So by now you, along with the rest of the world should be aware of the announcement trailer for dead island not being, well, dead.
If you haven't heard of it before it was announced in '05 or '06 and was due in 2008, it had a trailer that has aged terribly. Both in terms of what the game was like and the style of videogame trailers (namely terrible heavy metal music and smash cuts to lots of red text every 9 seconds on a black background) and a couple of videos to advertise its still impressive 'multi layered damage system'.
Then it vanished. Like Duke Nukem Forever and Alan Wake most folks assumed it was dead. A project to ambitious to have seen fruition.
I was pretty surprised to hear an announcement trailer for the product had appeared and was doing the rounds. Even more so that so many people where gushing about it being one of the best trailers ever made for a videogame. So of course, being a horror fan and a filmmaker i had to check this out.
I was not disappointed.
Not only doe's that get me excited for the game but that is, from a technical standpoint, a superb piece of work. In less than 3 minutes with no dialogue we get a narrative about a family vacation that has gone as wrong as it could possibly go and it invokes genuine emotion in its audience.
Sure the choice of music and the focus on the girl is a bit of an obvious, guaranteed heartstring pull but still it remains bloody effective. -pun not intended.
As a videogames enthusiast i am excited for the game without seeing anything to do with how it plays, so it definitely did its desired job with me. As a filmmaker myself i am impressed by it. Personally i feel the edits of it in chronological order have a bit more emotional impact, but still it remains an impressive piece that is easily up there with gears of war's mad world trailer or resistance 3's 'on the rails' trailer as one of the best attempts to sell a videogame as something a little more meaningful than "Bro check it, you will totally be able to kill some dudes in this!". For that alone the creators of such trailers should be applauded.
