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38 favourite bullshit PR cliches

Promotional crap translated into real-world truth

Words: David Houghton, GamesRadar UK

“An unparalleled level of control”
Massively complex controls that you won't use half of”


“Instantly accessible gameplay”
“As interactive and challenging as the process of playing and watching a DVD”


“Epic, involving narrative depth”
“A sh*tload of self-indulgent cut-scenes”


“For players of all ages”
“For players under the age of three”


“We're about putting smiles on faces”
“We have no real direction any more and no actual gameplay to speak of, so we're staying vague on what it is that we actually do these days”

“We're in this for the long haul”
“We hope sales will pick up one day”


“A new era of home entertainment”
“We've made a new dashboard layout with more links to things you can buy”


“A mature script by Hollywood veteran X”
“Full of immature adolescant obsessions like gore and boobies, and written by a guy who did a couple of episodes of Star Trek: TNG and a straight-to-video slasher flick back in the day”


“A colourful host of loveable, wacky characters”
“Every character in this game is so desperately hateful that no court in the land would convict you for beating them to death if they existed in the real world”. Also apply to anyone or anything described using the word "zany".


“A hilarious adventure”
“Playing this game feels like watching a bad stand-up comedian get progressively drunk out of desperation and piss himself on stage, before eventually starting to cry under the spotlight”


"exciting"
“We really have no specific or quantifiable positives to discuss in relation to this game”

“!”
“We have used up our quota of the word "exciting" and have only exclamation marks left with which to try to hold your interest”
NOTE: It's a well-known games journalism fact that a newly announced game can be immediately and accurately reviewed by starting at a perfect 10 and subtracting the number of exclamation marks in the press release to arrive at a final score.


“For more information on the game, please visit [insert URL here]”
“We have run out of things to say about this game. Please leave us alone. We must drink now”


“A community-driven. social gaming experience”
“Here's the basic interface, now bugger off and amuse yourselves, because we're not giving you any content.”


“It will appeal to all fans of series X” / “It's an exciting new adventure in the vein of game X”
“It’s a massively derivative, less fun cash-in of game X and we're too lazy to try to sell it on its own merits. Primarily because it HAS none of its own.”


“A ground-breaking, 3D, online community”
“A chat room with graphics. People still use chatrooms, right? Awesome!”

“A chance for fans to explore previously unseen parts of the much-loved franchise X universe”
"It's a cash-in movie license, but we haven’t actually based it on the movie because either, a) We couldn't afford the actors' likeness rights, b) We’ve already milked the franchise so hard there's nothing left to use, or c) The license is totally inapproriate for a game and we only bought it because the brand name is hot sh*t this year"


“Built from the ground up”
“We’re going to make a few tweaks to our archaic engine and pray no-one notices our lack of effort. Kind of like the Emperor’s New Clothes”


“X-number of new [insert feature/item/clothing]”
“All the shit we didn’t have time to put in last time, delivered in a pleb-dazzle of numbers designed to cover the fact we’ve not got an exciting crux to the game"


“All new [insert absolutely anything here]”
Unless it has a giraffe on a unicycle in it or you can control the game with buttock clenches, it’s not new. Rather, it's tweaked.



The Top 7... PR disasters
We chronicle the embarrassments that the industry would rather you forgot



Games that shot themselves in the foot
Bad decisions, bad timing and PR-mageddon


 
39 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
harsh83  - 11 months 24 days ago 
- Comment removed by Community
Reported
Unoriginal  - 11 months 24 days ago 
I agree with most of theese but mostly with the atomspheric one. To dark to see shit.

Good one
SonicX_89  - 11 months 24 days ago 
Good stuff
legory  - 11 months 24 days ago 
I agree with unoriginal (How unoriginal of me!) when they say "atmospheric" it does usually mean "zombies will pop out of every corner to scare you."

Great article!
Corsair89  - 11 months 24 days ago 
"we're about putting smiles on faces" *shudder* That E3 horrified me more than anything in Silent Hill or Resident Evil could.


reCaptcha: Flintstones cream
lucashintz  - 11 months 24 days ago 
Aww good stuff. I love the week of hate, as well as the comment above me.
jamminontha1n2  - 11 months 24 days ago 
I can't believe he let us in on that industry secret for how to get a review score from just the first press release. Does this mean I can be a game journalist too?
recaptcha: Broad Gould
Xplosive59  - 11 months 24 days ago 
great article as alays GR
im glad to see the week of hate is back again as i loved the first one
is it going to be annual?


recaptcha: 21 Fannie
ELpork  - 11 months 24 days ago 
HA!! I've heard or seen every single one of these before, promoting one game or another.
Kerfluffle  - 11 months 24 days ago 
“A chance for fans to explore previously unseen parts of the much-loved franchise X universe”
basically means Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

“X-number of new [insert feature/item/clothing]”
can apply to any expansion with the word "Sims" on it.
GamesRadarBrettElston  - 11 months 24 days ago 
Star Trek TNG is my favorite show of all time, and your jokes at its expense have reduced me to tears.

Fitting then, that my reCaptcha is wounded $87
CaptainWow  - 11 months 24 days ago 
You forgot;

"Sign up now to take part in the Beta"

We can't afford games testers anymore, so you lot f*cking do it
Romination  - 11 months 24 days ago 
geez guys, there's a reason people use these! just because you didn't think of them doesn't make it okay foryou to be arseholes about it!!!

...didn't someone do something like that for last years hate week? With lazy review/preview writing?
Mittenz  - 11 months 24 days ago 
“All new [insert absolutely anything here]”
Unless it has a giraffe on a unicycle in it or you can control the game with buttock clenches, it’s not new. Rather, it's tweaked.

Sooo, Rayman aving rabbids is original with its wiifit control scheme?
Thelonius  - 11 months 24 days ago 
LOL. Another great gr article.
twishart  - 11 months 24 days ago 
This article is a "laugh a minute"! It's "over-the-top" look at the "wild and wacky" industry we like to call our own had me hunched over with "side splitting laughter"! When I wasn't on the "edge of my seat", I had to "stand up and cheer"!

God that was more work than it was worth.
JoeMasturbaby  - 11 months 24 days ago 
i couldnt stop laughing at the "zany" joke.

hahaha


re-captcha: Pro-Kruger
Grenade  - 11 months 24 days ago 
This article is full of truth.
noobeater  - 11 months 24 days ago 
love it.

this article is great

cant argue with those definitions
TrevorISme  - 11 months 24 days ago 
Heh this made me laugh hard I Especially love when they put these sayings on the front of the box like over the box art to catch casual gamers eyes as they search the store for an exciting new Wii Game!
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