Note: The video above is not the exact commercial, but it sounds and looks just like it. You can use your imagination on where the scores would be.

Second note: I'm reviewing a video game ad. That's just crazy.

If you're a Walking Dead fan like me, you've probably noticed the same commercial over and over promoting a recently released game called Dead Island, developed by Techland and published by Deep Silver. Big shocker, it's a game about zombies.

Now, the game released with a lot of hype, mainly due to its very emotional trailer filled with tear-jerking sad music and reverse slow motion effects...mixed with zombie mayhem. Reviews for the game were so-so. Lots of 8 outta 10s. Some worse, some better.

Now this TV spot I'm seeing is mimicking that original trailer with the same tear-jerking sad music and zombie mayhem. Of course, since the game's been out a while, they wanna hype it up and get it noticed again, especially since the big holiday season is approaching. So adding review scores and quotes are the logical way to do this.

First review score shown: 4.5/5 from Gamespy. Nice. A nearly perfect score.
Second review: 8.5/10 from Game Informer. OK, not a bad number but the .5 helps some.
Third review: 9.5/10 from EGM. Bingo, another great score to promote it.
Final review: 8/10 from MSNBC.

First off, MSNBC? How do you go from three gaming sites to a regular news site? Was Fox News not available? Secondly, while 8/10 is in no means a bad score for a game, it's not really great number to use when promoting it to a massive audience. Especially when this game retails for $60 on PS3 and Xbox 360 ($50 on PC). An 8/10 tells me, "I don't really need this now, I'll just wait for a price drop."

If you wanna sell a game to people, you need great review scores. I'm sure there were better reviews to go with besides Game Informer and MSNBC.

And with an ad like this, playing sad, sad, music, and showing slow motion effects and end-of-the-world mayhem, this makes it look like - as some would say - one "epic" game. Except those 8/10 and 8.5/10 scores throw everything off.

Those are not epic.


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