The Virtual Suspects

This month's Call Of Duty game is out. And the ads have all the usual war game ad tropes:

• Lots of cut-scene footage, but no shots of actual game play.
• Music that the target audience wouldn't normally listen to.
• People doing macho but strategically-unwise things that would get them killed in a real game.

But then out of all these clichés appears Kevin Spacey, crawling out of the Uncanny Valley by sheer force of will. He - or at least an avatar of him - seems to be playing the same character he plays in House Of Cards.

If you think about it, there's also the question of why he looks like Kevin Spacey. If you're going to have computer-generated actors, you could make them look like whatever you want. But of course, it's the same reason he's playing the same character: recognition. That's kind of sad that we have this ability to depict almost anything we want on screen, but all we're doing with it is having a talented actor play a recycled version of himself. Perhaps in the future actors will choose an appearance that they will take with them through all their roles.

But aside from showing how technology changes, this is also a demonstration of the changing fortunes of actors. Careers not only go up and down, but also slide from one style to another. Imagine this conversation taking place just a few years ago:

"We've done it! We have the technology to place photorealistic actors into a game, and it'll be ready for the next Call Of Duty. Who shall we use?"
"Kevin Spacey!"

But looking back through his career, I think there could have been several opportunities to have him reprise a role for a game. After all, The Sims came out the year after American Beauty.  There seems to be plenty of cross-promotion potential there.