Yesterday I got jolly (justifiably) cross about some Facebook-based nonsense “advertising” Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Today I would like to celebrate some really rather excellent nonsense advertising Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The very splendid fake ad below is a gag-free, wonderfully made commercial for Sarif Industries – they behind the beginnings of human augmentation.
I’m most impressed with the natural acting. It would have been tempting to exaggerate, but they’ve really nailed one of those creepy US adverts for pharmaceuticals/self-help programmes. Good stuff.
There’s also a beautifully made (if astonishingly slow loading) website to go with the ad, which is worth playing around with for a bit. It ends up doing something else. Which looks interesting.
17/05/2011 at 18:37 Daniel Rivas says:
Staring Eyes tag missing.
17/05/2011 at 18:39 Acorino says:
Where’s the second eye?
17/05/2011 at 19:22 sasayan says:
Staring Eye tag missing.
17/05/2011 at 19:36 Teddy Leach says:
Staring Missing Eye tag.
17/05/2011 at 20:53 TechRogue says:
Tag! Missing eye staring.
17/05/2011 at 21:00 Daniel Rivas says:
I go away for a few hours, and I come back to this.
I despair.
18/05/2011 at 00:56 Radiant says:
And I’m fucking dis custard.
Oh wait.
18/05/2011 at 01:52 Davie says:
Staring Eyes tags have become endangered, and are rarely spotted in the wild these days. Their dwindling numbers are a loss to the whole world.
18/05/2011 at 19:30 Dances to Podcasts says:
Starring: Miss Eye Tag!
17/05/2011 at 18:38 skinlo says:
That was pretty awesome, great website!
Slightly scary as well.
17/05/2011 at 18:40 The Hammer says:
Oh wow. That really nails what makes an advert. Very authentic piece. I wonder if there’ll be more…
17/05/2011 at 18:41 fiddlesticks says:
My piano playing is augmented.
I’m so sorry.
17/05/2011 at 20:36 Bhazor says:
“I play the piano a million times more than I used to”
She’s the star of the next game.
Deus Ex 4: I hope you like pianos.
18/05/2011 at 02:52 Mr_Initials says:
Followed by Deus Ex 6: Landscape Photography and Deus Ex 7: Playing football with your son.
18/05/2011 at 19:56 Worldbeing says:
What happened to Deus Ex 5, there?
18/05/2011 at 22:18 Tainted says:
We don’t talk about Deus Ex 5…
17/05/2011 at 18:42 Cinek says:
old stuff. This ad was in net for long, long while.
17/05/2011 at 18:43 Gundato says:
Yeah. I recall pointing out how similar this was to the Cobra Industries “commercial” for GI Joe Renegades.
17/05/2011 at 18:45 Jacques says:
You’re confusing the new ad with the one on the site, which has been out for a while.
17/05/2011 at 18:43 Jacques says:
The music on the Sarif Industries site is rather good.
17/05/2011 at 18:44 Moni says:
Sold.
I’m saving up to pre-order a roboarm now.
17/05/2011 at 20:36 Anguy says:
I need all of those, not just the arm!
17/05/2011 at 18:54 Pijama says:
Wasn’t this posted here already somewhere?
Or I am thinking that every news PC-related comes from RPS these days. Oh crap…
EDIT: Oh, this one is new! Sorry. :D
17/05/2011 at 18:58 KillahMate says:
No, it really was already posted here. Quintin found it a while back:
link to rockpapershotgun.com
17/05/2011 at 19:00 KillahMate says:
Ooh. Actually Jacques was right, they’re not the same. This is a new, better version of that ad.
17/05/2011 at 19:01 John Walker says:
That one is about 390 times shorter. This one is way, way better.
17/05/2011 at 19:45 Mirqy says:
This one is augmented.
17/05/2011 at 18:55 cmc5788 says:
Was anyone else half-expecting that kid to go flying when the football hit him?
17/05/2011 at 19:02 Nicholas Totton says:
Nope, but when they were about to show the girls hands playing the piano I was expecting her hands to do that weird spidery thing from Ghost in the Shell where that guy types on the keyboard and each finger breaks off into a dozen tiny fingers and each one of those breaks off into tiny smaller ones where he types all at once.
17/05/2011 at 19:14 Ricc says:
Yeah, something like that would have been amazing. Her hands look like gloves. The scene with the fingers is totally the most scary thing in that movie for me.
17/05/2011 at 22:17 Josh Brandt says:
Yeah, I totally was.
17/05/2011 at 18:57 Nicholas Totton says:
I wish I could replace my bad eyes and ears with robo ones.
17/05/2011 at 19:11 westyfield says:
A BALL?!
17/05/2011 at 19:32 VelvetFistIronGlove says:
Oh my god, JC! A ball!
17/05/2011 at 23:15 Dozer says:
You’d make quite a detective, JC!
