Thursday, August 23, 2007

Corporate Swag: Nissan Altima

Corporate Swag is the first of many bloggings about outside Business influence in Second Life. Why blog about the big bad business influence? I care solely because the company I work for cares, and I like free shit.

Every SIM will be rated on the following:

  • Swag- freebies

  • Beauty- Because if you are paying a developer, it better look good.

  • Ingenuity- Does it push the bar at all? Is it relevant to SL users?

  • Branding- Lets not forget that they are trying to sell you crap.



This weeks SIM review is NISSAN ALTIMA ISLAND. (Nissan Altima 122, 181, 28 (PG))
Thanks to Sinjun for modeling and humoring my free swag fest. In case you for some reason don't know, Nissan is a car company. They make what I'm guessing is middle of the line, decent vehicles that run on gas and have like seatbelts and wheels... I don't fucking know! Cars are big mechanical monsters that want my money and are constantly making tingy and rrrrring noises that my mechanic says are bad.

Lets clear it up right here, even though my dad, grandfather, 4 brothers, mother and a sister all worked as car dealers, mechanics, salesmen, service people etc, I managed to come out squeaky clean and knowing jack shit about cars. And I'm oddly proud of it.

What I do know is videogames and stupid toys that entertain the masses. :D BRING ON THE SWAG!

The Nissan ALTIMA sim (not to be confused with the sentra sim) has 7 fun toys you can pick up for free including a HOVER car. Yes, instead of the boring ol' cars that just drive on roads, the SL Altima flies! It does all the other things a car does, change colors, it has lights, makes noises. I've never owned a dominus, but I'm guessing if you want a free car but don't want to buy it, this is a nice option.

Other than cars you can pick up (none of these are the proper names): A catapult, a Wheelie car thing, an Ava Suit, Grappling Hook, Ava HUD, and a pet Bee er.. Kee.

I have pictures, because as we all know in SL, reading is for losers. To the right is the thing I have decided to call "Wheelie car." Everything you get has a little notecard to explain what the gadget represents to the real life car. I, of course, just kinda skimmed and retained nothing.




To the left is the catapult. It seemed promising, but since the sim was set to no push probably due to griefers, it didn't catapult Sin into the Sun like I was secretly hoping. Nothing against Sin, I just wanted to feel like Superman for a second.
Sakuradawn went with a friend and there IS an area where you can catapult, but not into the sun. :(





Next up is the ava hud. Ever wander around and then leave a sim only to go "GODDAMN IT I WISH I HAD A BACK BUTTON!" The ava hud is a back button. This is actually a very useful toy, except I think it will randomy make "NISSAN" appear over your head.




I saved the best for last, the pet Bee, er Kee. This little bee is customizable. He plays fetch! You can ride him! And he's really good at oogling your friends. I really love the bee. His wings and eyes move about as he follows you and then wanders around to check other people out.

My bee loves Sinjun.


You know what is the downright greatest thing about this sim? YOU CAN GET THE SCRIPTS, ANIMATIONS, AND SOUNDS FOR ALL ITEMS FULL PERM. :D They have a little sandbox area so you can screw around with everything. That by far makes this one of my favorite Corporate sims, as I like to dissect things.

  • Swag- 5/5! Superb!

  • Beauty-2/5! It's very showroom-esque. Not exactly a place you'd want to go on a photoshoot.

  • Ingenuity- 4/5! I've been to many corporate sims, and I think Nissan should get points for at least trying to create swag that is useful or fun for the average SL user. A flying car is always better than a nonflying car and the things like the ava hud which are helpful tools, show they actually thought about Second Life when they started their build.

  • Branding- 5/5! Even though I have the attention span of a child, I can see that the way they tied all their gadgets back into the car was very well done. Would I buy a Nissan? I dunno, I don't like cars, but at least it's one of the top brands that come to my mind now.

Thanks to ElectricSheep for probably getting paid assloads to build this sim. \o/ yaaaay!



7 comments:

Sinjun said...

Yah I pretty much agree with everything you said here. It's definately worth at least one visit. The problem with these big corporate sims, I think, is they don't really make a compelling reason to go back AGAIN. It's like they put them up and forget about them. In fact they just 'feel' rather lifeless as far as sims go in general.

But the free swag does make this worth the visit for sure :D

Noam said...

I'll take you to some of the other sims on my list and show you lifeless. Holy crap!
The worst of all the Corporate sims is the dreaded BROCHURE SIM! :O

It's like "use Alt+ your mouse to zoom in on this tiny fake phone you can't buy..."

Truth said...

damn this site is hotness! hottttnesssssssss! hi sinner hey noams .. bookmarking site... :)

Dawn said...

So I pretty much went to this sim as a I'm bored, need something to do. Me + bored = me buying weird shit or doing things I shouldn't and getting into mischief. So I dragged along a friend because I hate cars and he loves them. I don't drive, cars are those things I get in the passenger seat of and hope someone will take me somewhere. Anyways I had lots of fun with the free stuffs, and there is a spot to catapult someone from. There is a target and all, but you have to wander around to find it and sadly it does not launch your friend into the sun no matter how hard you try. And I tried ^^;

Noam said...

I'm a really crappy investigator anyway, hense I didn't even put the proper names and forgot the SLURL
>_________>
But I will update with the target info! :D

chicanery said...

I just want to take this time to say sorry to anyone I hit with the veichles in the Nissan Sim and I realy want to say sorry to the guy I hit 3 different times, it was wrong and immature.

About Health Blog said...

I've never owned a dominus, but I'm guessing if you want a free car but don't want to buy it, this is a nice option.