Call of Duty Ads Called Misleading

skankerzero

hah! take that pre-rendered cinemas as advertisements for games! Hope this catches on.

http://cube.ign.com/articles/690/690618p1.html

MoP

Good news!

notman

I hope this picks up in the US also... this is great to hear

malcolm

Good, I hate that ad, it made me angry every time I saw it. It tried to make you think their render was in game footage and did not show a single game clip. I think if I wanted to advertise a game I might actually show the game being played?

Downsizer

*cough* bethesda managed to do this even WITH ingame footage. they is teh masters! this has bugged me for years, games always do this, show the pre-render, then show a souped up engine demo, release screens shots of lesser quality, then release a game of lesser quality than the low quality shots. *cough ut2k7* *cough killzone 2*

(for anyone not informed, they removed object shadows completely from teh final product, heavily reducing image quality in comparison to released videos of the game.)

gauss

yeah it's too bad, especially given how gorgeous the in-game stuff for CoD has been, why not show it off? We're to the point that the in-game graphics should be the selling point, it's really discouraging when they shy away from that.

rooster

I was pretty surprised at the whole fuss to be honest, I thought it was pretty obviously pre-rendered footage.. I agree it should be spelled out to the general public though

ebagg

Awesome, they needed to change this.

Mishra

[ QUOTE ]
I was pretty surprised at the whole fuss to be honest, I thought it was pretty obviously pre-rendered footage.. I agree it should be spelled out to the general public though

[/ QUOTE ]

indeed. i overheard some people in my school talking about "wow did you see that commercial for call of duty those graphics are tight." sometimes the casual gamers dont know, especially with these next gen type games.

hawken

I also recall this ad on UK TV. It was just some dude reloading and shooting at a tank. Looks kinda lame even for pre-rendered stuff, his hand was all mangled and badly animated when reloading.

Toomas

[ QUOTE ]
*cough ut2k7*

[/ QUOTE ]

I cant see much of a image quality drop between shots from May 2005 and Feb 2006.
Maybe you confuse UT2k7 with UE3 demos?

CheapAlert

killzone.

scanning_factor

[ QUOTE ]
We're to the point that the in-game graphics should be the selling point, it's really discouraging when they shy away from that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that really depends on the medium. . .i think it's safer to say we're at the point where in game graphics make pretty screenshots.

<opinion>
I think many next-gen games have great environments, which makes in-game stuff great for print, but i don't think in-game character animation and deformation is up to par with environments, making it slightly less than ideal for tv/movie advertising. . .Of course, that may really not matter anyway, it seems even the game media doesn't really seem to care too much about bad animation as long as the environments have plenty of tone-mapped, bumpy, shininess with a sprinkle of bloom.

Still, maybe if there was a serious push for truth in advertising in games as with the CoD case, companies would maybe have to pay more attention to developing animation technology. . .
</opinion>

Super

Any links to the ad?

Downsizer

Toomas, watch the first videos, then watch the german engine demonstration, then the supposed ps3 hardware vid, then the screenshots. The screenshots dont have the same lighting, apear less detailed world and vehicle wise. I see lower poly counts, less shaders, lack of realtime sub surface fake, looks like they removed radiance transfer. Perhaps the shots just lack HDR or the PRT options, no idea, but I see less detail.

http://www.beyondunreal.com/image.php?src=main/ut2007/hr/ut2007_04.jpg
no player or vehicle shadows, fuzzy textures. Maybe i'm confusing gears of war or tech demo shots.

earlier, same level shot, better lighting and everything:
http://www.beyondunreal.com/image.php?src=main/ut2007/hr/ut2007_30.jpg

an earlier shot:
http://www.beyondunreal.com/image.php?src=main/ut2007/hr/ut2007_02.jpg
shadows, sub surface, hdr bloom, sharp textures, etc. Maybe from an ingame cinematic?