Joystiq had a funny piece yesterday regarding some screenshots they received for the Wii version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare:
All jokes aside … have a look at the dead guy in the foreground of the above shot. Does something look a little odd to you Perhaps a closer look {link no longer active} is in order. And those clouds {link no longer active}. Didn’t we see them in our Betamax copy of Apocalypse Now?
Companies have been using photoshop to touch up screenshots for years now, but blogs have been getting wise to them for just as long, going so far as to coin a term for those kinds of screenshots: bullshots.
The Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare example is a bit more egregious than most, but in general we believe the game’s need to market themselves. The slow erosion of consumer confidence once those bullshots are found out is something that can be tough to reverse, so keep in mind, if you want to make your game look better, leave it up to the developers.
