Halo 3, PS2 get nods from AdWeek for best commercials of the decade

The Gears 2 ad that I liked the most was Rendezvous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjWYhXrC0-c

Rendezvous was way better than the Mad World one, it actually made sense and went with the theme of the game. The Mad World one just seemed like a cheap attempt at using a melancholy song to make something seem deep, it had no relation to Marcus or GoW at all. It reminded me of those "anime music videos" where kids just take their favorite songs and put them on Naruto scenes no matter how irrelevant.

EGM: The "Mad World" trailer is pretty cool, but you never have that big encounter in the game, and you never really explore the human, emotional side of the story like the commercial hints at. False advertising?

CB: I think those themes are there in the game; they're just very secondary as far as the sense of desperation that occurs with the war, massive displacement as far as these stranded guys that are cast off from humanity.

The thing is, we didn't want to beat people over the f***ing head with the story elements in the game and have them sit there watching four hours of cut-scenes in a row before they can go down the next hallway. We believe that players can infer a lot about what's going on in the universe, that it gives them reason to explore the ancillary marketing materials that we made available on the website [gearsofwar.com]. Ultimately you buy the game to play it and enjoy it and have fun, and if our biggest problem is that people want to know more about the universe, that's a good problem to have in my opinion.




IGN: What do you think people took from the Mad World video? Do you think it was deceptive or was it just a great piece of marketing?

CliffyB: I think it was a great piece of marketing. Anybody who was going to buy Gears of War who saw that ad was going to buy it anyway. So for those who didn't know about it, it expanded their knowledge and helped evangelize the product to an audience that wouldn't normally buy this game. I mean it's an emo ad for a violent shooter. It's counter programming. It's juxtaposing music that doesn't always seem like what it is with material that's dark and scary.

The thing is, it passes the girlfriend/wife test, you know? You show them the trailer and they are like, "Wow, that's some cool s#*%." Random friends who wanted to know what I do for a living came up and said, "Hey I saw that commercial; that was really cool!" I think your standard s#*%ty videogame marketing would have a video like that and used some sort of disturbing music on it. That's what I think would have happened, and it would have faded completely into the background. And it would have hurt the product. That's what I think, honestly. The whole thing was brilliant, and I applaud Microsoft for doing it. The thing is, lots of developers have had bad experiences with publishers and we have had a great experience with Microsoft through all different areas and this is proof of what can happen when a developer and a publisher are in sync in all areas. The themes came though in the marketing and that's what mad world ultimately was, man, juxtaposing against the music. It was cool stuff.

IGN: I played Gears of War before I saw the ad because of my job, so when I first saw the ad I was confused. I was like, was there something I missed? The thing about the ad was that it made you feel like the storyline was emotional and deep. But the story wasn't even remotely deep. So, first, you really don't think the ad was at all deceptive? And also, in a second question, there were so many cut-scenes where it seemed like there was something happening -- eye contact, pointed cameras showing off scenes that ultimately didn't mean anything, characters who were never explained (like the hive queen voice that mysteriously appears twice in the game). But nothing came of all that. The story in the end was "kill the enemies." What happened to the story? So many questions were left unanswered.

CliffyB: Well, if the ad had alluded to Marcus solemnly looking at his squad-mates and them wistfully looking at pictures of their girlfriends while they were in battle, well, that kind of message would have been deceptive. The ad spoke to the general sense of the sadness that the architecture of the game has, you know, destroyed beauty. Sure the game is gory, it's an over-the-top shooter, but the locations have a certain weight to them, and I think that came through in the ad.

"IGN: I played Gears of War before I saw the ad because of my job, so when I first saw the ad I was confused. I was like, was there something I missed? The thing about the ad was that it made you feel like the storyline was emotional and deep. But the story wasn't even remotely deep."

Completely took the words out of my mouth. I also played the game before seeing the ad (I had to see it on youtube way after the game came out, since I never saw it on TV), it didnt make a damn bit of sense. The song simply does not reflect the attitudes of the characters in the game, they think "fuck ya war is awesome as fuck, lets kill some fuckers" while the song is about depression. Its just a gimmick and one of the oldest tricks in the book, play some sad slow song to literally anything and watch people shit themselves.

If it wasnt attached to a game it would have made a cool little video, but the game it was attached to made it irrelevant with no imagination.

The rendezvous one on the other hand was relevant and well done, it likely took a lot more effort to make than the first one.

Define deep? I mean, how deep must a story be to just end up being a convoluted mess? No thanks, Gears of War 1 was deep enough for me with more than enough drama, perfect pacing, and a perfect ending. The game felt complete even with the ending. All that said was, "they'll be back".

Some of the best storytelling games (like the half-life series) in the business have done exactly like Epic did it with Gears of War 1. Tell 'em enough to keep 'em engaged and wanting more. Classic game storytelling.

Ooh, yeah... totally forgot about that one. Such a great ad campaign.

misleading? Its not like they tried to market it as something it wasn't....

like Halo Wars.....NOWHERE in the ad does it make it look like an RTS....they made it look like it was all shooting and an FPS or something

Misleading is not advertisement. You think they made Halo Wars look like an action game on accident? No, they know a good portion of the Halo fan base will buy based off the name Halo. If they showed it being a strategy game I guarantee it would not have sold as well. I might be tempted to ask a friend of mine who works at game crazy if he remembers how many used copies of Halo Wars he got in just after launch. Halo's believe campaign is only misleading with the emotion of the game. You feel more sadness and suffering in the ad's than in the game. It's hard to take a game serious when grunts run around yelling dumb things.

It was a banned/scraped Xbox 360 commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNuRQmvykwk

@ the mighty thor: Thanks! I love that ad - can't for the life of me figure out why it would be banned/scrapped!

because people get offended to easy. It was a great ad imo too.

Oops, the last one cut off the ending, which is what made the commercial so awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcmtDAVM-3A

I love that sound at the end of the commercial (and that we heard whenever we turned the PS2 on) :P

You KNOW you can't make a pass at Pablo's ass!

That's a long distance call.... DOUG!

PAIN TRAIN'S A-COMIN! WOO-WOOO!!!!

Wait, no. The Gears of War Mad World ad was pretty awesome, too.

'eh. I probably should've devoted some amount of brain power to this before posting.

For example:

Halo 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whUcHSDnQKk

Gears
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccWrbGEFgI8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnUgCRVwFUc

I like this one, myself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL_ZjJgbDmc

@Fuz

Yeah, that was the 2nd epic trailer for Gears of War 2.