The Gametrailers review was great but MAN do I hate product placement in games. Energizer batteries for the flashlights...ok, I can roll alright with that. Having a screen in the car that says SYNC by Microsoft displayed on it...well, it's the same feeling I got in seeing all those Sony products in Casino Royale. It's just tacky and takes you out of the story a bit.
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My name is Alan Wake. I'm a writer. |OT|
- Thread starter BruceLeeRoy
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Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
TheOddOne said:Sad to tell you this, but its gonna be coming more and more games
and unfortunately since there are no pc versions, fans can't mod out the ridiculous product placement
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
rhino4evr said:
You can already do that, on the PC.
Zeouterlimits said:
It does, just as Euroganer's review does, only on the opposite end of the spectrum.
I don't understand the point in video games. At least with movies, I can kinda understand the mentality of, "Oh hey, Will Smith likes Converse shoes! I should check those out." But not, "Wait a sec, Alan WAKE uses SYNC by Microsoft? I should look into that!"Stumpokapow said:
And it doesn't say much for Energizer when you're having to constantly replace the flashlight batteries throughout the game (I know that's part of the story in the bad guys "sucking" out the light, but still). Or maybe it's a special flashlight you get later in the game that doesn't run out of batteries as much. Which would be a little worse now that I think about it. :lol
Anyways, note to all devs everywhere: stop product placement. Seriously.
Nowgamer : 6.8 / 10
http://xbox-360.nowgamer.com/reviews/xbox-360/9171/alan-wake
The hype killed it for that guy, his expectations looked too high...
http://xbox-360.nowgamer.com/reviews/xbox-360/9171/alan-wake
The hype killed it for that guy, his expectations looked too high...
chubigans said:
This product placement is fast making me apprehensive. I hope this isn't the way things are going or I would have to only play from my backlog. Now if they did something smart I would be all for it. Product placement in futuristic games (Wipeout for instance). Have actual products and corporations. Just advertise them like you think they would in the future. "Drink Coke 9! Now in Boisenberry flavor!" or "Volvo 2312 Model : MAG-Lev, Because who likes wheels these days?" That's the kind of product placement I can get behind. The energizer batteries fit fine to me. The SYNC is near to crossing the line. Getting an achievement by watching a commercial on an in-game TV is deplorable in my opinion.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
The whole premise of Alan Wake reminds me of Dean Koontz Phantoms. After I finish the game I am going to want to prolong the creepiness. What are some good books along the same lines
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
Any specific ones?
plagiarize
Banned
to be fair, there wasn't really anything in Dead Space you'd want to climb. it is a problem, but it's usually not a problem of lack of a climbing feature and more a problem of the developer fencing in the player with walls that a human could easly climb than higher walls and fences.DangerousDave said:
if those low walls aren't there, the player won't be nearly as annoyed. either way i think it's a fair complaint given my experiences getting similarly annoyed at other games fencing me in with similar laughable obstacles.
plagiarize
Banned
books... not sure. films?BruceLeeRoy said:
In the Mouth of Madness should be top of your watch list.
SlasherJPC
Banned
plagiarize said:
Yes and yes! I have seen this so many times over the years simple because other people haven't seen it and I always recommend it to people!
Technosteve
Banned
If the game is as corny and short as Max Payne i'll be a happy camper.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
chubigans said:
it's not even the fact that they're using products, it's the obnoxious way the camera views are cut. it'd be one thing if alan wake puts energizer batteries in the flashlight, but it's another thing when the camera is focusing more on the batteries than the flashlight.
likewise, it's no problem if he's driving a focus or a fit or whatever, but when they do those scenes where the car pulls up and the damn camera is focused on the front bumper brand ornament, lingering for a few seconds before a cut to the character exiting... jesus.
it makes stuff feel super dated too. maybe microsoft sync will succeed. maybe it won't. maybe, like 99.99999999% of their other products, they'll end up renaming it every few years. either way, come 2012-2013, it's going to be ridiculous looking in the car.
recently i played through the telltale csi games which have obnoxious product placement for visa. the visa stuff is bad enough; you visit a wounded woman in the hospital and her room window looks out over a scenic visa billboard. but there's also product placement for hp. your character's central way of navigating is to use an hp ipaq cell phone / pda / whatever. it just seems so stupid. ipaq is just not a factor anymore. and it's not like it's evocative the way seeing a model t in a period drama would be, it's just busted.
bionic commando 2009 is also abhorrent for this. so nuclear fucking bombs destroyed this metropolitan city, and yet gigantic billboards are perfectly intact and unscratched? and there are billboards at every single turn, but only three companies actually advertise? err, what?
even ghostbusters, an otherwise great game, has inexplicable doritos vending machines stuffed everywhere. why on earth would there be 2 doritos vending machines within 20 feet of each other and no coke or pepsi machines? oh, because coke and pepsi didn't pay to put them in the game? yeah, that's an excellent depiction of reality.
in tv shows the worst I find is website product placement a year or two after the fact. like, it's pretty safe to do a show that references facebook or google or ebay or amazon or craiglist, but if you had myspace or orkut or friendster or altavista or yahoo product placement, it ages so terribly. those products aren't around anymore (or are around but are so passé), and so they look even more hamfisted than they do at release.
