should strive for.
I'm sorry though, I would never buy a portable game based on a home console game that states right in the title that it is a stripped down version of itself.
The cover should feature Sam Fisher shooting himself in the foot.
UWstudent @ Apr 17th 2006 7:08PM
This ad is also in the latest Game Informer, it made me scratch my head and say, "Really, one of the best? huh"
OM @ Apr 17th 2006 7:09PM
If something that scored 2 out of 5 stars is "One of the best games we've played on PSP", PSP must have some horrible games.
slow news day @ Apr 17th 2006 7:14PM
My guess is this...
Ads and magazine content is setup-- what 3 months in advance? The game probably wasn't ready or reviewed when the ad was created, so they went with the best preview review at the time, which stated "Although Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Essentials doesn't reinvent the wheel in any way, it's shaping up to be one of the best games we've played on the PSP."
Is it right to do that? No, of course not. But that's advertising for ya. Can't believe what you see in every ad. If you did, then you'd believe that Diet Pepsi actually films movies with Jackie Chan.
Philip Wesley @ Apr 17th 2006 7:19PM
Some websites, and print magazines, let company spokespeople write their own game previews to save both time and money. This is just a great example of that in action.
It's also why I stopped putting previews on my own site. Because I was getting irritated with companies like UBI Soft and Capcom trying to dictate what I could or could not include or say in a preview.
Yellow Texan @ Apr 17th 2006 7:19PM
Another fine example of why video game previews are pretty much pointless marketing gibberish stuff. My background is marketing/advertisement so I'm not a basher of marketing entirely or subsriber to Adbusters. :-)
However, one of Joystiq's well-known competitor (Don't worry, Joystiq. I will not post their name/url) posted a blog entry in last March talking that game previews are always postitive. They're pointless. Just give us (the consumers) the general description and review it. That's it.
jay @ Apr 17th 2006 7:41PM
"If something that scored 2 out of 5 stars is "One of the best games we've played on PSP", PSP must have some horrible games." Probably comparing it to DS games. *sigh*
Splinter Cell Essentials though? I mean yea, Photoshop Elements works because it's a cut down version. But Essentials? What is this? uber 9.1 surround sound, massive TV built in? This is about as essential as any other game. They got the name so wrong on this one. Sounds good. But I'd rather the next gen SC games use Essential.
refinedsugar @ Apr 17th 2006 7:43PM
Advertising has always played with words to their advantage. Video game ads are no different. Snip one half of a sentence together with another, use glowing praise from a preview, use a comment taken out of context... its all been done before. More insidious readers can even point out ads that have taken a negative preview or review and spun a sentence or even a single word into an exciting quote blurb - the kind that makes for great print. You could state the obvious - this is wrong, they are misaligning the purpose behind the words and all that, but at the end of the day this practice is the basis of the industry and readily accepted.
Sure the people behind these games want their money (we all know that), but crapping on them is just naive. The people who's job it is to write professional press also want their share of the pie and as such have to be willing to take some of the blame for how backwards this industry has become. Of course no one in this field is willing to readily admit this situation. I say don't underestimate the importance of ad revenue. Those same people that get misquoted in an advertisement are the same people who signed off on the quote - got paid for it! - and likely also advertise the same game - possibly even the same ad they got misquoted in. It's screwed up, its happening all the time and it's allowed to go on being this dual edged sword because each party feeds each other.
It's only thru this system of weird checks and balances that one can hawk praise, excitement and the coming of Christ on a game that streets in the coming months one moment and then then when it hits... the review is a whole different story. 'Oh it's not very good - they really dropped the ball here - what happened'. It's both moronic and stupid-funny when you see it happen and it happens a fair bit more than I'd like.
Already I have to sort through the requisite amount of fanboy-isms, biases, padded excitement and then I have to further consider if what I read and from whom has been tainted by the stink of money. Yet another reason why I have very little faith in video game journalism as a whole.
32_Footsteps @ Apr 17th 2006 8:44PM
I'll offer a slightly more benign explanation as to why the preview and the review would read so differently.
When companies send out preview copies, it's generally asked that the reviewer will take it on faith that many issues that could arise in games (for example, walls in an area randomly disappearing, suicidal enemy AI, seriously overpowered weapons/techniques) will be corrected in the final release of the game. Sometimes, a company will specifically ask that reviewers overlook issues like that.
Of course, the problem is that quite a few of those mistakes are totally forgotten (eh, so half the menu is still in Japanese, it can ship!). And when it's the final version, you really don't have a hope that things'll improve. So honestly dictates that you give a harsh review, despite the fact that the preview was glowing.
Or, as the saying goes, don't blame malice for what you can attribute to stupidity.
Lozer @ Apr 17th 2006 11:36PM
The problem is that, even using the preview, it's still lying. Gamespy said it had good graphics and sound. That may be true. The ad says that Gamespy said it was a good game, which they didn't.
MetaHuman @ Apr 18th 2006 1:54AM
To be fair I don't think either was given a REAL development chance. I think EGM 'revealed' that the DS Splinter Cell was actually a port of the N-GAGE version. I don't know if that's true or not, but I was like WTF? when I first read that.
jtatfsu @ Apr 18th 2006 2:39AM
@ Editor: More of the same please!
I really love when lies are shown to be lies. Attributing that quote to Gamespy without qualifying it with a CONSPICUOUS disclaimer is a lie. What's interesting to me is that it isn' t just the consumer that is hurt by the lie. Sony is hurt because if it truly is one of the best games on PSP, then that is a libel on the PSP. IGN is hurt because it makes their review process look corrupt or incompetent. Why is this sort of thing allowed to go on? Simple: If one company is stopped from making their ads misleading, then every company will have to clean up their act. Every marketing CEO thinks that they are the most artfully deceptive of them all, and that they would be at a competitive disadvantage if everyone had to tell the truth in their marketing materials. Yes, the reality is that disgusting. Corporations are necessary, becaude they are the most efficient way to provide the goods and services that all of us want, but we must take steps to contain their tendency to corrupt every facet of life and turn it into a market for someone to profit. I don't mind people profiting from making the videogames that I love, but stop the goddamned lying.
evilbully @ Apr 18th 2006 10:48AM
this stuff happens ALL THE TIME its nothing new i have computer gaming world mags from years ago with some ads for unreal2 where they mix the good parts of the preview with the good parts of the review to make it one uber sounding game
Art Guy @ Apr 18th 2006 11:07AM
Keep in mind ads need to be sent to the magazines months in advance. I'm guessing the final build wasn't available at the time the ad needed to be sent, but they received a good reaction to the preview and used quotes from it.
Big whoop, almost everything in magazines and online isn't reality. Just about every screenshot you see are from the development kits, which can output a much higher resolution than the actual console can and add extra anti-aliasing. For example, just about every single screenshot for PS2/GameCube/Xbox titles have the anti-aliasing cranked all the way up, and the Revolution screenshots that just recently appeared were not rendered at 640 x 480.
I believe that is part of the reason people that people think the jump from last generation to this generation isn't as large as it actually is. They look at the PS2/GameCube/Xbox screenshots (rendered at high resolutions and with additional anti-aliasing) and compare them to next-gen systems that can actually output graphics with those qualities.
Charli3 @ Apr 18th 2006 12:06PM
Maybe it is not a very "good" game but one of the "better" games ON PSP...
Which isn't saying much about the other games on PSP. They must be pretty bad!