Found this snooping around on a design site this afternoon... pretty cool little collection of chaos for the upcoming Brink produced by AKQA. Enjoy!
Showing posts with label Killer Spots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Killer Spots. Show all posts
Killer Spots: Bioshock 2 Teaser
I have a design book from the company that did the launch campaign for the first Bioshock game (I gave one to Brian, too), and some of the concept art is beautiful. Not sure if the same guys did this one, but the bar certainly didn't get lowered any for round two.
There were other spots that used gameplay footage and had more punch, but this was the one that stuck with me the most.
There were other spots that used gameplay footage and had more punch, but this was the one that stuck with me the most.
Killer Spots: Dante's Inferno Super Bowl
Already famous/notorious for getting rejected by CBS (the version that will air on Sunday actually ends with "Hell Awaits" instead), the Super Bowl Spot for Dante's Inferno is pretty tight. Great move getting the Bill Withers track... I dig it.
Killer Spots: Vanquish
The bad news is that this genre has so many games in it that all of them start to look like Halo after a while. And I'll admit that it's been entirely too long since I logged on to Live, so maybe I'm just the last guy to see this, but I'm really impressed with the spot regardless.
The surface textures, lighting and movement at the end remind me a lot of District 9, and I've always been a sucker for detail shots of power suits being assembled (Iron Man didn't do much to curb that enthusiasm. By the way, check out Danny Yount and Prologue's amazing schematic end titles from that movie if I never posted them before...).
Shades of the Gears of War 2 trailer at the top as well, although fans have apparently already been talking about the praying mantis moment in different terms than that (something to do with an alien invasion?). I'll have to look in to the story a little more to see whether or not the title is worth checking out, but it seems the promo has already done its job... here I am talking about it!
Killer Spots: More Modern Warfare 2
Wow, right? The track, the footage... just a great little launch day promo (you might remember the teaser spot as well). The people who keep track of these things are already anticipating that this will be the biggest media debut of the year. Not just for games; for all media. I was going to wait for Brian to try it out before I committed, but not any more... my copy is waiting for pick up at Best Buy this afternoon.
Killer Spots: FIFA 10
Not super-crazy about the music choice, but I love the writing and the idea for the new FIFA 10 spot from EA. There's a U.S. version airing now that ends with "ten billion Blancos, ten zillion Donovans", but I like the U.K. version better. So you'll just have to deal if you don't know who Xavi is. Cool? (You can see the U.S. cut here.)
I was a fan of earlier FIFA games when I had roommates, but it's been harder for me to get in to the more recent versions on the 360... somehow playing with someone over the headset isn't as much fun as doing it in person. Maybe I'll give this one a shot, though... the gameplay features look amazing.
Killer Spots: Beatles Rock Band Outro
The opening cinematic to The Beatles Rock Band was a thing of beauty... here's the bookend to that, which I think is every bit as cool (and moving?). If anyone comes across a downloadable version, please let me know!
Killer Spots: Halo ODST
Nice follow up here to the "Believe" campaign for Halo 3 from a couple of years ago. Story-driven, beautifully shot... I love the decision to go with a foreign language, too. Puts the emphasis on the emotional in a really simple way. Any time you can get kids thinking about why they're running around shooting hundreds of aliens, you've done your job.
If the on-again/off-again Halo movie looks half as good as the spots the marketing team has been coming up with, we'll be in for a treat.
Spoiler Alert: It's For Guitar Hero 5
Came across this web spot at work today. Naked girls? No revealing product details or call to action in sight? I love a good teaser campaign.
(As mentioned in a few of the posts, this is a tribute to/knock off of a French music video that also features naked girls with stylish black bars...)
Killer Spots: The Beatles Rock Band
Oh yeah, and the game will probably be a lot of fun, too.
Killer Spots: Modern Warfare 2
The basic idea is borrowed from this (beautiful) Mercedes Benz "Summer" spot, but I think the concept is used really well here. Short of having actual gameplay footage, it's a pretty slick way to hint at what the story might be all about, and it sets a fantastically sinister and sophisticated tone. I give it extra style points for bringing the levels in the elevator back around again for the end title. Smart.
