Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Most insidious commercial of all time: "Nin-ten-do! (It's a break-fast now!) Nin-ten-do! (It's a cereal, wow!)" Don't say we didn't warn you.

Got a lot on my plate on the moment, so I hope you'll excuse me if I rush through the intro. Although I would like to make a statement of support and solidarity for those who have sent me horror stories about FF9 coming in - patience and perseverance, my brothers and sisters, your day will come.

Onward.

Like the other Chris pointed out, it's not even so much that no one had ever seen any like Zelda before, but that even when they'd seen the ad, they still weren't sure what they'd seen. I'm very much part of the original Nintendo generation - my friends and I were incredibly hyped up about the system just from playing SMB, and when that particular commercial came out we were all sure it'd be the next big thing... whatever that thing turned out to be. In the 80's so much was sold on style and attitude that the commercial might have just as well been for a new car as for a game, and I remember rumors flying around at the time that had the game pegged as some sort of side scroller where Link magically stunned his enemies with fairy dust. (In my defense I was 10 in 1986, so my BS detectors weren't fully activated yet.)

And now... you're absolutely correct, people do know exactly what they're getting from games. We toss around words like "innovative" and "revolutionary" about new titles, and they're probably more or less correct, but only because the status quo is so well established. FF8 abolishes buying weapons and armor, quelle horror! In comparison there was very little status quo when the first Zelda and its accompanying commercial was released (aside from the vaguely remembered 2600 days) so a game simultaneously had to do very much and very little to be seen as a trendsetter. Zelda (the game) and Zelda (the commercial) did those tasks very well, respectively. So when all's said and done, no, nothing will ever have the impact Zelda did... but that's neither possible nor particularly necessary right now.

Aside from being named for the main character in one of my least favorite Coen brothers movies, you've absolutely nailed this one, Dude. (Excuse me, THE Dude.) I'd quibble about point C in that tastes vary so much that some people consider anything that's officially perceived as "cool" to be "uncool", and not every parent is gonna be worried enough to forbid their kids from playing with anything that uses "magic"... but by and large, for games to get the kind of sales they're looking for, all three points are must-haves. Good call, Dude.

Considering that I just a few days ago praised Sega's Shenmue commercial here in the column, I'm not gonna be agreeing with you too much... except to say that perhaps such commercials are not made with us, the hard core gaming audience in mind. For example, I'd imagine that someone, after seeing all the bitchin' things the PS9'll be capable of, would be extremely disappointed to see the relatively awkward 3D models of an actual PS2. But then, it's my nature (and I think, the nature of a lot of other people reading this column) to be obsessed with such details. The average person who sees the PS2 commercial and rushes out to buy one will probably just be pleased that it has one or two moderately fun eye candy titles, and that it plays DVDs. In other words, perhaps it doesn't sound good to you because it wasn't tailored to you, and was never intended to be.

Of course, the above argument is completely based on the idea that there are PS2s out there to be purchased by people swayed by the commercial in question, which does not seem to be the case, but what marketing plan is perfect?

Way to get the last word in there, Wesley. I'd make a counter argument, but gosh, you've left me no room to do so. Bummer.

Golly, you took the words out of my mouth before I even knew what I wanted to say. Cool. The only addition I might make is that in a sense MM borrows some of its most potent tricks from Chrono Trigger, CC's predecessor. In CT you also had the option of going back numerous times to fix what went wrong before, and then returning to the future to see how your actions had changed things for the better. It's one of the things that I think make time travel stories so powerful and interesting, and Majora's Mask is one of the best.

It probably just comes down to a matter of personal choice, I think. I've never bought anything game related except for the games themselves and game OSTs (which friends and family think is plenty strange enough, believe me) but that doesn't mean I don't think a lot of what's being offered for sale isn't damn cool. FF8's action figures were particularly well done, as were Metal Gear Solid's. Too much merchandise probably would be a bad thing, but with the exception of Nintendo's Pokemon blitz, most companies seem relatively restrained. T-shirts, baseball caps, and posters are all fairly subtle, tasteful ways of promoting brand awareness, as long as it's done in the proper context. (I.e., a pimply faced kid wearing a cheap t-shirt featuring Tifa in her generously proportioned glory probably doesn't do wonders for the Square brand name, but a middle aged professional-type wearing a denim cap with the Square logo barely visible seems pretty cool.)

Basically, I think it just comes down to some things working for some people but not for others. Square may never get me to buy any models from their games, short of releasing Ashley Riot and Callo Merlose action figures (with Rood Inverse tatoo and Insightful Commentary™ push button action!) but it doesn't bother me that much that the figurines are out there, and they probably do make other people happy, so what's the big deal?

