Orange-ya glad ‘The Godfather’ game is on its way?

Journalists are notorious scavengers, primarily of information. But food runs a very, very close second. So, you can imagine my delight when, on the way to the office refrigerator, I came across a bushel of oranges marked with stickers that read, “Godfather321.com.” Now, putting stickers on fruit is not an earth-movingly new idea. Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners used the gimmick to tout Snapple’s Mango Madness flavor in 1993. But darn it if it doesn’t still work. The stickers point to a promo site for Electronic Arts' new The Godfather videogame, a beautifully animated frame-by-frame recreation of that film's pivotal scene in which Don Corleone stops to buy fruit and is shot in the back by a rival’s hoodlums, causing him to drop his oranges into the street. It all ties in together elegantly, something you’d expect from an Oscar-winning movie but not necessarily from a first-person shooter. And it does the job. Not only am I eating my EA-sponsored fruit, but I’m eagerly anticipating March 21, the day on which I can “join the family.”

—Posted by Deanna Zammit

March 21, 2006 | Permalink