Dead Island

MannishBoy wrote:
lostlobster wrote:
lostlobster wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
lostlobster wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:

How does the mother come up with a chef's knife in a resort hotel room?

She ran for it as the zombies were breaking the door down. You don't see her pick it up, but she is clearly running to to grab something.

Again, why would a hotel room have a chef's knife? She never leaves the room.

She's a chef?

Or a cutlery sales rep on company retreat?

Or had just been kicked off Top Chef?

Or is part of a circus knife-throwing act?

Crocodile Dundee's daughter on holiday?

Or she's 'The Chef' a homicidal maniac who's left a trail of neatly carved bodies across 28 states.

Garden Ninja wrote:

Color me unimpressed, and more stuff.

I think you raise excellent points, but as a rebuttal:
- It's a trailer - it's really hard to establish context and depth you're looking for. When was the last time any trailer for anything established any kind of depth? A lot of the depth you're looking for is suggestive, and while you might call that a "cheap tactic", it clearly rang true for a lot of people.
- It's a video game trailer. While I'm just as skeptical as you that they'll make the emotional themes they're suggesting in the trailer work in the actual game, I find it refreshing when anyone even attempts to do video game marketing that focus on driving an emotional response, cheaply or otherwise. What would you rather have, this or the "Your mom will hate it!!" Dead Space 2 marketing?

All entertainment that attempts to evoke emotions is "emotionally manipulative" to a certain extent. Whether that attempt is "grotesque" or not is largely a question of perspective. Some people can't tolerate anything bad happening to kids, so are more disturbed by that than others.

Garden Ninja wrote:

Color me unimpressed.

ClockworkHouse said this in the Loathe thread.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

That everyone is gushing over that Dead Island trailer. It's grotesque and cheaply emotionally manipulative. There's nothing there to praise.

Ditto, but I want to expand on that.

I think it's a matter of interpretation and your own baggage you bring to it. I don't need everything spelled out for me in a piece of media (call it "art" or not) for it to leave some kind of impression on me. I don't need to know the whole history and background of a painting, or the exact meaning of the lyrics of a song, before it can move me in some way.

What I hope is that the developers see the responses people are having to this trailer and take note of what's captured their attention.

Something I caught in the reversed/reordered version that I didn't get in the original is that everyone dies, not just the daughter. You see the mother fall and get swarmed by a mob of zombies and the daughter took a chunk out of the father's neck as he threw her clear meaning that, as fast as the girl was infected, he probably turned before she hit the ground. You aren't playing as any of these people.

So yeah, this is just a "see how bad the zombocolypse is?" trailer. I suspect the gameplay to be pretty much standard.

Garden Ninja wrote:

Color me unimpressed.

ClockworkHouse said this in the Loathe thread.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

That everyone is gushing over that Dead Island trailer. It's grotesque and cheaply emotionally manipulative. There's nothing there to praise.

Ditto, but I want to expand on that.

...

Valid Points

I think you have some good points about the trailer and I appreciate that those comments are about the trailer, not the people who are interested in it.

I personally feel a little let down in advance of the game. I feel like there's no way a game could throw off its "gaminess" to show off the touching narrative that the trailer presents.

I've never played a zombie game that could keep a straight face the way some of the best zombie films have. I like L4D, but I always felt like that humor and jokes between the characters suggested that all of them were mentally ill and completely ambivalent about the collapse of society around them. This was particularly striking to me in L4D2.

I'd love to see a zombie video game version of "The Road," but I'm not holding my breath.

Cool trailer though. So much better than the "We're Gonna KICK SOME ASS!" trailers that litter the internet.

I AM tired of zombies at the moment, but I miiiiiight be good for one more.

As a childless man, I can't say the trailer affected me all that deeply. Looks intriguing though.

[quote]

Garden Ninja wrote:

Color me unimpressed.

ClockworkHouse said this in the Loathe thread.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

That everyone is gushing over that Dead Island trailer. It's grotesque and cheaply emotionally manipulative. There's nothing there to praise.

Ditto, but I want to expand on that.

Haters gon' hate.

nel e nel wrote:
Garden Ninja wrote:

Color me unimpressed.

ClockworkHouse said this in the Loathe thread.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

That everyone is gushing over that Dead Island trailer. It's grotesque and cheaply emotionally manipulative. There's nothing there to praise.

Ditto, but I want to expand on that.

Haters gon' hate.

You didn't use this?

nel e nel[/url]]
IMAGE(http://cdn2.knowyourmeme.com/i/000/099/306/original/1297503882860.gif?1297527686)

I dislike the trailer because it's cheap and easy. Killing or endangering children in a work of art doesn't take skill or artistry but just a ruthlessness toward ones characters. You stab your audience with it and get them buzzing, crying, or upset but unless the work meaningfully explores that loss, as movies like Grave of the Fireflies or The Sweet Hereafter do, then it's just a quick and dirty route to unearned pathos.

