Adverts leave me disappointed in GRAW...

[Shifty Geezer]

"because that's how it's always been done."

Not always. In the 2D era everything was WYSIWYG. I guess with PCs and GPUs, and the option to crank up AA on any game, that introduced a 'best possible' representation in screenshots. And then that snowballed into showing 'airbrushed' development and promo shots. I don't know when this actually started though.

However, let me add to the debate: even if all they show is in-game graphics, is it "ok" to show the obviously superior format on a multiplatform release? For example, using GRAW clips to sell the game on Xbox and PS2 would be as disingenuous as using CGI to sell the Xbox 360 version, right?

I'd accept that they can't show 3 or 4 different versions of a game in a 30 second slot, and showing the better of the possbilities is okay. Though I guess from that logic if the developers made a $10 million custom computer to play GRAW with that CG quality and advertised it 'Available for XB360 and GRAW Arcade' that'd be okay too. But then they won't be doing that! If they showed the best possible PC experience, with a $2000 rig with Quad GPUs and Dual Athlon 64 or whatever, it'd still at least be indicative.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What?!? In the 2d era all I remember is cgi.

How much CGI was there in promotional material for NES, SNES, C64, Spectrum, BBC, Archimedes, CGA PC games, ST, Amiga, EGA and VGA PC games?

 

[Lysander]

Promotional material (pictures) for Spectrum was hand drawn, not computer made, same for Amiga.

 

[DeathKnight]

How about you go play the game yourself Shifty and come back later with a fresh opinion

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Promotional material (pictures) for Spectrum was hand drawn, not computer made, same for Amiga.

Of course, but that promotional material was never styled on gameplay. You knew the difference between a painted bit of box art and what the game would look like. The difference is now the promo material is modelled on the gameplay so you don't know what's CG and what's in game. Having not seen much of XB360 visuals, that ad really caught my attention in looking so good. I thought 'wow, XB360 is producing some excellent visuals'. Then when I d'loaded some vids, I saw they weren't that good. And no, compression artefacts don't explain that! Before, when you saw an advert, you knew it wasn't the game because it didn't look the same. Nowadays it does. When you saw Sonic gameplay on TV, it was exactly what you got from the game. Now when you see a game on TV, it's an artists impression and not necessarily what you get, but modelled very closely such that it's misleading. It'd be like a car advert with excellent handling, where the car in the ad is actually CG created and the real car you'd buy handles like a pig. The assumption of something that looks like a product is it is the product, no? And these spruced up products are better than the real products, which can only lead to disappointment, no?

 

[Titanio]

Dam I didn't think there was enough 360's out there to set any sales records, how is this even possible?

There's about 1.6m 360s in NA and Europe according to Ubi. Suitable demographics + a great game + a severe lack of great games = a high proportion of the userbase picking this up.

 

[fulcizombie]

GRAW has sold 260,000 in the first week. I saw a TV ad the other day that looked very good (as far as FPses go!). I think to myself 'I ought to check that out' and go over to IGN to try some vids and pics. And I'm left disappointed. Why? Because the TV ad showed a CG simulation of the game, not actual in-game footage.

This was raised a while back. I know one ad was removed because of this. It's only this gen that I've noticed it on TV ads though. Prior gen have tended to show actual in game footage AFAIK.

Isn't this approach kinda contrary to what' best? I guess it makes people think 'Wow' and go investigate the game, but unless they buy it before viewing it based on the ad, surely they'll be left disappointed? It's bad enough seeing promo stills with 12,500x AA, but totally artificial graphics, animation and gameplay is nought but misrepresentation.

Is the future going to be one of 'don't believe what you see' when it comes to TV ad campaings?

Please.You have 5000 posts on a videogames' forum and that means that you are very into videogames.There have been about a million videos and screenshots of GRAW posted on the net.There's a very detailed 2-part developer's diary on xboxlive.You mean to tell me that you didn't know how the graphics of GRAW look and you were "deceived" by a TV advertisement??


No offence but if that's the case then you deserved it....

