Square-Enix wants you to know that this is what combat in FFX-2 looks like.

Remember the Final Fantasy VII commercials? If you need a refresher, here's one. Who can deny being impressed by the pre-rendered graphics? How many people plunked down their hard-earned money expecting those to be real-time graphics, and not just snippets of cut-scenes? Obviously, most gamers knew what they were getting into but it popularized a disturbing trend - advertising games with pre-rendered graphics instead of in-game. And while commercials that completely rely on this kind of misdirection are rarer and rarer nowadays, there are still a few sticking to mostly pre-rendered and/or non-gameplay TV commericals.

While I can see why marketers and commercial editors love the pre-rendered footage oddly wedged in the opening of some games (Gran Turismo 3 come to mind) due to their visceral punch that makes even Jerry Bruckheimer drool, where is the need for it, other than mesmerizing ones eyes for a fleeting second? And let's not forget that it's not just pre-rendered footage that is the culprit here - cut-scenes while dramatic, tend to shall we say, infer that the game is more visually engaging than it actually is? Take for instance, the Tony Hawk UnderGround TV spot. Consisting mostly of cut scenes with just a handful of clips from actual gameplay, it strives to show exactly what you'll be watching in THUG instead of actually playing. Oh, and you most certainly do not drive a tank in-game.

There's an over-the-shoulder shot I've never seen in SSX3.

Then you have anomalies like the SSX3 TV Spot and this commercial for The Suffering. The SSX3 spot is more surreal than anything else - using the look and feel of the game's engine, there are embellishments left and right: the grasping hand, the gaping maw, the zooms and close-ups - it's intense that's for sure, but it's questionable whether it's meant to mimic gameplay, attempt to show gameplay or just pique your interest. Then take The Suffering's commercial: it looks like it was a victim of Midway's fine-tuning (read: delay) of the game as the final game features no pre-rendered FMV. The visual content shown is in the game (and are all unplayable cut-scenes) but are done with the game's engine. Both commercials redefine their own in-game look in the name of spectation and visual panache, even though in the case of The Suffering it may have been more incidental than anything else.

Even GTA 3's commercial was loaded with dramatic cut-scenes, such as this heart-to-heart.

However, there has been one recent television spot I've recently seen that defies this kind of chicanery: Full Spectrum Warrior's commercial. Actual gameplay. It says so right on the screen, during the respective footage. You know what you will be playing, and you know what is in the commercial just there to dazzle you. Perhaps Full Spectrum Warrior and like spots with disclaimers will lead us into a new age where casual gamers will not be visually jerked around, and will see what they're getting when they boot up their machine (well, at least console). Maybe we are at a point where marketers feel they can't get away with that kind of blatant trickery, perhaps they suspect casual gamers want to be impressed by in-game footage rather than cinematics. No matter the answer, this is undoubtedly a trend I hope will continue so we see less television spots and campaigns such as Final Fantasy VII (or practically any Final Fantasy game) rely on quasi-deceit and misdirection to catch the casual gamer's eye. Besides, isn't it more important to have an informative commercial rather than one that's just ocular bubble gum?