Dead Island Trailer - Impressive but Hollow

"The trend started by the Gears of War "Mad World trailer" and perfected in Halo 3's "Believe" ad seems to in full effect in Dead Islands first trailer."

[JeffGUNZ]

The trailer was amazing. The music complimented the tone perfectly and it was just a well created trailer.

[Neckbear]

It was an exemplary attempt on doing shallow, pretendious bullshit with a few tricks to try to fakely move you.

A victimized, standard family, including a kid? Check.

Piano music? Check.

It's designed to be that way, to make you feel like "OMG I FEEL SORRY BOUT THEM". The usual, common fellow will be able to identify with those characters, let us not mention that our perception recognizes children as poor, immature, innocent creatures in need of protection. Needless to say, put them in between of a catastrophe, and the average fucktard will feel pity. There's also the whole "it's playing backwards" to give you a feeling of originality and DEEPNESS, of those that will make you say "FUCKING MASTERPIECE".

My problem with it is that it's so fakely imbued, so unoriginal it's not even funny. It goes exactly by the book, with the shallow tricks I mentioned above, and ends up being nothing but a stupid attempt at making something remotely touching, interesting, or actually deep.

And yet, we see retards going around praising the goddamn trailer like it was the second coming of Jesus Christ. No wonder games like Braid or Limbo get great reviews, an annoyingly pretendious attempt at being "deep" and "artsy" will net you the praise of these long-running hipsters that spread like a disease transmittable by air.

That's just my personal view on the matter, though.

[Forbidden_Darkness]

And yet there are hundreds of other game trailers released monthly that do nothing new either, yet you go all ape sh%$ over one trailer that isn't like many trailers to begin with. I've watched thousands of game trailers over my gaming years i can truthfully say i've never watched a trailer like it really.

As for 'your' opinion, it's very judgemental, like you have something against Dead Island. A trailer should catch your attention and the Dead Island trailer did just that. It had great emotion and even if it's not a emotional game like the trailer shows, i'm still keeping my eye on the game because of this trailer.

[NukaCola]

Yeah look at the original Halo 3, inFAMOUS, Gears 2, and Crysis 2 trailers. They had the slowed down artistic trailers with classy music tunes that are all emotional. It's good marketing and this trailer is sick.

[lochdoun]

Limbo is amazing.

[Christopher]

***It's designed to be that way***

Kind of the point, isn't it? Good stories are written to be good stories. Good movies directed and starring actors to make them good movies.

I would hardly call this shallow or pretentious, but you do know that you can't fake the ability to make one emotional, right? I mean, how can something "fakely" move me? What the heck does that even mean when if something "moves me," it has accomplished its goal and my emotions aren't fake.

That's like saying a comedian "fakely" makes you laugh.

[DanSolo]

While you have a point, the truth is all trailers are just attempts to make you want to play the game or watch the movie ect...

This is no different, it's just a by the book "sentimental" trailer designed to catch your attention.

It's also true that people like to jump around singing the praises of things... but hey, people do that over plenty of stupid things... no need to get worked up over this particular trailer....

If you wana get pissed off about people... pick something worth ranting about, like reality TV or fuck-wit celebrity worshippers!!!

But on topic... looks pretty good to me! lol

[AyeGee]

The game didn't even come out yet.. it's just a trailer, chill out.. you sound like you're about to bust the aorta in your neck.

I personally thought it was well made.. i thought the entire trailer was pretty gripping.. it had me watching it, after all.

[Lionalliance]

Well, your view sucks

[felji_wetsub]

To be fair, every work of fiction is "fakely imbued."

[SasanovaS1987]

find the nearest traffic, and cross it. sad that people like you even walk this surface

[VenomProject]

Jesus, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.

[TacoTaru]

felji_wetsub + 1h ago
To be fair, every work of fiction is "fakely imbued."

My favorite was the "fakely imbued" too. He must be one of them intellectuals. So much smarter than us common grubs.

I wishes I was him so I could say "fakely imbued" too.

[snipes101]

Neckbear are you the same matthew from the site? Because this response is a copy and paste from the publisher of this article. Lol at you so desperate for traffic if my suspicion is true (I fully acknowledge that I may be wrong).

ANYHOW, the trailer was unique, it made me feel something that no other trailer has before, end of story. While all those other trailers you talked about involved heroes, this had regular people struggling and ultimately failing to survive. This, to me, is a shift in that if the game follows the path this trailer has blazed it could be the first serious look at the zombie genre.

Lastly, relax dude like someone else said you sound like you're about to bust an aorta.

[Serinous]

Obviously you can do better than this, right?

[vickers500]

@Neckbear

"an annoyingly pretendious attempt at being "deep" and "artsy" will net you the praise of these long-running hipsters"

Sorry to tell you this bud, but you're a way bigger douchebag than any hipster I've ever met.

You're trying to call attention to yourself to pretend you are so damn intelligent and have a really good taste in gaming, so much so that you are too smart for this one thing that comes along and attempts to be emotional. Reality wise though, you're just an idiot knocking on something good to make yourself seem like less of a dumb@ss than you actually and truly are.

