This has to be a first and if not, it’s the first game company to openly take social action in the wake of a global disaster. Bungie has decided to do their part to help out in the relief efforts for Haiti by asking gamers to play Halo 3 or or ODST online from Wednesday 1/20/10 through Thursday 1/21/10 while wearing a specially designed heart emblem on their Spartan uniform (that’s how they’ll track you). For every 1000 players they’ll donate $100. The cap will be $77,000. Additionally in the Bungie store you can buy sspecially designed shirts and other merchandise which will also be contributed to the fundraising through the month of February.
How much easier can they make this? — Play a videogame and raise some money.
Oh and for all those people who always complain about videogames being a bad thing — Suck it!
The easiest way for a company to get connected to the millions of potential gaming customers is through a tie-in with a game release or even better, in-game advertising. Then of course there are those who raise the bar a little higher by working with one of the big three to come up with some creative way to market two products.
This latest campaign by Hanes (yes, the people who make underwear, sweatpants and those boxers that Michael Jordan wears) is one for the books though — http://gameincomfort.nastage.com/
win my outdated ass
Relax and Game
The contest will dole out weekly prizes of Hanes swag (hundreds of dollars worth), a new 360 with two controllers and 10 games.
What games you ask? No idea
What system you wonder? The Xbox 360 — wait for it — Pro!
You remember the Pro don’t you? The one that is now obsolete because Microsoft dropped the price on the elite so there’s no reason for the “in-between” 60-gig model. See you’ve got the no memory Arcade model on the cheap low end (same price as the now defunct Pro) and the Elite on the now reduced price high end s0 the Pro — it’s just a third wheel.
We’re not saying they don’t exist anymore, we’re just saying a lot of retailers didn’t refill that order form when they finally cleared the last one off the shelf. So you’ve got a bunch of consoles sitting around not working for you, why not make ‘em work for someone else and get some free marketing to boot? It’s a smart idea but when you look at consumer products you normally associate with videogames (beverages, snack foods, comfy chairs) you don’t necessarily go — Hanes! Granted it’s safe to say that probably 20 percent of the gamers out there do game in their underwear and maybe half of them are wearing Hanes so maybe, just maybe this might work. And yes, they do make other stuff now besides underwear but let’s face it, that is what they’re famous for.
They’ve certainly made entering the contest easy enough. All you do is go to the site, write your own Hanes gaming comfort tips, enter the required data and you’re entered.
As far as creative videogame marketing ideas go, we’ll give them an A for coming up with a simple campaign that combines branding, humor and multi-layered marketing. Check out the goofy videos they have on the contest site.
The gauntlet is down Fruit of the Loom — watcha gonna do?
This year’s E3 in some part answered the question about whether gamers should be saving their money for a PS4 or an Xbox 720 anytime soon. With our current crop of consoles clearly hitting their stride in terms of content and quality combined with our current economic woes, investing a large chunk into developing new systems would be foolhardy.
Instead, the big three are doing all they can to upgrade their existing hardware. Nintendo’s top selling Wii Sports Resort introduced the motion plus controller which accentuates the current Wiimote to give it better control and precision. And much like they did last year, Microsoft tweaked their system once more adding some new features and upgrading some old ones.
What this basically means for 360 owners is they have more things to play with other than just games. Take for example the Netflix upgrade …
Now not only can you watch your Netflix instant cue through the Xbox 360 but you can also browse new movies to add and even start or join an Xbox Live party so you and your friend(s) can watch a movie together, talk and/or chat. In advance of the upcoming Facebook install they’ve talked about this feature enhances the console’s social media capability well beyond online gaming .
Games on demand lets you buy a copy of an Xbox 360 title online and download it to your console — nothing new there. The tweak is that you can then log into your XBL account from any console and play that same game — even if the console doesn’t have a hard disk. The concept hear is clear. You can be at your cousin’s house across the country and still play a game you own. As a bonus you can even delete the game and download it again for no extra charge (suck it Itunes). If that’s not enough you can even even view, download or print a game manual from xbox.com.
Probably the most useless of upgrades though would be the avatar marketplace. Very few were welcoming of this post-Wii adaptation when Microsoft first launched the avatar feature last year, but eventually people got used to it and have invested time in playing around with their avatars. Now comes the opportunity to spend your Microsoft points on buying more clothes and accessories for your avatar even to the point of having a whole theme from a popular game or show.
Currently available are things like Gears of War outfits, and bits from The Clone Wars like lightsabers and clone trooper outfits. Silly? Yes. But with more avatar-based games being developed gamers may want to drop a buck or two on some fancy gear to tool around online with. Plus it becomes a great tie in for future game releases who want to serve up avatar outfits as part of their DLC.
There are also some minor tweaks which while not a spectacular certainly are very useful with everything from account management to UI tweaking to enhanced system settings.
All in all this update once again retools the 360 so that gamers have even more features than they had before and brings the console into a category that makes it more than just a machine to play games. And once again you’re dealing with a situation where it’s easier to gradually improve the existing console rather than build a new one. Whether or not this will help shape the creation of the next generation of consoles is unclear but it would seem those in the know are shining on more and more to creating that universal piece of hardware that plays great games and will also be a machine that can be adjusted and tweaked to serve as the ultimate entertainment device.
Why even bother giving it a score? Well I’ll give GRIN credit for trying to make a game and for the amount of work they put into the detail of the environments. Outside of that Terminator: Salvation is an entirely lackluster game that’s thankfully short, has no multiplayer and has no collectibles or any off mission diversion or minigames. So it’s a basic third person shooter based on a movie that is substantially better.
It deserves to be said that in this day and age there is absolutely no reason to insult our intelligence by making an overly simplistic game. People have an expectation to pop in a disc that’s based on a franchise like Terminator and get some game –not this clunky, uninteresting piece of programming. Maybe I’m being too harsh but if it pleases the court allow me to present these pieces of evidence:
1. Overkill and underwork. Combine a bucketload of useless cutscenes with amazingly terrible character models and blurriness to make a crummy visual sandwich.
2. Why am I running around? Correct me if I’m wrong but there have been a considerable amount of chase scenes in the Terminator movies involving everything from a SWAT truck to a motorcycle versus 18-wheeler. So why the hell are the only vehicle elements of this game of the on-rails variety where all you’re doing is shooting stuff as you ride along? This would have been a great opportunity to pull off some cool open world type chases or vehicle missions but alas, no. You spend most of this game clumsily running around on foot.
3. Boring – There’s a sense of relentless action that these movies created because you have a human society fighting machines that just don’t stop. Even if this wasn’t a movie tie-in there are plenty (plenty) of games that have delivered action on the level of of intensity of the current Terminator sequel. So how come the developers couldn’t convey that sense of action with this game? Perhaps they didn’t see the film?
4. Shoot, rinse, repeat — Adding to the boredom is the fact that this game offers little to no variation in the gameplay. Sure the environments look good but that’s it.
With the evidence presented before you, it would seem inconceivable that you would want to play this game, but if you feel absolutely compelled to do so and are one of those people that think reviews like this are just unfair, you just go ahead and give it a go. Best of luck to you.
E3 is over and now we wait as they dole out piece by piece all of they stuff they showed off. That is until the fall gaming glut and then everything will come out. But fall seems so far off now especially when you can look forward to what looks to be a stellar summer title that will keep you busy for a while.
Just hitting the stores this week is a new action game from Activision and developer Radical Entertainment called Protoype. Available for 360, PS3 and PC this game combines the open world environment of Manhattan with a shape shifting super mutant man on a mission to find out what happened to him.