We can all definitely agree that whatever the current state of game advertising is, it could stand to be a hell of a lot better. As The Dude pointed out earlier, there are certain points that advertisers want to make to the public, but in a lot of cases making the exact opposite point will work just as well, at least when it comes to a game being "Wholesome". Parents may want kids playing wholesome games, but a lot of kids would rather play in traffic than be anywhere near a "wholesome" game.

Because of that, it may not actually be possible for game marketing to get better than it is, simply because what the core audience wants to see is at odds with what the rest of society wants to see. Think of many of the adds for cars or banks that you see on prime time television... would you want to play a game that sold itself as being simple, friendly and reliable? As long as games themselves are made for the teenage market, the ads will be as well. When someone comes out with a game that soccer moms will want to play then I'm sure the ads will become appealing to them, but in the meantime they're SOL.

Probably the most direct way to address Mr. Wright's point is to do a side by side comparison of the modern Zelda commercial vs. the classic, and I can find little fault in what Nich has said here. Both commercials focus more or less on the theme of the game rather than the actual gameplay (although in both cases if you're actually familiar with the game in question, you can catch glimpses of it.) Both games sell themselves with a certain attitude - in the modern case it's the feeling of a Hollywood blockbuster that gets conveyed, whereas in the classic case it's the feeling of a quirky little puzzle game that just might be a hell of a lot of fun. (In fact, one might make a case for the modern Zelda being much more accurate as to the game it's actually selling.)

In either case, the common theme we've seen in many of today's letters shines forth... tv ads and trailers just aren't made with us, the loyalist gamers, in mind. I think that to many people this feels like a betrayal since we'd like these ads to show what we're actually so hyped up about, because they're some of the most visible examples of gaming, but we probably shouldn't take it so personally. If the ad does well, it brings more people into gaming, which means more development money and better games down the road. And that's just not something I can argue with.

Er, thanks, David, you've put me in the position of publishing a letter that praises my Silent Hill review while beating up on many of the others more recently up on the site. I just can't express my appreciation enough for driving that wedge between me and the rest of my friends here at the GIA.

But your point is a good one, and you make it well. Unfortunately, I haven't been as active in the review section of the site as I probably should be, so I can't give you a defense of the process as well as I might. But I think there are some good reasons why the number of 5s we've been giving are justified.

First off, there's no doubt that we're in the middle of a gaming bonanza which makes the glory days of the SNES look as barren as the surface of the moon. The PSX and N64 are dying, and dying systems being supplanted by new hardware tend to give up a large amount of high quality software. The Dreamcast is just now starting to bootstrap itself up with some really good games, and in a few months hopefully we'll see some great PS2 titles as well. So in comparison to a year like 1998 which was dominated by maybe 2 5-level RPGs (FFT and Xenogears) we're now living through an embarrassment of riches.

Which brings me to your second point, that each reviewer seems to be raving about whatever gem they've most recently played without giving thought to the global perspective. I think there's probably a good amount of truth to this - certainly that's what I tend to see in my own mini-reviews scattered throughout the past few months' columns. But I think it makes good sense that things are set up that way, because that perspective represents what we really are - people just like you with actual lives who enjoy gaming as a hobby, not the end all be all of our existence. Our reviews represent the pleasure (or pain) we received from recent titles, so hopefully they provide good guideposts for you, insofar as there's not a huge amount of difference between the site staff and the site audience. Of course, I'd like to think that we also articulate and defend our main points well enough so that even if you don't agree with our personal take, the review's still useful to you, if only to sharpen your own opinions to the contrary.

But perhaps those aren't the standards we should be grading on... I dunno. If a game's good enough for me to rank it alongside FFT and Xenogears in my head, then I'd tend to give it a 5 because I'd give those other games 5s. (Assuming, of course, that the newer games had the appropriate amount of innovation in gameplay, graphics, plot, etc.) But maybe that's not how we should be handling things in this brave new world; perhaps we need to re-normalize our baseline standards. If anybody has any further thoughts on this on either side I'd love to hear about it; like I said, because of work and connection issues I haven't been able to discuss this with the rest of the staff as much as I should, and if any of them feel I've misrepresented the site then I apologize, and ask them to write in and set the record straight. On the other hand, if you, the readers, have further concerns about how we run our reviews, then please write in about it. I think the FAQ pretty well states my opinions on individual reviews, but if you've got some well thought out comments about the whole freakin' system, by all means, send them this way.

Closing Comments:

Yikes, that last response ran on a little more than I would have liked. But it'll all get sorted out tomorrow, on free topic Friday. I gotta get some sleep, so I'll see you then. Later.

-Chris Jones, wondering if he thinks too much