by mento
Like a moth to a buzzing electric deathtrap, I've once again been drawn towards the humongous stack of E3 trailers that the site (specifically @marino) has been putting up throughout June with the same atavistic compulsion to watch, and mock, them all.
You know the drill (and check here (2016) and/or here (2017) if you don't). I have hot takes to unload, in a mostly non-sexual way, and that's why this feature exists for another year. Along with trailer impressions and my levels of hype, my bonus theme this year is "could this include the hottest new Battle Royale mode?". Some games will take more easily to this spicy new format than others, I suspect, but I think everything has it in them to drop one hundred [BLANK]s on a [BLANK] if they really tried. It's where the eSports is at, after all.
Showing 1-10 of 100 items
Trailer Trashing: The vaguely Carl Sagan-like voiceover of this concept trailer tells us we're deep in Miz territory, so bite down on your wallet as Tetris Effect tries to convince you to buy another Tetris game. Keep in mind this is the only one that'll let you see through time. How Thinkfluenced Am I?: If you were going to do a VR Tetris game, this would be the ideal way to go about it. I'm still ambivalent, though, given that I don't give a fig about VR and could play Tetris on anything with a microchip inside it. The Royale Treatment: 100 tetrominos drop from the sky and it's your job to eliminate them all by placing them neatly inside a grid in a series of lines to make them disappear. A bold new direction for the venerable puzzle game.
Trailer Trashing: I feel like I've been beaten to the "Sean Bean better be getting killed in this game at some point if he's the trailer voiceover" observation, so I'll just go the even easier route to say it would require very little to liven up a F1 race. Boring as shit. How Thinkfluenced Am I?: Hmm. I really liked Hitman season 1 in the abstract, but I eventually ended up only playing that one map. Kinda got everything I needed out of it. That isn't a knock on 2, per se, but more an observation that those other season 1 episodes are probably really cheap now if I ever wanted a ticket back to a world of pure assassination. The Royale Treatment: Getting sniped from a thousand yards away by someone suspiciously good at killing is already an established battle royale staple as I understand it.
Trailer Trashing: I didn't play the Persona 4 dancing game, but I'm intrigued by rhythm games based wholly around VGM despite how difficult they can be. The idea of Mitsuru breaking it down instead of Ice Breaking it down (where "it" is an enemy that is already weak to ice damn you Mitsuru) is appealing on multiple levels. That name gives me Toploader flashbacks though, which I don't appreciate one jot. How Thinkfluenced Am I?: As long as Mass Destruction is in there, I'll consider it. The Royale Treatment: 100 Ryojis land on an island, all trying to get people to kill him but to no avail. This is an OK joke if you've played Persona 3 recently.
Trailer Trashing: This one's a lot like the other one. Persona characters dancing to the music that was in their own game, which feels vaguely meta in a way I'm not sure I'm comfortable with. Also, while I don't truck with any of this anime waifu business, the shots of Makoto in that punk ensemble should carry a content warning for those with weak hearts. How Thinkfluenced Am I?: As long as Rivers in the Desert is in there, I'll consider it. The Royale Treatment: 100 Phantom Thieves drop onto an island, except the island is actually the symbolic mind palace of the person who wrote the finale of Lost and deserves to be in all sorts of jails.
Trailer Trashing: Every time they have one of these time skips in zombie fiction, I have to wonder what keeps powering those corpses. Then I realize you can go into some random tomb in an RPG and fight thousand-year-old mummies, so maybe my issues with zombie fiction are more subjective than I thought. That's my observation for today, because I'm sure I don't have any idea what's going in this, the trailer for the fourth part of a heavily serialized adventure game series that I "nope"d out of back in 2012. Sure is as cheerful as I remember it though. How Thinkfluenced Am I?: Not for me. Zombies and Telltale both. The Royale Treatment: As is the case with a lot of shooters PUBG already has a zombie mode, and Fortnite even started as one. Nobody plays either any more.
Trailer Trashing: A definite sense of "Esprit de corpse" with these two zombie game trailers back to back. Days Gone is, as of the moment, the only game that has appeared in all three Trailer Blazer lists. Almost like it's in a permanent state of half-life, shambling from one E3 to the next, desperate for someone to put it out of its misery and release it from its eternal torture. How Thinkfluenced Am I?: My interest in zombie fiction? My interest in watching people suffering post-apocalyptic hardships? My interest in this game? They's gone. The Royale Treatment: I've always wondered how much better PUBG would be if you jumped out of the plane already riding a motorcycle.
Trailer Trashing: I'm not the most adept when it comes to fighting games - I skipped that part of my science studies, I guess - but it seems to me that this trailer is suggesting that DOA's going to start "borrowing" Tekken's slo-mo dramatic finishes. The jiggle-tech seems to have calmed down a lot too, so I hope that doesn't mean DOA's taking itself seriously from now on. All DOA and Tekken has is their long-standing rivalry to out-stupid the other. How Thinkfluenced Am I?: As thinkfluenced as Fame Douglas himself. Not in the sense of getting deeply involved with DOA fighting tournaments, but in the sense of bowing out of this franchise super early. The Royale Treatment: 100 Kasumi clones ninja-glide onto an island. That's already the plot of a DOA CG movie, I'm sure.
Trailer Trashing: DONTNOD showed off like fifteen games at E3 this year, I guess Life is Strange really did well for them. Twin Mirror feels a little in that vein, but going more of an Alan Wake psychological horror vibe, with a protagonist that I don't think changed his expression once throughout the whole video. Maybe that's coming in a later update? How Thinkfluenced Am I?: I've yet to try Vampyr, but DONTNOD's been one to watch even as far back as Remember Me. Guys, what if Twin Peaks and Black Mirror were combined together? What would you even call that, Black Peaks? The Royale Treatment: 100 amnesiacs parachute onto an island. Why are they here? Why are they being forced to kill each other? Who was flying the plane? Why did someone name a town "Basswood"? Was "Anuserection" taken?
Trailer Trashing: I'll admit, a battle royale game set in STALKER's unstable vision of Chernobyl and Pripyat is a pretty clever idea. The one thing the current battle royale games need is more weird shit that can kill you beyond a magical blue wall and the 99 other people on the map. Why not stack the deck against you even further, is what I say. How Thinkfluenced Am I?: I intend to get around to the other STALKER games some day, even if Shadow of Chernobyl was a little intense at times. Probably draw the line at this though; like Fallout, the eerie nature of STALKER's post-apocalpytic world makes it better suited for solo adventures. The Royale Treatment: Big ol' "N/A" here my droogs. This one's already a battle royale so I don't have to do anything. Now you see why I went for this bonus theme.
Trailer Trashing: More licensed LEGO games direct from the hose, but I suppose the idea of creating your own thematic Batman villain is a neat idea. I mean, it's something I've tinkered with in the past for a different list. I guess now that LEGO Batman is a whole movie franchise, it would pay to stick around Gotham a little while longer. How Thinkfluenced Am I?: I'm many LEGO games behind, but I wouldn't dismiss one if it turned out to be especially good. Trouble is, most are happy to wallow in their uninspired averageness. The Royale Treatment: Lego Island is a masterpiece and I won't impugn its character by suggesting that they should drop even more cocaine-addled Lego people onto it.