17/05/2011 at 19:21 manveruppd says:
Creepy but brilliant! :)
17/05/2011 at 19:31 FalseMyrmidon says:
I hope the game does a good job showing how augmented people become the second class citizens they are in Deus Ex. Right now I’m having a hard time visualizing that (which can, admittedly, make for a more shocking transformation).
17/05/2011 at 20:25 .backslash says:
They were never second-class citizens. Anna and Gunther were just then becoming obsolete and jealous at JC and Paul’s nano-augmentation that had them look normal.
17/05/2011 at 21:48 Bhazor says:
Actually, that is how they’re treated in this game. Look at the stills from the old teaser trailer link to slowdown.vg . Invoking the “equal but separate” era with all the subtlety you’d expect from Squaresoft.
But to me thats all just a bit daft and in the real world they wouldn’t be treated as second class citizens by the population but as threats to the working/middle class. After all they’re able to out work and out perform normal people and are arguably comprised of the already rich and powerful (some reason I doubt you’d get this on the NHS). I think it would just be more interesting if it was the augmented people being pricks and shunning the normal people. With the normal people looking up to them and envying them like Hollywood stars or celebrities. They could have subplots of people having cut rate cosmetic biomods to try and have the same augmented look or a character doing interviews for a fashion magazine. Theres a whole slew of issues on body image, celebrity, class, secularism, identity et al that they could approach with this set-up that it just seems like such a shame to wheel out “Augmented People Enter From The Back” instead.
I just think that by now critiquing 1950’s style American segregation has pretty much been done to death.
17/05/2011 at 22:11 .backslash says:
Plausible, but not certain. We know from the trailers that there’s an escalating anti-augs movement, with violent protesters clashing with authorities, but we don’t yet know whether that’s the general outlook, or just a vocal minority of religious fundamentalists or extreme technophobes. With Sarif being quite a big and profitable company, specializing exclusively in augs, I’d say it’s likely that most people don’t mind them.
And yes, it’s much more probable that when genetic/nano/mechanical/biotech improvement becomes commonplace, unmodified stock people will become unemployable second-class citizens, forming a new underclass. I actually read somewhere, can’t really remember where, that in such a scenario the rich and poor will separately evolve into different species, unable to interbreed in less than 500 years. But that’s of topic.
17/05/2011 at 22:14 aerozol says:
If some super rich kids starting hanging out with modified bodies that could do everything better than me, I would be pretty pissed/ jealous. Even if I hide it.
17/05/2011 at 22:45 CMaster says:
It’s worth pointing out that “real” augmentations wouldn’t make them better in every way than you. They’d be better at some things, but worse at others.
The suggestion of using augs for outdoor/mountaineering seems kinda impractical, as who really wants to have to lug around a miniature generator or massive stack of batteries as well as all their food and clothing. Making limbs “stronger” brings in a whole load of problems as well – ask an engineer what happens when you replace a wall with a big piece of steel in a brick house, or when you stick a jet engine on a WWI biplane. You’d also struggle to match the subtlety of movement of real limbs too. Same with things like eyes – you’d gain augmented reality stuff and maybe some neat features like zoom, at the cost of peripheral vision, lens flare, etc.
Back to the game however, the mech augs in Deus Ex mention the prejudice and treatment they receive. People see them as “freaks” or dangerous. The bar-tender in Hells Kitchen and Gunther are both kinda touchy about it. Of course, part of that has gone away – the mech augs in DX:HR are no longer ugly and clunky – something of a shame I think.
17/05/2011 at 23:19 Bhazor says:
Sadly, the old trailers do seem to be going for the normal people protesting augmented people as less than human (“You can’t be human with a mechanical heart” is one placard outside Sariff industries). Which is kind of like if the race riots of the 1970s were white supremacists complaining about Blacks getting all those rights. It would make much more sense for the augmented people to be protesting and getting beat down if they were going for the oppressed minority route.
18/05/2011 at 00:45 JackShandy says:
In the early trailer, you can see Adam jensen cracking a glass as he tries to drink from it. Apart from that, I haven’t seen much mention of the downsides of mechanical limbs.
18/05/2011 at 02:38 Grygus says:
@Bhazor: That behavior wasn’t restricted to 1950s America, though. We’re sneakier about it now but we still haven’t learned the underlying lessons. Today it’s about being against gay people. Tomorrow it’ll be against someone else. We haven’t actually changed at all. The story is still sadly relevant.
18/05/2011 at 03:18 John P says:
.backslash, you’re wrong. Take a look at the DX continuity bible (written by the people who made the first game, so they would know):
link to archive.gamespy.com
Bolded emphasis added. Can’t get much clearer than that.
Of course, Eidos has totally ditched the idea of mechanical augmentations looking monstrous and primitive, hence FalseMyrmidon’s concern.