This trailer has a father throw what is presumably his daughter out of a building to lend emotional weight to a garden variety zombie scenario. It has nothing meaningful to say about the actual emotions of the situation, how this man felt about doing what he did, what it means to save someone you love only to have them die anyway by your own hand. Whether it was two minutes long or two hours, this work has a responsibility to say something meaningful with the horror its inflicted on us. As it is, it says nothing except that maudlin piano music and dead little girls are a great way to sell video games.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Whether it was two minutes long or two hours, this work has a responsibility to say something meaningful with the horror its inflicted on us.

Wait... WHAT?

Hypatian wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Whether it was two minutes long or two hours, this work has a responsibility to say something meaningful with the horror its inflicted on us.

Wait... WHAT?

Yeah, WTF?

It's a 3-minute marketing tool for a game that, for all we know, could be a sh*tty Dead Rising clone. I don't see that it has ANY responsibility to do anything other than create buzz for the product, which it has obviously succeeded at doing.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I dislike the trailer because it's cheap and easy. Killing or endangering children in a work of art doesn't take skill or artistry but just a ruthlessness toward ones characters. You stab your audience with it and get them buzzing, crying, or upset but unless the work meaningfully explores that loss, as movies like Grave of the Fireflies or The Sweet Hereafter do, then it's just a quick and dirty route to unearned pathos.

You contradict yourself here. You say:

Killing or endangering children in a work of art doesn't take skill or artistry but just a ruthlessness toward ones characters.

but then you list two examples of movies that do so artfully (I would add to that list "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy).

It sounds like your criticisms of this trailer can be applied towards any trailer.

It has nothing meaningful to say about the actual emotions of the situation, how this man felt about doing what he did, what it means to save someone you love only to have them die anyway by your own hand. Whether it was two minutes long or two hours, this work has a responsibility to say something meaningful with the horror its inflicted on us.

I don't think any trailer has a responsibility to do anything more than to garner buzz about a particular piece of media. If you want art, you'll need more than two minutes of character development.

Grubber788 wrote:

I don't think any trailer has a responsibility to do anything more than to garner buzz about a particular piece of media. If you want art, you'll need more than two minutes of character development.

But games aren't art!

[size=8]stirs pot[/size]

Grubber788 wrote:

You contradict yourself here. You say:

Killing or endangering children in a work of art doesn't take skill or artistry but just a ruthlessness toward ones characters.

but then you list two examples of movies that do so artfully (I would add to that list "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy).

It's didn't take skill or artistry in those movies, either. What sets them apart is, as I said, a meaningful exploration of that loss.

I don't think any trailer has a responsibility to do anything more than to garner buzz about a particular piece of media. If you want art, you'll need more than two minutes of character development.

I'm not sure that the best counter-argument to "this is using a dead child to cheaply manipulate its audience" is "but it's a commercial!" Because if that dead kid is being used to sell something that makes it okay.

Honestly, the trailer could not have worked better. It illustrated clearly why this is not a game for Clockwork. so he can be saved from playing a game that will offend his sensibilities. But it also lured him into talking about the game enough to drive a ton of extra posts beyond what was really just a shallow echo chamber of people liking it.

I liked it, and am uploading my own version as we speak! Mission doubly accomplished!

Right, but my definition of commercial is "a short program designed to manipulate an audience."

Criticizing this trailer (or commercial) for attempting to draw a strong reaction would be like criticizing the ocean for being full of water. Right now, I take your argument to mean, no form of media should depict the death of a child without faithfully exploring the loss. I understand the sentiment, but once again, I think you are wrong to expect so much from a commercial.

Having read the synopsis of the game, and knowing that it is an island vacation spot, and that there would presumably be children at this resort - I don't know that it is that cheap to have the child there. I also didn't get that the man was the father, but was just a concerned citizen who ends up losing the fight because he tries to help out a kid rather than stay locked away in his room. I thought the soundtrack and the cinematography of the trailer were great, and if the game can life at all up to the trailer, I will buy it.

SallyNasty wrote:

Having read the synopsis of the game, and knowing that it is an island vacation spot, and that there would presumably be children at this resort - I don't know that it is that cheap to have the child there. I also didn't get that the man was the father, but was just a concerned citizen who ends up losing the fight because he tries to help out a kid rather than stay locked away in his room. I thought the soundtrack and the cinematography of the trailer were great, and if the game can life at all up to the trailer, I will buy it.

Doesn't the end of that trailer suggest that he and his wife came to the island with his daughter for a vacation? Don't they take a group photo together?

