Racy advergame overreaches, fails

Feb 10th 2006 - joystiq.com

Running Scared is an ultra-violent movie due out later this month. To promote the movie, New Line Cinema commissioned a short, five-level game that includes GTA-style driving missions, shooting gallery style handgun and shotgun battles, and--in a tribute to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas's infamous "Hot Coffee" mission--a rhythm-based sex game in which the player must hit arrow keys at the right moment in order to prove that he's a cunning linguist, so to speak.

Most real gamers (that's you, Joystiq reader) would find the game to be incredibly low-quality, but as far as advergames go this is about as complex as they come. It's got multiple levels, cheat codes, load screens, multiple play mechanics, multiple weapons, a HUD, and both first-person and over-the-shoulder camera views. Still, it's clear that the marketers were too ambitious for their own good. Those simple, ground-breaking Orbitz ads were more fun to play. They were smaller in scope, unified in design, clever, bug-free, and rock-solid in terms of gameplay. Running Scared's advergame fails on all of these counts.

As game middleware becomes cheaper, we expect advergames to be built using off-the-shelf physics technology (such as the overused "ragdoll" effect). We'll probably see advergames that license some future version of the Unreal engine. These games will still fall flat, though, until advertisers begin to grok that elusive concept called "gameplay."

Before you click through, be warned: the movie is R-rated and the movie's microsite pushes the boundaries of that rating. Don't click through if it's going to get you into trouble.