"Ooh look at me, I'm a misunderstood genius and I'm the only one who knows what true quality is"

Yeah, gtfo.

[masterprince101]

@BLM " I say film because that's essentially what it was, albeit short in length and CGI." Lol. They call them short films. But there is something bugging me about this cynicism lately in films, video games, books etc.

I'll just look at this quote: "It's designed to be that way, to make you feel like "OMG I FEEL SORRY BOUT THEM""

Well DUH! In of mice and men you're supposed to feel sorry for the retard being shot. In The Dark Knight you're supposed to feel sorry Rachel Dawes dies. At the End of the Godfather you're supposed to be shocked at the levels Micheal Corleone has stooped too. In FF7 you're supposed to be horrified Aeris dies. HELLO MCFLY!

Creative work, and well-done creative work, is supposed to elicit emotion from masses of people. Just because you are the niche that doesn't feel anything doesn't mean you are right and we are wrong. It just means the emotional core of the work did not resonate with you. You're not smarter. They are not dumber than you. You are not more cultured. They are not simpletons.

Especially since simpletons could not muster the attention needed to monitor the individual character internal and external reversals that takes place over the course of the short film. And I'm going to continue to call it that because it is not simple a trailer. There is a beginning, middle, and end to this in the form of character, motivation, and theme that very few trailers EVER have 1/2 of.

So is it great.? Yes. Does it deserve the praise? Yes. Why? Because very few promotional videos for games come close to ever making you feel anything. This did. And I wish more trailers came out like it.

[WhittO]

I loved it, it has already made me hyped and want to buy the game haha.

Music always makes a game so much better to me, if it has great music, it can make up for alot of problems in gameplay for me, because playing through with good soundtrack makes it that much more epic/emotion driven.

[Fishy Fingers]

Probably the best trailer I've seen for a while, dont care to converse the ins and outs of it, but it kept me gripped, made me feel something.

Something 99% of games dont manage, no matter how big the explosions are.

[Kon]

Well, best trailer of the year so far.

[Black-Helghast]

Bubbles to you my friend. And yes, To be honest, i've never seen a trailer so beautiful since Mass Effect 2 Launch trailer. ;o;

[ALFAxD_CENTAURO]

It's CGI =/.

Hope to see Gameplay soon.

The Details are great.
Chrome Engine is good.
http://www.facebook.com/dea...

[Lionalliance]

It doesnt stop for being the best video game CGI we ever see, apreciated for what it is.

[SuperStrokey1123]

Its a fantastic trailer, its not the best CGI though.

[SuperStrokey1123]

Hey i got an idea for an article that will get us hits, lets take a really popular trailer thats just come out and then hack on it for some stupid reason! That will bring people to our crappy page!

[CaliGamer]

So much hate for this game and we are just getting information on it. We don't even have gameplay yet.

Sad how jaded gamers have gotten over the years, it's important to remember that at the end of the day, this is just entertainment.

[EVO-OM3GA]

Amazing Trailer, very emotional!

The Zombie that got the lil girl was mad keen, he took out 2 zombies to get to her

[Krakn3Dfx]

My favorite game trailer to date is still the Bioshock Under the Sea trailer.

So effective.

[SeraphimBlade]

The trailer was pretty cool. The concept's a little cliche but it WAS really well done in a unique, artistic fashion, you can't deny that. We'll just see what the actual game is like. Maybe it really is a dark and emotional experience like Bioshock, maybe the trailer's head is 3 feet up its ass like Gears and Halo. Time will tell, don't call anyone idiot for disagreeing.

[bitboi]

no matter how awful some people think this trailer is, they're forgetting one goal a trailer is set out to do...get people talking about it! And that's exactly what's happening with this trailer. It's really well done and has been posted on numerous sites that don't even talk about video games! bad or not, it's doing the job it was meant to do. So chill out ,don't get all bent outta shape because you don't like it and others do.

p.s. Best game related trailer of the year so far in my book!

[Agent_S]

All these BS hype/hate/love/confusion Dead Island posts/comments are tiring. Im just going to avoid all Dead Island material til closer to launch thanks.

[aGameDeveloper]

Except for this article, of course...

[Estarra]

The trailer was anything but hollow! It was very impressive as it told a mini-story from beginning to end. The music was quite haunting as well.

[Pozzle]

Meh. I don't think it was a cliched or hollow at all. Sure, you might find similar trailers for movies or TV shows. But it's rare to find such well-done or emotional trailers for video games.

Most zombie games and trailers focus on the blood, guts and gore. But this one focused on what it would feel like to be in the middle of a zombie apocalypse; the horrible things you would have to face and the awful things that would likely happen to your family and friends. In just 3 minutes, it managed to convey the exact feelings of dread, horror and sadness that many people would face in such a situation.

So who gives a crap if the trailer is an obvious effort to pull at the heart-strings? IMO that's a good thing. It has helped the game stand out and not be ignored as 'just another zombie game'.