Grubber788 wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

Having read the synopsis of the game, and knowing that it is an island vacation spot, and that there would presumably be children at this resort - I don't know that it is that cheap to have the child there. I also didn't get that the man was the father, but was just a concerned citizen who ends up losing the fight because he tries to help out a kid rather than stay locked away in his room. I thought the soundtrack and the cinematography of the trailer were great, and if the game can life at all up to the trailer, I will buy it.

Doesn't the end of that trailer suggest that he and his wife came to the island with his daughter for a vacation? Don't they take a group photo together?

Ahh, sorry - i may have missed that. My bad.

Grubber788 wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

Having read the synopsis of the game, and knowing that it is an island vacation spot, and that there would presumably be children at this resort - I don't know that it is that cheap to have the child there. I also didn't get that the man was the father, but was just a concerned citizen who ends up losing the fight because he tries to help out a kid rather than stay locked away in his room. I thought the soundtrack and the cinematography of the trailer were great, and if the game can life at all up to the trailer, I will buy it.

Doesn't the end of that trailer suggest that he and his wife came to the island with his daughter for a vacation? Don't they take a group photo together?

Yes, it does.

It's a pretty horrible scenario But really liked how the story of the trailer was revealed. I understand why people call it cheap. but the goal was to get people to watch and share the thng, and it all over the internet in a day. And most people are responding really positively.

My wife really can't stomach child in danger plots in anything, either. So I won't be showing this to her. Well, she also has a real disgust for all things zombie. I got her to go to see 28 Days Later with the idea that it was a "thinking man's zombie flick." And while she agreed it was a great movie, it was still way too much for her. All it got me was the lack of choosing the next 28 movies we saw.

Guys, I think we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves. We can't truly judge this game until we've had a chance to read the prequel novel that fleshes out the relationships of the characters in the trailer, the anime that explores the backstory of the bellhop and the motion comic that shows how the research lab was ground zero for the outbreak.

And even then, we'll have to watch the web-series to fill in the plot holes left by all of that.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
I don't think any trailer has a responsibility to do anything more than to garner buzz about a particular piece of media. If you want art, you'll need more than two minutes of character development.

I'm not sure that the best counter-argument to "this is using a dead child to cheaply manipulate its audience" is "but it's a commercial!" Because if that dead kid is being used to sell something that makes it okay.

I think the child dying does serve a purpose other than cheap emotional manipulation (which I don't honesty feel was the intention.) It speaks to a long tradition in zombie movies of the 'worst case scenario' coming true. If there's a child in the movie it's probably going to be infected. Because it's the most horrible thing that could happen it's what happens. In "Shaun of the Dead' (*Spoiler!!!?!*)the mother is infected and the have to killer her. In interviews about the making of the film the writers said they didn't want to do it but once they had the idea it had to happen.

The child dying speaks to that tradition and therefore suggests that the game will be a serious, scary zombie game with consequences. To be honest I prefer it to Dead Rising's 'gruesome fun with corpses' approach. That offended me.

I dorked it up by not going HD, but it still works.

Higgledy wrote:

I think the child dying does serve a purpose. It speaks to a long tradition in zombie movies of the 'worst case scenario' coming true. If there's a child in the movie it's probably going to be infected. Because it's the most horrible thing that could happen it's what happens. In "Shaun of the Dead' (*Spoiler!!!?!*)the mother is infected and the have to killer her. In interviews about the making of the film the writers said they didn't want to do it but once they had the idea it had to happen.

The child dying speaks to that tradition and therefore suggests that the game will be a serious, scary Zombie game with consequences. To be honest I prefer it to Dead Rising's 'gruesome fun with corpses' approach. That offended me.

You talk about the proud tradition of infected zombie babies and neglect to mention the Dawn of the Dead remake birth scene?

IMAGE(http://api.ning.com/files/DGTn1IJyQ9EjyPAPuTd9K4U8Ia2qqEJgJs53YSEdkZ9o5s7t9mPU8Py5P6wdi0RzkZWpDxuIgojuGr1xGPECqmXkf30lD342/baby.jpg)

Personally, I will never get tired of zombies, but I can understand those of you who do. Because you hate awesome things. Hey, at least it's better than vampires. Vampires are garbage.

Anyway, here's a bunch of paragraphs!

To me, the trailer is merely saying, "Hey, wouldn't it suck if this happened?" I don't think the kid dying was really the main point, it was just the most visually interesting way to get from outside to inside and from the hallway to the hotel room. To say the trailer is emotionally manipulative isn't inaccurate, but all media is emotionally manipulative. That's why we like media. There's a reason music and editing have become a mainstay of visual media. They're effective at setting the mood. It's not exactly easy for a trailer to explore the loss of a child in a meaningful way, so to denounce the trailer as cheap and easy because it doesn't do so while it implies that what's happening isn't jolly and fun seems a little unfair.

