3/9/15
English 101
Analysis paper
A virtual reality
We have almost all seen someone get mad while playing a video game. Sometimes possibly break things or get really into their character. Sometimes its nice to escape reality and pretend your someone or something else. Some of us remember the year of Atari, or maybe even the original Nintendo. As time has gone on the graphics of video games have become all to realistic. We have even got to the point of hiring actors to be apart of the newest video games. There are some theory’s of certain violent crimes being connected to all to realistic video games. With these graphics and ability to play its not hard to get “sucked’ into these games by convincing people that you can escape reality. You can race cars on the street, be a soldier, or make an army and defend your kingdom. The capability to morph into any of these things in a split second and escape reality is exactly what these commercials want to believe you can do. They show this in these three video game commercials by using a more realistic approach.
The black ops Call Of Duty commercial of 2010 (above) is a perfect example of how simple it is to go from the office to being in the middle of a war zone, killing your enemies with whatever ammo you may have left. The commercial starts with a familiar song from the Rolling Stones “gimme shelter” that we can relate to war with. The sound of bombs, grenades, and constant gun fire going on intensively through the entire commercial. Everyday people shooting and bombing each other from all angles.
They mix reality and fantasy by showing real people and not the actual graphics of the game. They only show the actual video game graphics for one second when showing the arms of a man holding a gun. It also draws you in by using average everyday people. They show a good looking business woman in heels blasting a gun while a bomb drops in the background. Another woman, a bit shorter and not as fit who looks like she could be a secretary walks behind a building. After shooting at someone she gets an exhilarated look on her face. Someone next to her with Birkenstocks kicks in a door of the building. They show a series of people, mostly working class, fighting each other in a war zone. They end it with a man that looks like he works for a food cart. Flames are set off behind him as he shoots two guns from both hands with a cool expression on his face. Its taking us right out of reality by showing other normal people with real video footage, not video game graphics and ending it with a quote saying “there’s a soldier in all of us”
Another good example of bringing the virtual world into reality is the 2012 Need For Speed Most Wanted commercial. The ad starts out in a in the middle of a city. It looks like a ghost town. No person or car in sight as a newspaper rolls across the road. Old western music starts in the background. A brand new dodge charger cop car comes creeping around the corner and parks in the middle of the road at a four way stop. A well known sports car comes around the corner slowly and parks on the opposite side of the four way as if they were going to have a dual. Then another cop car, and then another sports car until each side has about five cars. Looking like it's going to be a battle amongst cops and sport car. They find a mutual enemy as an average yellow car comes flying sideways between the two groups. The two groups start to chase the yellow car. As some of the car's start wrecking into things they change the camera from real to the video game graphics.
They can relate people to the game instantly by using cars that we all know, Dodge, Corvette, and Ford. We fantasize about how nice it would be to dive these cars. Then the average yellow car comes flying by, letting us know that we may be more average but we can still be a race car driver. Again the graphics for the game are only viewed for a few seconds They once again pull you in and out of reality by going from regular film to video game graphics.
In this third commercial from Super bowl 2015, Game of war uses a slightly different approach. Famous swimsuit model Kate Upton starts out in a bath with candles surrounding her in what looks like a castle. A ball of fire strikes down in the background. Her empire is being attacked. As her army helps her gather herself, putting on her sexy steel corset, she gets on a horse and starts to ride out of her kingdom. Everything else is filmed from more of a realistic stand point like one you might see in a new action movie, after she leaves you can see the giant “enemies” that are attacking the castle look like the video game characters. She rides away from the castle with not so much as a worried face on her.
This time The commercial draws people in by using a swimsuit model some people might be familiar with. Other's might be able to guess she could be some sort of model. This time they use sex appeal to get people interested. Also they leave you kind of questioning what’s next. Where is she going now sense her kingdom is gone? Kate Upton ends it with “Let them have their fun. You and I will be visiting them soon enough.” By her adding in “you” and “I” she is advising that by playing this game maybe you and her will be riding off together on horses as well. They don’t make her into a video game character like one that would see on the game because they want you to believe as much as possible that this could be your reality. Once again they use a more realistic approach and only show a small detail (the giant enemies attacking the building).
I don’t play video games as much as others but I know how much I have been sucked into a game. I know how seriously some people take some of the games. It has got to the point of cosplay where people spend hours and hundreds of dollars to dress up as characters from all sorts of video game characters. In all these adds they don’t advertise the actual game but for only a few seconds or detail. They use the rest of the time to try to get into your head the actual scenario that would happen if this was to go on in real life. This way they are making your reality now the reality of the video game. If that intrigues you then you’ll by it. Then you already have this realistic scenario in your head when you start to play the game for the first time. I think that as graphics get better they will be able to convince people more out of reality and into a virtual reality.