Fans of the first Modern Warfare have been eagerly devouring screen grabs and guessing at possible gameplay options, but my big takeaway is more about the overall mood of the game; an approach like this one gets me thinking of a more grown-up, team-based tactical shooter in the vain of Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, and that's an exciting prospect. There were high expectations before the teaser came out, and seeing it only raises them... hopefully the kids at Infinity Ward are set to deliver the goods in November!
Killer Spots: Dante's Inferno
I love what they did with the EA logo at the top, and really dig all of the liquid smoke effects that they created as well. It's also pretty hard to argue with a game who's tagline is GO TO HELL.
Sounds like it's going to be a pretty epic experience... this spot definitely sets the bar. Here's hoping they don't F it up and piss off a bunch of English Lit majors when it hits the shelves.
Killer Spots: Fable 2
One of the cooler spots I ran across last year... Mass Market's creepy take on Fable 2 called "Destiny".
I love the simplicity of it. And even though I've never played the game, I get the impression that it's a pretty intense experience (which I'm guessing is the desired effect).
This one scored points for taking MASH to a whole new level. Remember MASH? Mansion Apartment Shack House? There was a great South Park episode where the guys thought the girls had a machine that could tell the future because they were playing MASH at recess... but I digress. Enjoy the spot (courtesy of Motionographer).
Killer Spots: Mercenaries 2
Sure, it's not going to win your head or your heart like the Gears of War campaigns, but I'm still a big fan of the launch spot for Mercenaries 2.
Why? First off, because I love the money motif that the guys at Shilo Design cooked in to everything. Reminds me of Shepard Fairey's newer stuff (see cover art for "E Pluribus Venom" in particular), and I think it looks gorgeous. Being that money and revenge are the two big drivers of the game, I love that they were able to combine them both in to something so simple.
Second, it's just plain fun. Cartoon-like violence, a jumpy little song with white kids singing gangsta rap lyrics... it strikes all the right chords that make me want to log on and destroy stuff with a friend. In fact, I think it captures the tone of the game pretty well... I was quite happy to fire up the multiplayer with Brian and learn that it doesn't take itself too seriously at all.
Aside from the really jarring product tag at the end, I dig this one a lot. You can even download the song from iTunes if you like, but the best parts are already included in the spot for my money. There's a director's cut on the Shilo site that uses alt music, but it doesn't grab me as much as the one they did for broadcast (and that's coming from a fan of the whole Brit-pop sound as well).
Killer Spots: Gears of War
I've noticed over the past couple of years that the bar has been raised considerably in terms of video game marketing. Bigger titles are being teased like blockbuster movies and rolled out with some pretty impressive creative leading the way (see last year's mega-launch of Halo 3, which surpassed even Spiderman 3 at the cash register).
There are loads of great campaigns out there for games and gaming systems, and I've decided to highlight a bunch of my favorites. Because I'm a huge dork.
If I were doing a top ten list, I'd screw it up, because I'm leading off with my number one pick. It's the spot that really set the new gold standard in my book; the original launch spot for 2006's Gears of War.
Built from the ground up with the Unreal 3 Game Engine by director Joseph Kosinski and the fine folks at Digital Domain, this promo broke new emotional ground with the beautifully mis-matched use of Gary Jules' "Mad World" cover (available on the Donnie Darko soundtrack). Not only were the visuals amazing, but this creative seemed to open everyone's eyes to the possibility that a game about blowing shit up might actually have some depth to it. It was a ballsy choice, and it totally worked... the knock-offs are still coming.
For this year's Gears of War 2 campaign, Kosinski and Digital Domain followed the same formula and went for the heart strings, but didn't quite pack the same punch as their first effort.
While both "Rendezvous" (featuring Alan Seeger's WWI poem "I Have a Rendezvous with Death") and "Last Day" (using DeVotchKa's "How It Ends") are killer spots on their own, the original is still the one that set the bar (although "Last Day" looks better and better once you're familiar with GOW2's story).
Good spots, good games... good times.
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