Movie trailers are one of my great loves, I don’t need to quantify that, just go with it, I have a collection of several thousand. Several thousand movie trailers. Almost every one of them better than the films they are advertising. Trailers are an art form and I abhor 99% of movie previews today, all doing the same shtick, almost identical, all using the same flow, pace and trickery. The art of clever movie marketing has been (almost) lost.
Video games trailers have stepped it up in the last decade, the arrival of platforms such as YouTube and other social media outlets meant that publishers can now sell their video games as you would any movie, with cinematics and out-of-context footage combining to get your potential audience hyped way, way before you smash their dreams with crushing reality.
Case in point: This trailer for 2010’s Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, which is my favourite video game trailer. It shows two events, taking place in different countries, threatening to combine. In Shanghai, medicated psychopath James Lynch sleeplessly tosses and turns in bed. There’s something on his mind. Lynch goes to the bathroom to study his various anti-murder pills, while his inquisitive girlfriend, Xiu, asks him what’s wrong. “My old friend Kane flies in tomorrow…”
Source: Destructoid This trailer for Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is my favourite video game trailer, but what’s yours?