Some E3 2009 Trailers

So E3—arguably the world’s largest video game conference—took place last week. Which means tons of new teasers, trailers, and walkthroughs as companies do their best to get gamers hyped up and drooling in anticipation. Below are a few of these videos that caught my eye (I’ve been able to resist drooling for the most part).

Yes, I know plenty of shame has already been heaped on the Star Wars prequels. Well, I’m going to heap on some more. Simply put, my first thought after seeing this promotional cinematic for Star Wars: The Old Republic—a new MMORPG being developed by BioWare—was that it was so much better than the prequels combined. Ass-kicking action sequences aside, I felt more emotion and drama coming from these CG characters than I did from most of the prequels’ principle actors.

I’ve never played any of the Splinter Cell games, but this commented walkthrough from Splinter Cell: Conviction really piqued my interest. The gameplay options, such as tagging targets, seem perfectly tuned to let you be the biggest bad-ass around, but I really love the projection storytelling device, in which memories, mission assignments, etc. are projected on the environment as you move through it. It’s an interesting way to present important mission information and reveal character info, but even more importantly, it, along with the editing choices, lends the game a fluid, cinematic look and feel that could draw the player even deeper into the storyline.

I’m contractually obligated to mention the Mass Effect franchise whenever I can, so here you go, the most recent full-length teaser/trailer for Mass Effect 2.

It’s 7+ minutes of Final Fantasy XIII. ‘Nuff said.

4 Comments

  1. Gravatar for Matt Matt 8 months ago

    I’ve often wondered myself why game developers don’t move into creating CG films as well. Like you said with the Old Republic teaser—these cinematic often evoke more emotion in the player/viewer than all three prequels (+ the clone wars) combined. I just finished playing through Gears of War 2, and was initially little frustrated that the first half of the game was 75% cutscene. These weren’t terribly evocative—sorry Dom—but they were beautiful, richly detailed and the voice acting was pretty good. So, why is it that Epic and BioWare can cram 45-60 minutes of high quality cutscene into a game, but the only mass market CG films we can get are Disney-esque titles like Up and Cars?

  2. Gravatar for Cori Cori 8 months ago

    Are you interested in Assassin’s Creed at all? Cause I totally saw the trailer for the second one yesterday and it was amazing. You should watch it if you get a chance. It’s the one with the narrated gameplay; it’s about 5 minutes long. Worth the watch, for sure.

  3. Gravatar for Jason Morehead Jason Morehead 8 months ago

    @Matt: I read somewhere that the next generation of visionary directors could very well come from the video game industry, much like the current generation of visionary directors (e.g., David Fincher, Michel Gondry) came from the music video industry. So I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the next 5-10 years, we see some more high quality CG films that aren’t, as you put it, “Disney-esque titles”. Rather, they’re more like the cinematic teasers and trailers that we see now.

    @Cori: I saw a couple of videos for “Assassin’s Creed 2” and they definitely piqued my curiosity. The first “Assassin’s Creed” left me a little underwhelmed, but I’d be willing to at least rent the second game.

  4. Gravatar for Matt Matt 8 months ago

    @Jason Assassin’s Creed left everyone underwhelmed, it sounded like they are trying to take the player feedback to heart and create more varied gameplay, plus he can swim. That’s like the theme for sequels nowadays, fixing the stuff that made players frustrated with the first game. Ironically, this is the polar opposite to what film studios do with movie sequels O_o

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