With the great new Halo: Reach live-action game trailer/commercial making its rounds on the internet and XBox Live, we've taken a look back at all the best video game commercials involving real humans and picked out the best from throughout history. Sure, a lot of game trailers featuring mostly game play get the job done, but the best commercials in video games are the ones that bring a game, or a game concept, to life using real people. Here's a list of 30 of the greatest, funniest and most epic (at least mostly) LIVE-ACTION video game commercials of all time; from the roarin early 90s, all the way to the past few weeks. Your votes determine where the commercial falls in the rankings.
[Tip: to see more commercials per page, click the "Change Display" button right below the description!]
Neil Blomkamp, director of District 9, was originally slated to be the director of a Halo movie with Peter Jackson producing. This is actually a commercial, and two internet shorts cut together to make an absolutely amazing short film that takes place in the Halo universe.
Saving Private Ryan was a little bit (and sorry for using this term) of a game-changer as far as war-reality went in film. I mention that because this compiled series of shorts is the Saving Private Ryan of video game trailers/commercials.
Nothing got us more pumped to buy Halo 3 than this awesome freaking commercial. Sure, the new ones are great, but they're a little THX1138... this is the Halo universe in realistic, raw form, like we'd never seen before. As a collection, this is the best live-action commercial for a video game ever made.
The Ratchet and Clank franchise did a great service to us all in keeping with the style of bringing the ridiculousness of the weapons in the game into real life.
Every commercial would end with "One of ___ weapons not meant for this world", displaying how absolutely awesome every one of these gadgets and weapons would be if they actually existed.
Very few things got us more excited to play this game than these weapons. In a lot of games, you're looking for the end of a story or a different way to play with your friends, but for THIS game you look forward to one thing above all: the weapons. The muthaluvin weapons.
Taking the whole "realistic recreation of what being an actual character in the game would be like" angle to a whole new level, the Halo franchise has added a lot of personal flavor to their ongoing series of unbelievably well-made, well thought out and inspiring trailers.
Continuing to be the Saving Private Ryan of the game trailers/commercials genre, the Halo: Reach commercial brings you through a Captain-Americaesque process of super solider creation. It flashes to a Spartan's family and humanizes the characters that we all spend countless hours sticking, laughing at and teabagging, adding a depth to the characters in the game that's hard to find in even the Masterchief character himself.
Wonderful, thought-provoking and clean, this is a great commercial for a video game, but kind of a great example of an EXTREMELY inefficient super-solider creation program. They could EASILY fit like 30 of those guys in that room.
Arguably more intense than the Halo 3 trailer that tops this list, this is truly a great achievement in film-making. Why couldn't that movie Gamer have taken a beat from this movie to make their action scenes half-way watchable? A lot of modern war scenes take great concepts and a sound script and make it into a strobe-light-esque venture through a world where you're living the stress of what's happening, not the events.
This trailer shows you what's happening, gives you the most important beats and provides a pacing you don't get with most FILMS, let alone other video game commercials. Definitely brilliantly made.
The reason it falls farther down the list, though, is that even though it's extremely well-made, it's not the most enticing commercial for a game ever. If you don't know the Halo universe, it's kind of lost on you. Sure, it came out around the time that SyFy's Battlestar Galactica was still in its peak of popularity, but it still provided with a seemingly watered down storyline.
A short with the playable characters in the game would be best. I mean who wouldn't want to see a commercial where Nathan Fillion, Trisha Helfer, Alan Tudyk and Stephen Baldwin are kicking ass up and down the floor... or, really, doing ANYTHING.
Animal Crossing, one of the most popular games ever, having sold over 15 Million copies, came out with a brilliant commercial to push their product: a Real World parody.
Sure it's been done from a comedic standpoint, but since this is a "simulated life" game, there's no more apt satirical take to it than MTV's The Real World. The commercial is basically saying that the "real life" you play in the game is just as "real" as the one you see on reality TV shows.
THAT and it squeezes in a bunch of funny puppet-based jokes.
Hats off, Animal Crossing. We find you boring as h**l, but this marketing campaign was REALLY appropriate.
