Ben-Hur Advergame is an Embarrassment
August 9th, 2016, is a day that will go down in infamy. Because of the much-vaunted release of No Man’s Sky, you ask? No, today is the release day of two unannounced, and outright lazy games. First was the silent release of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron for the Xbox One and PS4 that features no major improvements and a close-to-full price tag (Is Activision looking to make this shameless money grab a habit?), and next up is the release of movie tie-in garbage advergame, Ben-Hur.
If you can recall the awful Toyota branded advergame, Yaris for the Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360 you’ll have a little bit of an idea of what you’re in for. A cheap, cobbled together quickie made solely for the purposes of advertising that has no actual quality to the experience. The upside, if you had to look for one is that it’s free.
In Ben-Hur you are thrown into three awful chariot races and the only price of admission is sitting through a trailer for the upcoming movie releasing on August 19th. As the sales pitch would have you believe, you would ‘experience the glory–and brutality–of ancient Rome.’ as you ‘race merciless charioteers through a stunning re-creation of the Roman arena in Jerusalem, fueled by the visual horsepower of the Xbox One.’ Judging by the few screenshots that are floating around you can tell they really took advantage of that horsepower… or not.
With overly simple gameplay that boils down to not much more than button mashing and graphics that would do the Xbox/PS1 era proud, this offering from Float Hybrid and Krome Studio is an unadulterated dud. We’re not ones for giving advice but something tells us you should avoid Ben-Hur at all costs. Unless you’re looking to fluff up that paltry gamerscore of yours.