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Please.You have 5000 posts on a videogames' forum and that means that you are very into videogames.

Nope. It's a technology site more than anything. I'm not hugely in computer games. I buy a few I like and play them to completion. I don't investigate all and sundry games. I'll only check out a game if something piques my curiosity to take a ganders, which often is to see what the technology is doing. I next to no interest in FPSes, especially realistic war shooters, so hadn't concerned myself with GRAW at all.

Plus, regardless of whether or not I personally deserve to be 'deceived' by a TV advert because I didn't do my homework and research the game before seeing the ad, what about the many other people out there who don't buy mags and check websites who are being misled? Or should our opinions on subjects be formed on and only reflect our self interest with no regard for the wider picture? As long as it suits me, who cares what it's like for other people?

 

[Sis]

Please.You have 5000 posts on a videogames' forum and that means that you are very into videogames.

The irony, for me at least, is that I sometimes find that I enjoy discussing video games and the industry far more than I do actually playing them. Some days picking up a controller feels like an absolute chore and I find myself spending hours reading news on the industry. Very strange.

But regardless, your post doesn't address the topic at all. Even if Shifty made up the story--which he didn't--the purpose was to engage in a debate about advertising practices. If you have something of interest to add, please do so.

 

[Sis]

At least in that case there is a version of the game that looks like that...

To be honest, I can't remember the last time I've seen a commercial for a game (although my TV watching is rather limited and the channels I do watch generally don't have game commercials), so I can't really comment on how evil or bad the whole situation is...

True--but it just makes it more of a grey area instead of a out-and-out deceptive practice. The solution is that showing video game footage should follow a "truth in advertising" principle. If they show Xbox 360 graphics, there should be a disclaimer at the bottom. If it's CGI, say so. Car advertisments do this today (they show a vehicle "fully equipped" and if a price is mentioned, a disclaimer is shown somewhere--usually in small print--saying "priced as shown $XXX").

To your other point, I actually saw the ad that Shifty is referring to. Having played GRAW a lot over the past week, I actually walked away going, "Wow, that was actually pretty accurate." But even that is besides the point: it's still deceptive and should not be allowed without some form of disclaimer. Cutscenes should not be shown as "in-game footage", CGI should not be used to imply actual graphics, etc.

 

[scooby_dooby]

As has been brought up before, if people REALLY wanted advertising practices to change then E3/TGS would be in-game only. That would end the debates about what is real and what isn't real. Outside of Xbox fans, no one seems to criticize Sony for their E3 showings, as a matter of fact it is usually stated that Microsoft gets owned at every event in which the two companies are present because of the very thing that Shifty is now taking issue. .

Bang on. I've been saying this for a long time. If this is going to change, it's gonna start at events like E3, and the press and gamers themselves need to be critical of these tactics. What happens now, is a company shows some fancy CG trailers and everyone's brains fly out the window, just like sony at E3 where they 'owned' MS.

MS tries and say that they prefer to show games in progress, and actual content as opposed to 'videos' and people slam them for having crappy PR. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

With that said I don't see this changing one bit, it works far too well, and it's simply the reality of the current marketplace.

 

[Tap In]

Bang on. I've been saying this for a long time. If this is going to change, it's gonna start at events like E3, and the press and gamers themselves need to be critical of these tactics. What happens now, is a company shows some fancy CG trailers and everyone's brains fly out the window, just like sony at E3 where they 'owned' MS.

MS tries and say that they prefer to show games in progress, and actual content as opposed to 'videos' and people slam them for having crappy PR. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

With that said I don't see this changing one bit, it works far too well, and it's simply the reality of the current marketplace.

good points

As for the "Brains fly out the window", I remember at E3 watching the G4 channel and the entire staff sitting there after the K**z**e video with their brains hanging out of their ears.

Going up a couple posts, I DO have an issue with cut scenes from a game being used also, unless they match the gameplay exactly. For years that's all we saw on TV because they were not going to show us the crappy visuals that the old gens were actually capable of.