Without knowing more about the game, one could interpret the trailer any number of ways. Many are hoping that the trailer is hinting at the tone that the game will strive for, which means that it could very well comprehensively explore the loss of a child or other loved ones. It's really hard to accurately judge how untruthful and wrong the trailer is until we know more about the game, so for the time being I'm going to hope that the trailer is indicative of the final product, although deep down I doubt it really is. Either way, though, as a stand-alone thing, I like the trailer. It has pretty music, pretty graphics, and it tells the story of RAR ZOMBIES! Yeah, I don't know these characters, but I know they're a family and I have a family, so I can empathize. Therefore, it's sad that they all died on their vacation. That sucks for them.

Also, chances are good that the trailer is showing a few gameplay features in it just as the Left 4 Dead intro movie constantly shows various aspects of the game. We know it's a game focused on melee combat, and the trailer shows a large knife, an axe and a baseball bat being used, so it's safe to assume those are three of the weapons in the game. It's also safe to assume that zombies can be chopped to pieces based on both the trailer and this video, which briefly shows a little bit of what can be done to the in-game character models. Zombies can probably also break down doors. They can run, they can pull weapons out of their flesh so it's possible that they'll also be able to use those weapons, and some of them are fat. Fat zombies are the best kind of zombies.

Would those of you with a problem with the trailer like it more if the game actually matched the tone of the trailer and dealt with the death of a child in an honest, emotional way? Would you like the trailer more if the person lying on the ground was an adult male? If it didn't utilize slow-motion, displayed the events in chronological order, and had no music?

I know I'm going to like the trailer less if the game ends up being an emotionally-bereft zombie-murderfest.

STAY TUNED FOR PART 2!

ebarstad wrote:

Honestly, I don't think there's any way this (or any?) game could live up to that trailer. The music, slow-mo, and the playing of events in reverse all mesh seamlessly together.

Without being made up entirely of cutscenes, I don't think a game could capture that kind of mood and tone. For one reason, a game is generally too long and sustaining that mood for 8 hours would be oppressive. For another reason, game writing for the most part isn't at the level where it could handle these kinds of themes and moments with any kind of finesse. Thirdly, developers don't have enough control over user interaction to keep the mood and tone consistent.

I have to disagree. While you're probably right that this game probably won't live up to this trailer, I think it's possible. First, let's stick with that 8-hour length figure. That's 11 episodes of 40-45 minute long episodes of Lost. Throughout those 11 episodes, the tone remains consistent without remaining constant and without becoming stale or oppressive. There are moments of suspense, of action, of comedy, of sorrow, all woven seamlessly together.

There's no reason a game can't do that. In fact, I'd say there are games that have done that. I'm going to cite the Half-Life 2 series as an example. While it may focus mostly on action, there are definitely funny moments, scary moments, sad moments, even quiet, contemplative moments. All of these without traditional cutscenes, and some of these during the action.

While game writing isn't often good, there are exceptions and there's no reason this game couldn't be another one of those exceptions.

nel e nel wrote:

You talk about the proud tradition of infected zombie babies and neglect to mention the Dawn of the Dead remake birth scene?

And now you've got me thinking about the baby scene in Dead Alive (Braindead) and for that, I hate you.

Garden Ninja wrote:

The subject matter, however, is uninteresting at best. I even like Zombie games, but they are played out, so you need to distinguish yourself from the competition. So in Dead Island a child dies -- by being thrown out of the window by her father, after she turns, and attacks him. That's not deep. It doesn't show desperation, or show anything about human nature, and you certainly can't extrapolate anything about the tone of the actual game from it. It is a cheap tactic, attempting to evoke emotion. Sorry, we don't know, and have no reason to care about these characters. In context, it might be an impactful scene; out of context it doesn't mean anything. Of course the father threw his daughter out the window; shes not his daughter anymore, she's a zombie, and she attacked him from behind.

You're right, it's a cheap tactic. That's why I liked it. I generally hate kids in movies and games. They're usually poorly acted, almost never get hurt, and usually drive the plot by virtue of making terrible decisions any time they aren't held still. One of the darkest movies I've ever seen, a movie so very dark it has a father hold a gun to his child's head multiple times because death would be merciful, ends with the kid instantly being saved forever by a complete stranger (the first altruist in the movie, matter of fact). I like how this trailer said, "no, that kid is dead now, because realistically she never stood a chance in the first place."

Basically I'll give points to any game that's willing to treat a child like an actual character, which is to say they are not sacred or invulnerable. They're just short people.

I am now depressed, you jerks, moreso after watching the reverse cut.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Basically I'll give points to any game that's willing to treat a child like an actual character, which is to say they are not sacred or invulnerable. They're just short people.

Well put.