Halo 3 TV Spot: Museum

Apologies for not being able to figure out how to embed the video for this, so I will link you to Joystiq’s page which is the most direct way to watch it.

This is a television ad for a videogame. I know Halo 3 hype is reaching very mainstream media outlets right now (look at Wired’s spectacular coverage or Time’s, for that matter), so as an observer and not a gamer you may start to think that this Halo business is kind of a big deal. Must be a fun game? More fun than all the others where you do essentially the same thing; run around and shoot at things— none of which are human, by the way.

And then there’s this ad. This ad is much bigger than Halo. Emotionally bigger, and almost too big at that. But at the same time, it shows a certain connection fans of the game have with Halo. The connection is bigger than the game, and this spot, which features a veteran of Halo’s fictional war visiting a museum, pays homage to that. There’s no gameplay or high-def graphics in sight, no booming soundtrack or ‘splosions. Just an old man talking about a fight. And while it seems to take game advertising in a completely new direction, I doubt we’ll see much more of this. Games are certainly not just for kids anymore, but games that can actually back up this much artificial emotional weight with its users are few and very far between. It’s worth noting that the game has already topped a million pre-sales, so it really doesn’t even need advertising in the traditional sense. I suppose that’s how we get to ads like this one instead of screenshots and explosions. But my question really is; is this still too much?

Then again, the game could come out on September 25 and suck, in which case this is all wasted hyperbole.

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