Mad World

The first commercial I can remember seeing for a first person shooter type game that incorporated a song that really sold the commercial, and therefore the game, to me was the commercial for Vice City that used I Ran by A Flock of Seagulls, interspersed with gameplay clips. The ad was an attention getter, and the game absolutely rocked. Vice City wasn't a pure FPS game, but it was the first FPS type game I ever bought, and opened me up to a different kind of gaming.

Now I won't proclaim myself as a great FPS player, but I continue to get better with the gameplay as I seem to exclusively play Call of Duty when I turn on the 360, and my ability to strategize quickly and several steps ahead makes my learning curve a little less drastic. I think the multiple layers of strategy involved has greatly added to the addiction factor of CoD for me. When I bought Modern Warfare 2 last year I was pretty new to FPS games, completely new to online multiplayer FPS games, and a few years behind anyone who played CoD from the first title on. I got my ass handed to me for a while, but quickly adjusted to a lot of things in the game and the nuances of the different kinds of matches within the game, and was holding my own before I knew it, and saw that I could excel at times as well.

So, back from my gaming tangent now...this was intended to be about the use of songs in commercials for games, and how effective they seem. The title for this post actually comes from the song used in one of the best video game commercials I've seen. Gears of War used Mad World as the background for their gameplay clips, without using any of the game sounds. It was kind of eerie to watch, but definitely grabbed your attention seeing the contrast between the action of the game and the slow, quiet nature of the song. I liked it so much, I changed my profile picture on Myspace, yes I said Myspace, to the Gears of War symbol. Then again, I guess it couldn't have been all that great if I didn't actually buy the game.

When GTA came out with San Andreas, still one of my favorite games of all time, they used Welcome to the Jungle in one of the commercials that aired before the game ever came out, and I was even more geeked for it's release they I already was. Thankfully, the game lived up to the height and my expectations. I played that game for a long time after finishing the storyline for it. By comparison, I rarely played GTA 4 after completing the storyline...although it was the first game I ever tried Xbox live with, so it obviously served it's purpose for me.

Recently, with the CoD franchise releasing Black Ops, they used Gimme Shelter in a commercial that had real people, including some celebrities, acting out game scenarios. The ad hit the air approximately two weeks before the game was released. I was more or less lukewarm about the game up until that point, but the ad sucked me in and before I knew it, I was trying to find a place online to preorder the game.

I'm generally rather critical of advertising nowadays, but some of the ads I've seen for video games show that sometimes the advertisers just get it. Whether it's a song that just seems to fit, or Mr. T talking about hacking a game, some of these commercials can be outstanding pieces of work. Maybe the ad agencies for other products should take notice.

Photo Credit: Emrah Icten
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