18/05/2011 at 04:59 Erd says:
Outside the bible shown, it makes sense that the civilian ones shown in the ad would be more inoccuous. They do make modern prosthetics out of flesh coloured plastics.
Edit: Theres a concept of the original Gunther with a terminator-esque robot leg floating around the internet. But I guess he’s military so performance> cosmetics.
18/05/2011 at 07:42 Lars Westergren says:
@Bhazor
>Invoking the “equal but separate” era with all the subtlety you’d expect from Squaresoft.
As an aside, Square Enix are just the publishers. When people commented how very Ghost in the Shell the trailer looked and it was obvious Square Enix is a Japanese company, the Canadian developers said the game artwork looked like that a long time before Squeenix signed up to publish it, and that they have been given unprecedented freedom in developing the game. Square Enix have been very hands off and a pleasure to work with apparently.
18/05/2011 at 10:36 .backslash says:
@ John P: Ooh, I apologize then, guess my interpretation was wrong. Weird, I did read the DX Bible years ago, and totally forgot that part. And yes, that makes it a valid concern.
18/05/2011 at 11:39 Joshua says:
The augs are still, however, quite noticable. I think they are also quite ugly. But now they have paint. And more poly’s.
17/05/2011 at 19:37 Flobulon says:
Question – where’s the cheapest place to preorder DX:HR?
17/05/2011 at 21:36 phuzz says:
I’d like to know this too.
17/05/2011 at 22:46 Kadayi says:
Try here
link to savygamer.co.uk
17/05/2011 at 19:38 kyrieee says:
Hand holding the eye = Illuminati’s hand holding the globe
17/05/2011 at 19:50 Rond says:
A promo site for MJ12 would be much more hilarious.
17/05/2011 at 19:43 Teddy Leach says:
My vision is augmented.
17/05/2011 at 21:24 kyrieee says:
You will be working wiz agent orange
17/05/2011 at 19:50 Yosharian says:
How do you properly access the ARG in this website? It keeps popping up and then disappearing, gah
17/05/2011 at 19:51 lethu says:
Oh nice, I gonna post this in my facebook just to see the reaction of those of my friends who are not gamers. I bet they gonna think this is for real… [insert evil laughter here]
17/05/2011 at 19:57 Yosharian says:
Ah I figured it out. Neat. I guess these must be some augmentations you can get in the real game. The claymore one sounds fucking awesome.
Hurry up and release this game Eidos, damn you
17/05/2011 at 20:01 Splynter says:
Anyone else notice ‘Mt Denton’ in the augmented reality overlay (it’s only in focus for a half second, around 0:16)? Nice touch.
17/05/2011 at 20:09 20thCB says:
After all the money they’ve pumped into marketing etc this game better be good… oh god how i want it to be good >.<
17/05/2011 at 20:26 Bhazor says:
“Yesterday I got jolly (justifiably) cross about some Facebook-based nonsense “advertising””
Ok, sorry to bring this topic up again, why is it unacceptable for that kind of advertising when it wasn’t acceptable to be cross the Potato Sack did exactly nothing despite the insistence it would unlock the game early? I mean one cost some people over £20 and the other… is clicking a button on a website for exclusive pictures. Yet only one prompted an angry blog post.
Maybe I’m missing something.
17/05/2011 at 20:31 .backslash says:
The purpose of the PS was to release the game early. The purpose of mass liking on fb is to release a bunch of promotional material. You shouldn’t beg to get adverts.
17/05/2011 at 20:38 godwin says:
And also, people actually made payment in exchange for games, at a discount, with extra content. What.
17/05/2011 at 20:44 Bhazor says:
So are you saying all trailers and screenshots are adverts? Does that make RPS a sellout for linking to them?
Begging
Verb
beg (third-person singular simple present begs, present participle begging, simple past and past participle begged)
(intransitive) To request the help of someone, often in the form of money.
He begged on the street corner from passersby.
(transitive) To plead with someone for help or for a favor.
He begged her to go to the prom with him.
Really not the same as “clicking a button on a website”.
17/05/2011 at 21:25 Daniel Rivas says:
“So are you saying all trailers and screenshots are adverts?”
Yes.
“Does that make RPS a sellout for linking to them?”
Of sorts. Oh well.
Clicking “like” on something spams everyone on my Facebook friends list who hasn’t yet had the good sense to click “Ignore items from Daniel”. It’s a shitty way to “involve the community”.
17/05/2011 at 21:55 Bhazor says:
Clicking “like” on something spams everyone on my Facebook friends list who hasn’t yet had the good sense to click “Ignore items from Daniel”
No it doesn’t. Liking something on Facebook brings up a one time post on other peoples pages (which is one line that says for example “Daniel has liked Marwencol”). They don’t receive any other messages from that thing you liked or else I’d be getting daily messages for Jersey Shore and Pizza Hut.
