Advanced Portfolio: Task 2.3- Video Game Trailer Research- Michael Cartledge and Harrison Marlow

Trailers

Title: Watchdogs

Game Studio: Ubisoft

Genre: Action/Adventure

The trailer for Watchdogs has a narrative in the form of the voice over, the main character speaks over the top of game play footage to inform the audience of the main plot of the game and the unique selling point of the game. The game play shown consists of action and the uniques selling point of the game (the ability to manipulate the electronics in the environment by hacking them). In the trailer we see the main character, random civilians, random enemies and other small characters in the game, The main character is wearing a rather cool looking outfit, which would make the audience more fond of the idea of playing as him, it is an outfit that enables him to conceal his face as he is a vigilante. Both the hero and the villain carry guns and the hero appears to have a signature weapon, a police extendable baton, which he uses to great effect. The protagonist also carries his phone, which he uses to hack into the different electrical devices around. There are lines connecting the different electric devices to show you what will effect what which create a kind of webbing, showing everything is connected. The trailer is all animated.
Sound-wise, incidental music plays behind the voice over, we can also hear a police scanner which tells us that the protagonist is actually a wanted man. Folie sounds such as gun shots and car crashes are also heard.
The camera is mostly handheld, which gives it a more frantic atmosphere as the protagonist runs down a road, bumping into people, panning is also used to emphasise the movement of the action. Occasionally shots are shown through a phone camera which links to the games heavy theme on technology.

Title: Max Payne 3

Game Studio: Rockstar Games

Genre: Action/Adventure

The trailer for Max Payne 3 has narrative in the form of a voice over by the main character, he tells us the basic plot of the game, while he speaks we see action in the background which shows of the unique selling point of the game, which in this case is bullet time (going in slow motion while diving around shooting people). In the trailer we see the main character, a bunch of smaller characters and random enemies that the main character is firing at. The protagonist is wearing clothes that fit into his surroundings, at one point he is on a job at a party so he is wearing a suit, and in other parts he is more casual, in holiday wear as it is a hot country he is in. The entire trailer is animated.
We hear the soundtrack in the background of the voice over, which gives a sense of atmosphere and mood as well as folie sounds of gun shots.
The beginning of the trailer is purely narrative, the shots fade in and out of each other slowly to give a calm feel, until the action kicks in , and then the shots cut from one to another at a higher tempo. There is also a close up panning shot of a bullet in slow motion to show of the unique selling point of the game.

Title: Dead Island

Game Studio: Riptide

Genre: RPG

The narrative of the Dead Island trailer is in reverse and slow motion, it slowly reveals the story of a family who have taken a vacation only for it to turn sour when a zombie outbreak occurs. The trailer is fully cinematic, no gamplay is shown. The family in the trailer are not actually characters in the game, although you do feel an attachment to them due to the slow incidental music we can hear. No ambient sound or dialogue is in the main part of the trailer, only in some small snip-its that are not or slow motion or reverse that show how the daughter of the family ran from the zombies but ended up getting bitten. Although no game characters are shown, the premise still is.

The characters are wearing holiday clothes, shorts and t-shirts, props include makeshift weapons that the family use against the zombies in an attempt to defend themselves, both clothing and the weapons used suggest that they were not prepared for this outbreak.

The cutting between shots is slow, to match the tempo of the music and the mood of the story being told and the camera work is handheld in the short cut aways to the girl running to emphasize how frantic she is. Vertical tracking is also used at the start where the girl is shown falling up (in reverse), after an extreme close up of her eye which zooms out to reveal that she is dead.

Title: Star Wars Battlefront

Game Studio: EA

Genre: Sci-Fi FPS

We open with a view of just show and a blizzard from a first person/point of view perspective all we can see is snow and some burning debris, the only sound we can hear is the ambient sound of heavy wind and footsteps, and the extremely heavy breathing of the character we are seeing it all through, this makes us assume that the person we a watching this from is injured and in some sort of trouble.

Continuing with his slow paced walking we hear a very distinctive sound of a laser blast, as the blast hits the ground next to him the camera shakes in an almost documentary styled hand held camera, we hear more laser blasts still with no music, all ambient sound, shortly after hearing the laser blasts be hear an explosion, and we see from through the blizzard a snow speeder flies through the snow and past the camera as we hear an explosion behind us.

After we see the snow speeder fly past through the blizzard we see the immediately recognizable hoof of an AT-AT smash against the floor, the camera starts to fade to black and upon the screen titles appear reading ‘STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT’ a long awaited sight for the fans of the series.

This trailer is just a teaser, not giving any information or real view of the game all it gives is the assurance that the game is happening and is therefore starting the drip feed effect for the fans, the fans want more than the 34 second long teaser, but with ‘EA’ knowing this they will slowly give the fans more trailers and more looks at art and the gameplay until they release a real gameplay trailer approximately a year before the game comes out leaving the fans interested and wanting more until they know they have to have the game.