ideasareawesome: Halo 3: OSDT Trailer ...

Halo 3: OSDT Trailer

Designlenta — Daily inspiration

The advertising for the Halo series of videogames is brilliant, in that it takes a paradigm best established by the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, and adapts that model to expand the world of the creative property.

In the fantasy sequences for Calvin and Hobbes, the art often became more ‘realistic’. The Film Noir inspired detective bits, the lush alien landscapes, the figures of Calvin as an imagined adult, were more complex, more real, more fully rendered that the natural state of the comic. Similarly, while Halo would never be called an accurate combat simulation, the advertisements for Halo project the characters, ideas and iconography into a real world setting. The game is given a real army, a real enemy, real combat and real training. In addition to being visually arresting and attention-grabbing, it also pulls the viewer deeper into the game.

Instead of worrying about whether the commercial gives a good idea of what playing the game is like, the choice is made to worry instead about making sure potential players know what the game is about, in terms of motivations, story and meaning.

The added benefit of making the advertising more ‘real’ than the product itself, is that it borders on art. Excepting the little reminder that you can buy an XBox game console at the end, this is more short film than commercial. And it works, for that reason.

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