IF Microsoft are product placing their own stuff i don't mind, they paid to make the game, just like i didn't have a problem with Sega throwing a saturn in Shenmue, or Mario dolls in Twin Snakes. Even ipods in MGS4 i dont mind as these do have a purpose in real life. And is part of my reality (no Mario dolls though NERDS!). OTT placement is a genuine concern though, but a few unobtrusive placement goes unnoticed, could even heighten atmosphere.
I'm not worried about he review scores being a little lower than the hype made them out to be, it still sounds like a fantastic game. And if I remember correctly, the Max Payne games scored roughly around the same area too, and I still find those fantastically replayable even after all these years. Remedy ain't let me down yet!
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
I definitely agree. I mean, there are some games where product placement does make sense (arcady games like Skate 3 or Crazy Taxi, which even enhance the style a bit). But sheesh, how much could they be possibly making off these product placements?Stumpokapow said:
That CSI game sounds hilariously bad though as far as ads go. :lol
Haha, when I saw that Ellie Gibson wrote it, I didn't bother to read further. She's a fantastic writer/interviewer/journalist, but as she stated herself she reviews casual games and hate shooters. What else would you expect from her review?NHale said:
Also she liked Wet. Sometimes women are strange. If you don't like shooters how the hell you'd like Wet???
BruceLeeRoy said:
Thats highly subjective, but IMO:
- for Preston/Child, avoid the Pendergast novels. You might like something like Riptide.
- with Koontz I really like the Odd Thomas books
- and for King, I prefer the ones written under "Richard Bachmann", like Thinner or the very well done Different Seasons
the product placement thing isn't that big a deal to me, but in one review they mention that the game actually has a in-game TV commercial..which in my opinion is pushing the limits a bit.
If you are going to do product placement, do it in a comical way, or do it where it makes sense. Energizer batteries for the flashlight? This doesn't bother me. Microsoft SYNC in the car? Who even has that? Very, very few people...it make it even worse that this is a MS game too.
If you are going to do product placement, do it in a comical way, or do it where it makes sense. Energizer batteries for the flashlight? This doesn't bother me. Microsoft SYNC in the car? Who even has that? Very, very few people...it make it even worse that this is a MS game too.
LCfiner said:
I just sat through a rant at work about how Bill Gates screwed this game, and Microsoft is the worst thing to ever happen to gaming. What a petty, childish mess the game community can be. Sigh, and I know it's going to happen because it's an exclusive game. I can see it coming..and i sit here and participate in this madness.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
Those sound awesome. I'll pick those up. How is odd Thomas? I used to be a huge fan of Dk but he couldn't seem to write a decent ending to save his life. Seems like every book ultimately comes down to aliens, the devil or government experimentsHammer24 said:
BenjaminBirdie
Banned
BruceLeeRoy said:
Gerald's Game is pretty fucking unsettling and more on the real side than the supernatural. Not so much with the crazy demon clowns and what-not.
This game is really fun so far... and I'm not a fan or survival horror.
The narrative is its strong suit by far. The combat -- while simple-- never feels repetitive, and the setting is beautiful.
but, god damn the character models are antiquated....
Stay tuned to resumeplay.net for my review soon...
The narrative is its strong suit by far. The combat -- while simple-- never feels repetitive, and the setting is beautiful.
but, god damn the character models are antiquated....
Stay tuned to resumeplay.net for my review soon...
It appears that the score was docked in the Game Trailers review for a lack of multiplayer.
Regardless of the actual score, this is a review trend in recent years that irritates me to no end and pretty much justifies my position that the single-player and multiplayer portions of a game should have completely separate reviews.
Any reviewer who detracts from the score of a single-player only game due to a lack of multiplayer (and vice-versa) should be fired or have his/her opinion considered to be invalid from that point on.
Regardless of the actual score, this is a review trend in recent years that irritates me to no end and pretty much justifies my position that the single-player and multiplayer portions of a game should have completely separate reviews.
Any reviewer who detracts from the score of a single-player only game due to a lack of multiplayer (and vice-versa) should be fired or have his/her opinion considered to be invalid from that point on.