Alice got me thinking again. The otherwise superb Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is currently desperate to get me trying Air Waves chewing gum. It’s been prominent in every cutscene so far which frankly annoys. Fisher using a Nokia? Fine. AMD sticker on the load screen and in-game PCs? Fine. Sticking AirWaves front and centre for the first few seconds of a cutscene, having already pointlessly shown Fisher popping some in his mouth during the last cutscene ? Practically insulting and likely to make me never buy their damn gum on principle.

Yes, this is a bit ranty, but my point is advertising in games can be fine, it just has to be sensibly done rather than shoved in your face. It’s like banner ads versus popups really, I just hope game publishers catch onto the difference sooner than online ad agencies did. Funcom seem to going about it in the right way so far, though it must be a bit odd seeing modern ads in a futuristic game.