Hoot Hoot, the owl

Does everybody remember that owl from the tootsie pop commercials? You know, one, two, THREE! Well, those were the days of good commercials. Nowadays, commercials have become my favorite cliche: either really good or really bad. Election commercials are generally terrible. Maryland's Michael Steele actually has a pretty good campaign, though he's going to lose. But he does love puppies.

Game commercials consistently violate my cliche, which sounds quite lewd, but really isn't. Game commercials don't blow me away. They sometimes succeed in making me more interested in the game, but not regularly. I think that they should be more like movie commercials. Show off some of the best stuff and make the story sounds cool, even if it isn't (see Saw III). Often the commercials uses one of three systems: you've played the prequel (or a similar game) and they compare the new one to that, Maxim likes the game, it looks cool. Sure, there are other systems, but they aren't standbys.

Why don't I see more broad-based advertising. Thats a way to pull people in. It seems like most game commercials exist to sell the console because they all focus on that at the end. and consoles are advertised all over the place. According to the current norms, gamers mostly watch Adult Swim. Okay, that's entirely true, but from my experience, gamers do an exceptional job of playing while watching TV. Why not better advertising? Why not election-like smear campaigns between Gears of War and Halo and Red Steel. But that gets us back to a console war. Whatever.