There are very few commercials that take such a simple route to get us excited about a video game, but a single person repeatedly chanting the name of the most iconic character in video game history, just to be joined by dozens, then hundreds, then thousands, then millions of people dressed throughout the U.S. (And only the U.S.... Nationalism, anyone? Not even a shoutout to Japan? Oh, the 90s...) in colors that make the shape of Mario's face? Exciting, epic and inspirational.
When's the last time YOU played Mario 3? Our answer to that is about to be a resounding "now".
00:32 for the best of these commercials, and the one that actually made it onto this list.
The first two are fine, but just another joke about Mario characters in huge walkabout suits being mobility-challenged in the real world.
At 00:32 you have a great commercial for this game that, once again, really brings the Mushroom Kingdom into the real world in a way that isn't relying on the fact that people are in suits. A baseball crashes into a car and instead of just breaking a window, the ball is on fire and blows up parts of the car.
At the end of the commercial, it's revealed that it's Princess Peach who hit the ball, giving you just a taste of how strong and powerful all these characters are, and how over-the-top the game is going to be...
Too bad the game didn't exactly deliver. At least we got a good laugh out of it with poor Luigi getting the c**p end of the stick, as usual. What a second player.
Cooler than Heidi Klum dancing in just a shirt (yes, we went there), cooler than other random celebrities that have never played a video game in their life playing air guitar (or that at least don't regularly keep up with gaming), and yes even cooler than a random hot chick pretending to be part of an old movie came this Band Hero commercial.
What was so cool about it? The super-band of pop stars who actually play video games: Rivers Cuomo (lead singer/guitarist of Weezer), Pete Wentz (bassist of Fall Out Boy), Travis Barker (drummer for Blink 182) and Taylor Swift (okay, she probably doesn't play, but the other three make up for her non-geekiness).
Seeing these three in a band together was pretty awesome, as the music they play would be pretty cool (or at the very least kinda catchy). So, this commercial not only got us all talking about OUR potential super-bands, but got us thinking about how much we'd like to play each one of those artists' songs... on Band Hero (which nobody ended up getting, but like we said, we wanted to PLAY, not buy...).
Weak link: they're playing a Taylor Swift song (that is one of our guilty pleasures around here... can we move on now? Stop looking at us!)
This is easily one of the most badass commercials ever, not to mention one of the best live-action video game commercials ever made. When a video game commercial can make you feel like you're watching The Guyver, you know you've got something great on your hands.
The commercial starts out with some 90s-Johnny-Depp type being robbed at a convenience store. Two burglars try and rob the convenience store and almost kill a woman who called for help on her cell phone (apparently with her phone on speaker?...)... until the main character of Time Shift shows up and displays some of the coolest powers we've seen on the small screen.
Popping up behind and in front of the burglars and then phasing out of the way AS bullets are shot?
Where the H**L do we buy this game and what the H**L is it about?
Not only is this one of the most iconic (and difficult/competitive) fighting games around, but the commercial that launched the entire product started out with one of the most hilarious reversals in live-action video game commercial history.
It starts out with Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Mario and Pikachu holding hands and skipping to "So Happy Together", right out of a dream-sequence from the Wonder Years...
... and then all of a sudden, someone gets punched, someone else gets kicked and all h**l breaks loose.
Welcome to the world of Super Smash Bros., where nobody gets along and almost any pairing of characters are more than willing to kick the other's ass. The friendly beginning of this commercial segueing into the violence is almost exactly what the perception of Nintendo was before this game.
This game changed a lot in terms of the Nintendo universe and made Nintendo crossovers a mainstay in every household.
This commercials captured that paradigm shift PERFECTLY.
Something people don't really consider about survival horror games is that the survivors don't get achievements or go out to get some Taco Bell with their friends after they're all done. They remember EVERYTHING and it follows them for the rest of their lives (or well into the game sequels).
Chris Redfield has been through so much that it's insane that he's not more, well, insane.
This video not only does this, and therefore adds some artfully frightening depth and character to a trailer/commercial that could have just been a bunch of zombies, but introduces the main character of the upcoming game in a way that most film trailers try to.
A fantastic account of the type of character you're going to be playing as and an inspired look at the psychology behind going through the experience you put your playable characters through.
Greatest line: It's amazing how far you can get in life by destroying the lives of others.
Devil May Cry may be a fun franchise to play through now and again, but these commercials for Devil May Cry 4 made the games look like you'd be going inside a game and playing the main character from either Equilibrium or The Matrix.
