A New Project Gotham Screen - Whet, Whet, Whet!

I dunno which Halo 2 TV ads you saw, Ben, but from where I was looking, they were mostly cut-scenes, if not rendered specially for the ad sequences.

Everybody does it, very few games ads show actual in-game footage from the perspective of the player. Maybe the recent THQ ads in front of Enterprise. I know the Destroy all Humans one is mostly in-game, not sure about the Punisher ones.

Let's face it, compared to the average images on TV, most in-game footage is quite poor. Understandably so, but poor in comparison. For a TV advert to show in-game all the time, with no cut scenes or rendered animations would be quite brave. The DAH adverts are pretty jarring when you see them.

Showing FMV cut-scenes is misleading, but if everyone's doing it, then I suppose it's fair game.

It's sort of similar to the Transformers, Thundercats, Centurions toy adverts of the eighties: I don't know how the dudes controlling them in the adverts managed to get them to fly, shoot, and do handbrake turns so convincingly, but I could never quite manage it.