But heavily advertising a set of games with no relation to the game they’re promoting on the suggestion that doing so will unlock bonus content and extras is fine? The point is that the angry blog post yesterday seemed totally out of left field to me. The fact that he seemed take it so personally I mean.
17/05/2011 at 22:07 Daniel Rivas says:
“Liking something on Facebook brings up a one time post on other people’s pages.”
Yes. It’s annoying, and it makes me think slightly less of everyone involved. It’s bad enough when it’s just some nonsense joke, but it’s worse when it’s something that’s trying to sell me a product that they’ve clicked because they might get to see a trailer. And that’s because it looks desperate, on both sides.
17/05/2011 at 22:19 Bhazor says:
“Oh that guy I know likes that game/movie/tv show. What a twat.”
I honestly give up. Clearly some people just take it personally and I have no idea why.
17/05/2011 at 22:24 Daniel Rivas says:
“I have no idea why.”
Oh, I very much doubt that.
17/05/2011 at 22:30 Frank says:
Starcraft 2 had a similar promo, with a lot of artwork and music.
18/05/2011 at 06:00 bill says:
Didn’t the potato sack buyers spend 20 quid on a load of games? Didn’t they infact get said games for a very low price? And said games got extra content for free.
How does that equate to being asked to spam your friends in order to receive advertising? Advertising that they’re hardly going to withhold).
18/05/2011 at 12:44 Bhazor says:
Those games were a) marketed heavily with a promotion that didn’t actually do anything and b) they had absolutely zero connection to the game they were promoting. They also cost £20 and required much more busy work.
As I said before there is no spamming involved. Liking something does not post anything on your friends pages. The only time you’ll know they liked something is if you go to their profile and read through their news. Have you actually used Facebook?
17/05/2011 at 20:28 .backslash says:
I’m quietly hopeful. Ever since the h+ made it into one of the first trailers, I’m thinking that at least they got the trans-humanist angle pinned down. Now please let the actual in-game story and gameplay be as good as the world-building.
17/05/2011 at 20:34 Zaboomafoozarg says:
Hasn’t this video been out for 48 years now?
17/05/2011 at 20:41 Zaboomafoozarg says:
OH ITS A REMAKE
18/05/2011 at 16:38 Benny says:
Director’s cut! Now with more Staring Eye!
17/05/2011 at 22:06 TooNu says:
Sarif Industries, handle balls better.
17/05/2011 at 22:31 lethu says:
Hat’s off.
17/05/2011 at 23:07 Luckz says:
Embed link to youtube.com instead, it’s the real upload by eidos, not some shitty reupload by some assholes full of tags and bullshit.
Lets somebody watch it without everything being spoiled, too, besides the “Eidos Montreal” bit.
18/05/2011 at 00:38 BeamSplashX says:
“At first, I was like ‘No chess-playing augmentation? What about augmenting MY life, Sarif?’ but then I realized that I could get around it by killing other players with my skul-gun.”
Sarif. They won’t live long enough to see your WARFACE!
18/05/2011 at 01:48 Tetragrammaton says:
Vecna?
18/05/2011 at 12:50 Lars Westergren says:
Indeed. Hand AND eye.
18/05/2011 at 05:13 Hypocee says:
[nerd] The muscles that drive your piano-playin’ hands are in your forearms, rargh! [/nerd]
Magnificent nonetheless.
18/05/2011 at 08:59 El Mariachi says:
Also the dad throws that football entirely incorrectly. You don’t push it like a dart or a paper airplane; it spirals when you throw it as you would a spherical ball. I guess that’s why he needed the augmentation.
18/05/2011 at 06:18 Angryinternetman says:
Well… all is not lost in the “augmented people look like monsters” thing. In this prequel we have all the good technology because the world hasnt collapsed yet.
But now im just making things up to compensate the changes.
That usually means for me that the game im playing is going to be good, if it stimulates my thougths this much.
18/05/2011 at 07:54 Corrupt_Tiki says:
I’d like to augment her.
18/05/2011 at 11:56 adonf says:
Her teeth augmentations make her speech a bit weird, don’t you think ?
18/05/2011 at 09:12 DBG says:
John, I am dissapointed. This ad and the serif website are very old, it’s frustrating to see you write about it as if it was only added just now to go with the facebook shit.
I think the website was even mentioned on RPS at some point when it appeared.
18/05/2011 at 09:35 Sardaukar says:
I’m probably late to the party on this, but I cannot get over how clever the company name is- an industry leader in human augmentation called Sarif.
18/05/2011 at 14:45 bill says:
Anyone see this link to bbc.co.uk ?
The future is now.
19/05/2011 at 00:06 Iucounu says:
Yes, I just showed up to post the same link!