One of the most badass fight scenes in commercial history, this ad is just one huge, 30-second-long fight scene between Nero and Dante.
Look at this. Look at this commercial. It works for both girl gamers AND guy gamers. Why?
In case you forgot, Samus (one of the most iconic video game characters of all time), is a hot, skilled, fit gorgeous woman that can beat, blast and kick the ever-loving snot out of you and all your little friends.
This commercial is a gentle reminder that you should never underestimate a hot chick and that it's totally allowed to have feelings for the main character of the game they want you to buy (well... kind of).
Up until the last 10 seconds of this live-action Kirby commercial, it seems like there's an upcoming game where Kirby becomes best friends with a severed penis who he eventually falls in love with (it would actually explain a few things...).
The reason this commercial is on this list is that it is hilarious to imagine the concept of the game we just described and would love to see SOMEONE do it.
C'mon, an anthropomorphic penis? Is that REALLY more unbelievable than a game about a glorified guinea pig that can run really fast?
This is absolutely freaking awesome. It's a bunch of little girls going through a bootcamp, actin' tough and getting ready to kick ass.
Sure, that's found in a few commercials here and there, kids acting like adult... but these kids are training to be PRINCESSES. What kind of princess? Not the punctuality-challenged, kidnapping-prone ones we're used to, these are princesses training for a whole new game... one starring Princess Peach.
The synopsis of the game filled all of us up with just a LITTLE BIT of girl power, no matter who we are, and in this commercial it goes like this:
"Your mission? To use fire, wind and water to save Mario and Luigi".
You've gotta love the Japanese. They take an absolutely awesome, epic franchise that takes itself pretty darned seriously and makes an even more epic and realistic... wait... what?! The Zelda cast as a Rhythm Nation music video? Awesome.
This is absolutely unexpected. Bonus points for making a hot girl Link and for making us, even if just for a split second, imagine what it would be like to actually run into one of Ganon's minions (when it's not, apparently, guarding a Rancor).
Remember when there were only two fighting games that mattered? This commercial epitomized the battle between Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. Sure, most of it is not live-action, but the parts that are illustrate the war that was going on between the two franchises SO WELL that we had to include it.
You know in commercials when one company BURNS their competitor? Well, this was a MASSIVE (and awesomely DIRECT) blow/burn on Mortal Kombat, because you know what? These are FIGHTING GAMES. There is absolutely NO reason for either of them to be civil. To take a play out of each of their books...
Nipping at the heels of the popularity of Bill & Ted, was this commercial. With a pseudo Bill S. Preston Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan in our face with a fish-eye lens, this commercial is one of the most memorable live-action video game commercials ever.
Why?
Because we all hate these people and because Game Genie ruined video games for a while. Remember when you'd have all these kids coming up to you bragging bout having beat Battletoads or talking through Game Genie stories?
Remember how you felt that those kids were cheaters and didn't deserve the crappy end-screens that came with the accomplishment of beating those games?
This commercial epitomizes the kind of person who loved Game Genie and used it to play all their games for them. It, much like the Halo trailers, is an accurate depiction of something: the exact kind of douche that made Game Genie a mainstay in their gaming and not just a novelty that's fun for playing with other people.
The cheesiness and pure nostalgia-value of this commercial alone make it something worth watching again.
This was when Pacman was still the most well-known video game character around, before we knew that Mario could save the world from giant turtles and, most importantly, before we associated any mustachioed, obviously-Italian plumber with video games.
The kind of weird part is that the live-action plumber dressed as Mario is asking for Mario when for the first part of the commercial it kind of seems that HE is Mario.
Weird. Oh well, this level of cheese must not only be revered, but re-watched. This is the commercial for the game that started off Mario in his own game. A part of history and therefore one of the best live-action video game commercials ever.
This is one of the first commercials to really bring a video game character into real life and expose the absurdity that goes along with not only the actions, but the kneejerk REactions that one deems as "normal" during video gameplay.
This Yoshi's Island commercial forced us to realize that what happens in video games would not only be absolutely freaking awesome in real life, but needlessly violent and just a little bit terrifying. It causes us to think that even YOSHI, one of the most benign and adorable video game characters ever, is hardwired to be a violent destruction machine.
