Total Recall Invades No Man’s Land
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
There’s something just incredibly cool about a PlayStation Home tie-in to a major outside entertainment franchise, be it film, TV or music.
Remember when you could jam to the Stereophonics in the SingStar VIP room? Or, more recently, remake yourself as an agent or extraterrestrial in the Men In Black Headquarters? It’s these sorts of promotional events which help to make Home feel like it’s connected to the outside world — that it matters enough for something on the outside to want to lend its name to Home. The catch, of course, is that these sorts of promotions usually don’t have a very long shelf life. The latest Men In Black film was at the forefront of everyone’s mind — two months ago. And you know the aphorism about nothing being older than yesterday’s news…
I’ve privately wondered if there was a way to run a promotion for an outside IP — like a film — that has a longer shelf life than, say, Rick Rockwell. Well, as it turns out, VEEMEE found the way:
Incorporate it into a Home game.
No Man’s Land, since it came out, has been a lightning rod for controversy on the Sony forum. Specifically, is its blatantly aggressive freemium commerce model an affront to the Home gamer’s sensibilities? Is it enough to build a game where people will spend money to beat each other, without any need for prizes, freebies, or other types of rewards?
You all know my stance on No Man’s Land. I love this game. I was ambivalent about its control scheme the first time I picked it up, but once I recognized the game for what it is — chess with guns — I’ve found it to be an enormously rewarding experience, to the point where the Sony Digital Platforms guys had a hard time prying me away from the game at E3. This game has pulled about seventy dollars out of me so far, and judging by the sea of upgraded players I witness every time I play another round, I’d say VEEMEE hit on a winning formula.
What annoys me is all the sniping and griping this game receives from people on the forum. Don’t like the game? Fine. I freely admit it’s a polarizing game. And yeah, it’s got some bugs which need to be ironed out. But come now: what (profitable) freemium game doesn’t somehow coerce you, in a variety of subtle and overt methods, to spend some money? Game developers can’t live on sunshine and rainbows, after all. It’s as if that lot on the forum expect all these incredible experiences to just be handed to them, for free, with more free enticements on tap so that they might deign to grace the game with their presence.
The best comment I’ve read was when some doorknob contended that if you love No Man’s Land, “you’re not a real gamer.”
Oh, really?
That’s when I finally realized there’s just a group of people over there who, in the words of Joe Straczynski, “have their heads so far up their collective asses as to have blipped into a new intestinal-based reality.”
Why am I spending so much time talking about the naysayers? Because VEEMEE has just pulled off something incredibly cool with No Man’s Land, and yet still I’m certain there are at least a few people who will continue to bleat and whine about how the game isn’t any good. I thought long and hard about how to frame a preemptive response to these imbeciles, when I realized my work had already been done for me:
What, then, is this incredibly big deal?
Simple. The new content release for No Man’s Land — a new battle map, new equipment, etc. — is a tie-in with the new Total Recall remake.
Whoa.
Consider the magnitude of this for a moment. We’re not talking about a new round of cheap virtual T-shirts as a promotional tie-in with a Hollywood blockbuster; we’re talking about a living, breathing game level taken straight from the film itself. This is something that obviously took a long time to develop, and it’s a pretty big deal for Sony Pictures to allow something like this into Home. Talk about a coup for VEEMEE, eh?
There’s a growing synergy between Hollywood and the games industry. And why not? There’s quite a bit of audience overlap. The first thing a gamer wants to do, upon watching some incredibly cool film or TV show, is go play in that world. Remember when Top Gun hit movie theatres, for instance, and we all rushed to the local arcade to feed Afterburner with enough quarters to fund a political election? With No Man’s Land, VEEMEE offers the Home audience the chance to play in the world of Total Recall. And given the significant number of action scenes in the film, replete with loads of gunfire, this seems like an excellent match.
The thing about a promotional tie-in is that it’s supposed to benefit all parties involved. In this case, Home definitely benefits by giving its virtual-reality inhabitants a chance to run around inside a movie experience. Does Sony Pictures benefit, as well, from this added exposure to their target demographic? Almost certainly.
I’ll say this much: I was on the fence about whether or not to bother seeing Total Recall — I’m a huge fan of the original version, and did I really want to see a remake? — but No Man’s Land has convinced me to go check out the movie. So the movie makes a profit off of me because I want to deepen my gaming experience.
And let’s face it, this is a much, much better tie-in with a movie than a ubiquitous T-shirt. Even after the movie has run its course, the Total Recall pack in Home will still be remarkably fun to play, because the game underneath it is remarkably fun to play.
All around, I’d say this is a massive win. There will always be naysayers, and god bless them for the looks on their faces, but this is a fantastic achievement for a Home developer, and I can’t wait to jump in.
August 2nd, 2012 by NorseGamer | 5 comments
NorseGamer is the product manager for LOOT Entertainment at Sony Pictures, as well as the founder and publisher of HomeStation Magazine. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, he holds a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and presently lives in Los Angeles. All opinions expressed in HSM are solely his and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sony DADC.
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Wait… this is a joke right? It’s gotta be a joke. It’s too cool NOT to be a joke.
Consider me sold.
But what if I want a cheaply stupid t-shirt… Nah just kidding. But please tell the Colin Farrell avatar is an outfit & same with that female avatar.
I wonder if a game could be based on a movie like American Graffiti (sell records? do they still do that? or cheeseburgers), or Veritgo or <em?Citizen Kane (let’s ride Rosebud and race each other).
I don’t know what this article is about but neither do I understand this comment and I’m writing it.
Maybe I’m upset because Vertigo is rated the #1 movie replacing Citizen Kane which was #1 for 50 years. It makes my head spin more than the article and comments including this one.
But the question does remain. Could the above three movies named in this comments be the basis for a video game and why not?
At least all this stuff made me think and there’s something to be said for that, isn’t there? Ahhh… maybe not.
veemee have a put up a page about no mans land and total recall.
http://www.veemee.com/nomansland/
KLCGame it looks like we get the colin farrell outfit. i saw a female outfit tooooo.
Theres been a lot of pointless negatives over no mans land, saying its rubbish which is no point of view, developers and fellow gamers want to know why you think its good bad or indifferent, i still think, me and my friends can find a lot better games for our money than no mans land, and playing it free is virtually impossible, you become a leper on the joining screen for a start. This looks like its just no mans land with a film tie in theme, which to me I can still get a lot better for my money, But its better than paying top dollar for a full blown film tie in game, with gameplay based on movie, which are usually pretty poor in they own right.