I know this is rather recent, but you have to see the online adverts for "The Saboteur".

It shows a picture of a scantily clad stripper with the caption "In Occupied Paris - There's Only One Thing On Your Mind", before the camera pans to the protagonist looking over her and the word "Revenge!" appears on screen.

This is a contendor mainly for its pure redundancy; the game is about a resistance fighter in German-occupied France, yet they use a (totally unrelated) hooker as its main selling point.

The fun doesn't even stop there; even the trailer contains a brief image of a dancing stripper tastefully equipped with tassels.

Shameless.

@KaylaKaze

It's not like the whole selling point of Tropico 3 was being able to rule a banana republic as a tinpot dictator or something.

As unredeemably terrible the game is, going cross-mountain on Big Rigs almost looks sort of fun, even if it's in an ironic, "Who the Hell coded this thing?" type of way.

A bit ironic that, in the "Marketing bullshit..." article, Houghton bemoaned people who instantly become interested in games just because of the outside influence of a famous person, when in this article, you do this exact thing by getting excited about Iron Man 2: The Game just because Matt Fraction is involved.

They should make a fictional documentary that details Ultor's rise to power from branded clothing branch to pan-globular totalitarian super-corporation.

Double post but:

@GoldenMe

I read your post and re-read the preview and yes, I must admit that it strikes me as rather gushy and effusive.
Phrases like "flawless level design" and "perfect shootouts" shouldn't be thrown around like candy - especially when this is just a preview.
Furthermore, I've played many sandbox games (GTA IV, Saint's Row 2, Mercenaries 2, etc.) and I can definitely say that none of them are flawless in terms of level design, and all of them have been made by developers who are familiar with creating sandbox games.
As such, I highly doubt that a company which specialises in FPSes is going to nail this tricky genre seamlessly with its first sandbox game, where so many have failed.

Also, and while this may be a petty complaint, there was nothing "clever" about the gimmicky flashback design; it's been done before and done better (see Second Sight for instance).

Hmm...

I don't recall having ever seen any film noir's or detective stories that featured elite assault teams having firefights with alien invaders over wartorn urban environments, but okay.

Also, I really wish that Bungie would start expanding on some new God-damn IPs.
What with this and Halo Reach, it just feels like they've condoned to the EA formula of "continue to release same game over and over again with minor changes".

Right now, they're just surfing on Halo's (arguably disproportionate) popularity, and I get the feeling that this isn't going to change anytime soon and we're going to see a lot more Halo spin-offs.

Again, what's with the PC Gamer Valve fanboyism?
The detractors have made several - some major, game-crippling - criticisms of L4D2, and you just casually brush them aside as "crybaby[s]".
To be honest, this, and all your other comments about how it's going to be great and all the fans are going to come crawling back, just strikes me as completely arrogant and failing to see the facts.
Your counter-argument seems to essentially come down to "Well, Valve made some other things that were good, so this'll be good too".

Now, I'm not one to accuse reviewers of bias, but this has got to be the rare exception.
There seems to be a Valve fanboy tinge to the prediction on Left 4 Dead 2; the content was so effusive and gushy, and so entirely without reserve, that I'm surprised it wasn't written by a Valve dev team member.
L4D2 may be the only mistake Valve has ever made in their career, and 'til this point, I was convinced that they could do no wrong.
When it all comes down to it, L4D2 is a sequel that adds the most superficial of changes; melee weapons, Incendiary Ammunition (why didn't they just give us a flamethrower?), new weapons (with 'new' apparantly meaning the old weapons with suppressors sellotaped on), insignificant changes to the AI Director (which was essentially a glorified spawn system in the first place) and a couple of maps.
Worse still, is what we are losing.
Gone are the claustrophic, dark, dank quarters of the original game.
Instead, we are treated to wide-avenues, low buildings and sunny streets.
How the Hell is Valve going to create any thrills, nevermind scares, when the environment is fully visible and pleasant?
All of these could and should have been DLC for the original game.
Why are we forking out the price for an entirely new game just so we can receive changes that could have easily been added as new maps and equipment, or even modded?
Even if Valve's intentions are better than just squeezing money out of - what is in my opinion - and already highly overrated game, I still believe that this decision made no sense.

Dissapointing.
I bought the id Super Pack off Steam a few days ago, which included all the Doom games.
I played the original Doom in all its low-polygon glory before turning to Doom3, and - to be honest - there are no differences in gameplay between the two.
The engine itself is mainly serviceable; the Source engine was released at the same time, and is infinitely cleaner and prettier.
All in all, I highly overrated and outdated game.

"Rockstar loves to court controversy, and is turning out to be surprisingly progressive with their games’ recent subject matter."

We obviously didn't play the same game, since I remember Bernie being - along with every other character in GTA's overrated, so-called "Oscar-worthy" TV-drama storyline - a shameless, one-dimensional stereotype.

Stop claiming it deserves a higher score purely from what you've played in the demo.

@GoldenMe - Wait, what?
You do realise that the part about "Xbox fanboy plot to sabotage a great console" was sarcasm, yes?
One of the site's was called "PS3bloggen.se", for Christ's sake.

Am I the only one who thinks this game has really shot itself in the foot by being made on the Wii?
The chances of it being purchased were low enough.

I hope to God that the next GTA game isn't set in America again.
If we have a retread of San Andreas and Vice City...

Personally, I think Moscow or Sicily would be the best locations.
Anywhere but the United States.

I find it quite ironic that there are now four "70" reviews on Metacritic - one of which is from PS3bloggen.se.
Clearly an Xbox fanboy plot to sabotage our great console...

Also, what's with the amount of people saying "I disagree with your score, I've played the demo and I'd give it 9"?
How can you criticise Mike for comparing InFamous with his short play of Prototype when you're basing your entire score off a DEMO?