Does this get us pumped to play an upcoming game with him in it? You best your sweet ass it does.
Back when Sega was still a contender in consoles, they released their online multiplayer capability through a commercial that was as 90s as it gets.
This commercial is freaking awesome for three reasons:
1) It uses the term "Jacked In" to describe someone who is on the internet. We really need to bring that back.
2) The commercial starts out with Americans getting along and then letting us know that they have finally been connected with one purposes... to kick each other's "booties".
3) It's a fantastically honest depiction of why people play video games online. People aren't "connecting" through social networks, "making friends" or "inviting" strangers to play friendly games; they're mercilessly, angrily and spitefully kicking the living c**p out of each other at video games and then acting like children when they don't.
Disney's Aladdin was one of those surprisingly-good games that kind of caught us all off guard. To top it all off this commercial was made where a kid who keeps his television outdoors is telling his highly skeptical friends about a new game. They immediately disregard his review of the game and then the kid uses two wishes to turn his friends into a dog and a fire hydrant.
What makes this commercial so awesome?
It's not the annoying, denim-jacket-wearing kids. Oh ho ho, no. It's the fact that the kid is out of wishes. His friends are stuck that way forever.
Even though this is definitely a post-Halo "let's make a blue-tinted, realistic war" commercial, it gets its greatness from basically running the audience through an entire level.
You have an objective, a person you need to kill, a realistic look at the futuristic weapons used in the game and a short, sweet and to-the-point commercial which doesn't beat around the bush with jokes, but instead shows you, the audience, the experience that the game designers were really going for when they made the game.
This is one of the greatest live-action video game commercials for three reasons:
1) It's a nerd turning a bully/jock on to something that will make him "one of them".
2) It reminds us of a time when the best, clearest and most effective way to communicate ANYTHING to anyone under 18 was with poorly written hip-hop.
3) The end of the commercial for the "Nintendo Entertainment System" says the words "your parents help you set it up". Remember when parents were more technically adept than their kids? Nowadays that young-Michael-Douglas-in-the-movie-Falling-Down kid would not only know how to set up his OWN video game system, but could probably forge his parents' credit cards and buy another system so he wouldn't have to share Zelda with that weird-looking-eyebrows kid.
The elves (we're not being offensive, watch the commercial, they're "elves" we swear), Sonic The Hedgehog, and lock-in technology. This commercial had it all.
Not only is it a perfect commercial to explain, during the Christmas season, a new technology to kids, but it's something that makes you not only want to go out and BUY Sonic & Knuckles immediately, but to see the technology in action.
Oh and the fact that the elves share one supermodel (check out the end of the commercial) is absolutely awesome.
Easily one of the creepiest commercials of all time, this particular spot uses the popular-at-the-time technique of putting really horrible CGI/cartoons in with people (did you SEE Cool World?) and thinking it looks awesome.
Other than inspire many nightmares and causing us to throw out our Nintendos when we were little, this commercial CHALLENGED kids. It didn't cottle them into thinking they were going to have a pleasant experience. It did what video games used to do a lot more and have stopped doing in a lot of ways:
CHALLENGE KIDS.
Also, Duck Hunt Dog is probably the most terrifying.
Back in the 90s, when guys still had to prove how tough they were to be valued as "guys" and not just have to be able to restore someone's PC to do so, masculinity was valued in the form of pure BRAWN.
Kirby isn't currently marketed as this tough powerhouse who can do anything physical. Why? Because we all know who he is, know he's adorable and just a little bit chibi, and respect the h**l out of his abilities.
This live-action commercial provided a perfect balance of making Kirby incredibly cute, relatable as well as tough as nails. The fact that he was taking on, and being juxtaposed with, real tough dudes from the real world brought the character into a place where he feels more like a superhero and less like a little blob that you can control in a game where your protagonist is pink.
This commercial is hilarious purely for how absolutely and undeniably terrible it is. The campy nature of the commercial seems like they're about to unleash a hilarious reversal or a funny joke here or there, but no... it's really a happy commercial about cleaning.
What's the game about? Well... it's about cleaning.
Cleaning = chores
Chores = The Devil
Why was anyone surprised when Sunshine didn't do as well as expected? At ALL?
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Halo 3 at 12/15/2011 10:39 PM
TimeShift at 11/07/2010 2:33 AM