by Mandy J Watson

Posted: 1 October 2009 << Previous Page

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Many web sites were launched as part of the online viral-marketing effort to promote District 9. In this showcase we will look at those sites (collectively referred to as "The District 9 Movie Experience"), and more, to see how they related to, and complemented, the real-world marketing campaign. (Plus, for fans, find out about some amazing items and downloads you may have missed on each site.)

Requirements: Flash
Recommendations: Headphones/speakers; hand-eye co-ordination

District 9: MNU Alert is an online casual game developed to give you a feel for what it's like inside the District 9 township. You can play as either a human (in the form of an MNU security officer) or non-human. Depending on which side you pick your mission will vary slightly (humans have to arrest or kill non-humans out past curfew; non-humans have to fight the repressive MNU presence and sneak around District 9 to try and find alien fuel canisters).

I am not going to say much about the game here because I will be reviewing it in another post (short version: promising but ultimately disappointing) but I did want to point out some of the more interesting non-gaming aspects that caught my eye.

I first played the game a few weeks before I saw the movie so the music, which suits the game quite well with its bleak, dark refrains, got stuck in my head and I became very familiar with it. When I finally saw the movie there was a point where the same theme was used in the score and I recognised it instantly. It is one of the few times that I actually took note of the score, to which I was otherwise largely oblivious, as I mentioned in the film review.

In contrast to the movie the music in the game complements the equally bleak, but beautiful graphics, which are a representation of District 9 and are very well done. It provides a sombre tone to the action, regardless of which side you choose to play as, and acts as a reminder that even though you may be blasting bad guys in all directions the situation and the environment is actually depressing, not insane fun, as most action games tend to be, and ultimately hopeless.


The addresses of three web sites in "The District 9 Movie Experience" can be found in the game graphics, which I thought was a clever way to immerse some of the other marketing efforts into the game in a more viral way. The mnuspreadslies.com address, which is depicted above [ read about it here ], can be found on the roofs and (occasionally) sides of buildings, presumably an act of defiance and subterfuge generally out of sight of the patrolling security officers, although they would be visible from patrolling helicopters (and, theoretically, everyone else, as I'm sure in the movie universe someone at an obscure blog would have found them via Google Maps, then going on to Internet fame, spreading the cause's plight in the process, via reposts highlighting the discovery at Slashdot, Boing Boing, Neatorama, and Laughing Squid (after all, isn't that always the way?)).


Another URL that can be found in the game is multinationalunited.com, the address for MNU's corporate presence on the Web [ read about it here ], which is printed on banners that have been hung on the security towers that are dotted around District 9.

Finally, the third URL is d-9.com [ read about it here ], which can be found, for example, on some perimeter fences on the left of the gaming area in the first level, so you might miss it if you tend to stay in the middle of the level.

All three URLs nicely integrate the game with the rest of The District 9 Experience, which primarily comprises fictional representations, bar the official movie site, which I will be discussing next.

Web: http://www.district9game.com/

On The Internet

Official Site: District 9