Modern video games can produce some of the grandest vistas, most heart-pounding set-pieces and amazingly fantastical worlds found in any form of fiction.
However, it was not always this way. There was once a dark time in the era of our chosen medium, when full motion video and daytime television actors walked the surface of the gaming sphere. While that time may have passed and we no longer need to hire washed up Sci-Fi Syfy Channel actors to star in our games, we may still witness the last vestiges of that bygone epoch in the form of the mighty live-action trailer.
And so, over the next couple of weeks I invite you to explore that nostalgic shard of video game apocrypha. Some of these trailers are truly great! Some of them are truly terrible… And some of them are just, plain weird.
The Best:
#1) Metroid Prime
I’ve never tried to keep secret the fact that Metroid Prime is my favorite entry in the franchise. That’s right; I like it more than Super Metroid.
This trailer for Metroid Prime (shot by Alex Proyas of The Crow and Dark City fame) perfectly captures the creeping dread and solitude that the series has always been known for; and that the first Metroid Prime encapsulates better than any other Metroidgame period.
This black sheep of the Nintendo family may not be receiving the treatment it deserves these days, but this trailer brings me all the way back to a time when the Gamecube and Nintendo were all about unnecessary dodge-rolls and not about unnecessary waggle.
#2) Resistance 3
Who says that nobody makes awesome, live-action trailers anymore?
This bluesy, Bob Dylan filled live action trailer for Resistance 3 can and will send chills down the spine of even the most jaded sci-fi shooter aficionado. It’s got all the darkness and despair that the series does so beautifully as well as a hidden message about putting aside our differences with our common man to blow away some mutant, alien hybrids.
What is it about smokey voiced guitar players that makes for such awesome trailers?
#3) Ratchet and Clank
You know what this list is really lacking so far? Lolz. Ratchet and Clank can remedy that.
These homemade-chic TV ads for the Ratchet and Clank series more-or-less singlehandedly solidified my decision to get a Playstation 2 over the original Xbox and the Gamecube. Now, that might sound like an obvious choice now but bear in mind that the first game in the series was released in the early days of those consoles, when it was still anybody’s game.
Also, I was twelve.
As luck would have it, however, the promise of all of those outrageous weapons and gadgets along with the trailer park humor motif was all that my young brain needed to instantly imprint on the greatest console ever made like a baby chick that’s just broken from its shell.
The Worst:
#1) Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
Nothing says highflying, action-adventure and gritty, gory battles lie ahead quite like a bunch of actors standing in a room. Amirite?
This trailer provides almost literally nothing to get your blood pumping. This is a game about seven foot tall space gorillas in space armor splattering space orcs orks. How do you make that boring? I guess this is how.
I suppose it does feature Tricia Helfer talking about ‘secretions’, if that’s what you’re into.
#2)The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Probably the most famously bad trailer on this list, this Japanese ad for A Link to the Past is just… I don’t know what this is.
I mean, I know the 80’s were a rough time for classy advertising, especially when it came to ‘children’s entertainment’ but this is just beyond your average generation gap shenanigans or even normal, Japanese weirdness.
The fact that Link appears to be portrayed by a girl in this ad makes it a strong contender for our ‘Weirdest’ category; however, the retroactive lack of respect for what would later become a staple of the industry cannot go unpunished.
#3) Ty the Tasmanian Tiger
I realize that Ty the Tasmanian Tiger came out in at a time when Duke Nukem Forever was still punch line of the gaming industry but if there is anything we learned from that game’s eventual release; it’s that making sport of your betters only draws attention to your own faults.
Sorry, Ty, but you aren’t even fit to polish Spyro’s talons.
The Weirdest:
#1) Katamari Damacy
Oh Japan, how we love your weirdness.
From the country that brought you bushido, the katana and mother-fizzucking ninjas comes Katamari Damacy, possibly the first truly bananas Japanese import to really pick up mainstream mindshare in the West.
A little context might help. You see, in Katamari Damacy, the player is tasked with rolling increasingly large items (and people and building) into a giant, sticky ball.
I only hope that the people in this trailer are aware that they are all going to be incinerated in the birth of a new star. Because, that’s what you do with that giant ball in Katamari Damacy. You turn household items, cars, people and buildings into star fuel.
#2) Sega Saturn: Theatre of the Eye
Much like the Ratchet and Clank ads, this Sega Saturn commercial knows when to stop taking things too seriously. It is, after all, an advertisement for a toy: a thing of pleasure and amusement, a source of reprieve from our day-to-day lives.
Unlike the Ratchet advertisements, however, it gets in that one, final shot at the sphincter…
Weird.
#3) Halo: Reach
There was a lot of pressure going in for whoever was in charge of marketing for Halo: Reach. Not only was it the final chapter (to be developed by Bungie) in the saga that practically defined a generation of gaming, it was also a franchise with some truly great live-action trailers. If they were going to be remembered, they would need to go out with a bang.
Instead of a bang, we got this. It’s not really a whimper either. That final trailer is just sort of the ol’ Malcolm in the middle.
Maybe expectations were set just a little too high after seeing that Halo: ODST special or maybe it was just seeing how great things turned out for the guy that was supposed to direct the live-action Halo film. Or maybe it was just the big giant “Huh?” of seeing a Spartan super soldier pumped full of what appears to be Gatorade. Whatever the reason, the awesome just wasn’t in this trailer for the best game in the series. Is it in you?
And that’s it for this week. Check in next week for nine more fun little walks down memory lane.
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