I think this practice needs to go away at E3, on TV, everywhere.

as for GRAW, the trailer Shifty (at least on my HDTV) is just beyond this generation's capabilities. I can see you being fooled by it, but we aren't going to see that exact fidelity until PS4 or Xbox720 IMO.

Lastly (and for the 11th time on this forum)
I'll say that screenshots and trailers do not do these games justice. Unless you own a next gen system (with HDTV) you can not IMO, pass judgement on the visuals like we could in previous gens.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Shifty, this is obviously nothing personal, I have yet to hear anyone be disappointed thats all, but I will start checking other sites to see what people have to say (maybe I should have done that first).

Incase this wasn't clear, I'm not disappointed in GRAW the game, because I haven't played it. I'm only looking at the ad and then IGN movies and seeing a large discrepency in quality aand frame-rate at places. I'm never sure how much is encoding and how much is source, but if the movie is smooth for 90% and only slows down when things are busy, I take that to be the source. Ordinarly the framerate stays smooth and compression gets worse if it's a bitrate thing. Plenty of other games run smoothly in the vids as they do the game.

as for GRAW, the trailer Shifty (at least on my HDTV) is just beyond this generation's capabilities. I can see you being fooled by it, but we aren't going to see that exact fidelity until PS4 or Xbox720 IMO.

I've only seen it once, and on analogue SDTV versus movies on LCD monitor, which will make a difference I guess. Ideally I'd like to see the TV ad on web movie for fair comparison on the same display. Maybe it's all just me anyway?!

Actually, another similar misrepresenation I've experienced first hand is XMen Legends II. I bought it on cheap on a special offer and was shocked by the dire framerate. I checked out web-movies of the game and they were all silky smooth, but none said whether that was PS2 or XB footage. Then I checked the PSP footage, and that was silky smooth. If PSP can handlt it, PS2 shouldn't be any worse. Not by any large amount at least. I seriously considered gettinga refund because at times it was atrociously bad, and yet if the footage the web shows was accurate I'd have had no problems. I'm just becoming wary really. Screen grabs from FFX were almost all cutscenes. XML wasn't up to promo quality. GRAW vids aren't the same quality as the TV adverts. It feels like the things I reference to consider a game aren't being accurate.

 

[Lysander]

Having not seen much of XB360 visuals, that ad really caught my attention in looking so good. I thought 'wow, XB360 is producing some excellent visuals'. Then when I d'loaded some vids, I saw they weren't that good.

I didnt see advert but i think i know about which graphics are you talking about; it has different style, slightly crisper; anyway graw is very good in-game. Check this gametrailer review.
http://gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=1693

(pics from diab)

 

[scooby_dooby]

HD version
http://gametrailers.com/player.php?id=9736&pl=game&type=wmv

i usually download, faster than streaming.

 

[Lysander]

well, if you have it, use it, resource philosophy, ubi did that commercial before graw was done

 

[blakjedi]

(tv newscaster voice) fade in: "According to the governments of the United States of America and Mexico, what you are about to see 'never happened'"
you show the flyby scene, cut to a ground scene (intense music in the background), show a large explosion, (begin fade to black) you still hear commands in the background, a couple of three-shot bursts/or a quick firefight, cut back to a guys face(gotta be a closeup),(end music) hear him give the "all clear", (back to black), End Credits(Title), begin 360 startup video...next commercial.

I'd hire you!

 

[blakjedi]

I'm with sis. many times I'd rather read/about/think about/debate about a console than play one. But I must play GR:AW I owe it to myself!

 

[Lysander]

http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx1800/x1800gto.html

ATI is using GRAW trademark for x1800.

 

[3dcgi]

Shifty, I agree that ads should show at least some real gameplay although this isn't a new trend. Most PS2 and Xbox commercials I've seen were like this. I don't think I ever saw gameplay of the Xmen games on a TV ad. With previous generations it was easy to spot the CGI, but now it's getting a harder. Maybe that's why it made an impression on you this time. To me the thing that gives away the GRAW trailer as being CGI is the character animation. Both the trailer and the real thing look darn good though.