Trailer Trash | A Coffee for Carrie

You folks know me by now. As often as not, I'm all about the horror — and at this time of year, there's normally no stopping me. But to be perfectly frank, I could give a flying fig about Kimberly Pierce's forthcoming remake of Carrie.

From the latest trailer, it looks like a shot-for-shot retread of Brian de Palma's classic adaptation of the original Stephen King story:

Maybe it's just me, but I simply don't see the need — never mind the fact that I don't buy Chloë Grace Moretz as a high school outcast for a single solitary second.

On the other hand, something fun has come of this brand new Carrie. It's led, of late, to some instant classic viral marketing. The following was filmed at a New York coffee shop:

Incredibly, this clip has already clocked up in excess of 16 million views at the time of this writing, and it was only uploaded on Monday. I suppose I can see why. I for one can't help but wonder what I'd have done in the same situation... other, that is, than run.

Mind you, the canny marketing of Carrie doesn't make me any more likely to invest in any way, shape or form in this ridiculous reboot.

Trailer Trash | The Walking Dead Summer Special

Well, I know what I'm going to be doing this weekend.

You guys too?

400 Days is apparently a bridge between seasons one and two of Telltale's take on The Walking Dead. You'll recall that the phenomenal first season won any number of game of the year awards, including mine, and though this special standalone episode doesn't look to follow it directly, given the creative team's talent for character building — and for fashioning fascinating narrative out of a milieu which is, if we're honest, a lot like hundreds of others — I expect nothing less than excellence from 400 Days.

Incidentally, it occurs to me that the Microsoft Points card I bought to purchase this DLC with will probably be the last Microsoft Points card I ever have to buy. In part because the company are going with real money for marketplace transactions on the Xbox One, but largely because I'm still on Sony's side — never mind Microsoft's dramatic back-tracking after this year's E3. By then they'd made it crystal clear where there loyalties lay, which is to say, nowhere near me... or any other consumers, in truth.

I've pre-ordered a PS4, obviously. Knowing my proclivities, I'll probably cave and get an Xbox One eventually, but only once I'm sure Microsoft aren't planning to pull a fast one with DRM delivered via dashboard update or some similarly insidious bait-and-switch.

Either way, I won't miss Microsoft Points.

Trailer Trash | A Machine For Pigs, Plus One

It looks like the scariest game I've ever played could soon be superseded.

Further to Friday's review of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a reasonably meaty teaser for the long-awaited sequel just hit. Here it is, in all its ghastly glory:

I suppose slaughterhouses are somewhat Silent Hillish, but it's been so long since that series lived up to my expectations that I don't mind the repetition one whit. In fact, this seems to me a much more portentous locale than the haunted mansion of The Dark Descent, and in my heart I'm glad that the developers aren't simply doing it over.

Tell you what, though: the sequence in the trailer there where the player character is desperately attempting to hide from a horrible monster, flicking his lantern on and off all the while to conserve precious fuel and losing his mind in the process? That gets to the heart of the essential experience of Amnesia.

And glutton for punishment that I am, that's a feeling I'm ready to repeat.

Co-created by Frictional Games and thechineseroom, the visionaries behind this year's Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is coming in early 2013 — possibly as promptly as January... though I wouldn't hold your breath.

Oh, and this looked cool too:

Pre-rendered? Probably.

Scary? Maybe.

Promising? Perhaps.

But worth supporting? Absolutely. Specifically because only recently, horror games seemed a dying breed - leftovers from a better era - yet here we have Outlast: a creepy new IP coming from brand new developer composed of former talent from several storied series, including Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell.

Outlast is penciled in for release sometime next summer, and I'll be there, squared.

Will you? Or is there another horror game you're looking forward to?

I Tube | My Quantum Conundrum

In late 2009, Portal co-creator Kim Swift did the unthinkable: she left Valve to "pursue opportunities elsewhere." Some time later, she resurfaced as the creative lead of a project called Quantum Conundrum: a first-person perspective, physics-based puzzle game with a silly story and a sense of humour.

Sound familiar?

But of course it does. Still and all, I adored Portal, and there've been a couple of indie games since that have honed close to its oddball formula and come up somewhat triumphant — not least QUBE, which I reviewed here. Given its particular heritage, however, I had very high hopes for Quantum Conundrum.

And then?

Then this trailer:

Call me a misery-guts, but I didn't even crack a grin. Your mileage may vary... though probably not a lot, if I'm honest.

Depending on the reviews I read, I may still play it for the puzzles, but if this trailer is as telling as I think it is, then Quantum Conundrum's sense of humour looks to be as tepid as tap water. Which is a real shame. Because the puzzles weren't what made Portal so awesome in its day, were they?

Quantum Conundrum will be coming to consoles sometime this summer, but if you're happy to play it on your personal computer, it's actually out tomorrow — ironically via Valve's ubiquitous digital distribution service, Steam.

If you'd asked me yesterday if I was planning to buy it on either platform, I would have told you my money was practically spent already. But not so much, now. Not so much...

Trailer Trash | Not The Full Full Sequence

Oh my lord it's only the Australian teaser for The Human Centipede 2!

Or is it?

Yes. Yes it is. But truth be told, it isn't much of a trailer. Not even the faint of heart need fear the following:

"Banned in Britain. Cut in the USA. Unleashed in Australia" indeed...

You know, I wouldn't usually waste a post on such rubbish - consider this a freebie! - but I wanted, given the week's discussion, to go on record to say I actually thought The Human Centipede was, for a modern horror film... kind of an incredible piece of work. Surprising and ghastly and relentless yet coherent in a fashion few movies these days dare to be, and supremely effective excepting the awful actors/segments. If more so - as ever - in the beginning than come the inevitable end; because the thought is always more awful, isn't it?

I do not however expect this nonsense to be anything approaching its equal. Not judging from this trailer trash, that is -- which I'm sure it's perfectly unfair of me to do. But fapping to what I can only imagine is repellent body horror? Honestly, this is how you picture your target market?

Well the hell with you, Full Sequence.

Trailer Trash | Rise, Ye Dark Knight!

I am curiously unmoved by this teaser trailer for what must be my most fervently anticipated film from the foreseeable future:

Perhaps it's because it's mostly made up, as Garth Franklin reports over at Dark Horizons, of repurposed footage from Batman Begins, which to be perfectly honest I didn't adore. Certainly not half as much as I did The Dark Knight -- and this despite my unbridled love for all things Caped Crusader. (Though that seems something of a misnomer when applied to Christopher Nolan's brooding vision of the character, doesn't it?) 

 

As is, the most Bat-tastic thing about that trailer to me is the glimpse of a more suitable image of the shattered Gotham skyline to borrow for my desktop background than was featured in the poster I blogged about last week. Oh for a full, downloadable HD trailer, and decent free screen-capture software!

 

Your thoughts, then, ladies and gents? Will this tide you over till something more substantial comes along? Or are you as underwhelmed as I find myself? 

 

P.S. Here's hoping you can all see this video. I'm telling you, embedding from facebook: it ain't easy!

***

Source: Dark Horizons

Trailer Trash | Into the Infinite with Bioshock, Baby

Got time?

If you don't have 15 minutes to watch this video right this second, do yourself a favour: find them, and report back here immediately.

What I'm embedding below is a video of a game which stands to change the way we play. I'm talking about Bioshock: Infinite, of course. Sure-fire Game of the Year contender and undisputed winner of E3 2011... spiritual successor to what is perhaps the most ground-breaking video game of the millennium... the very demo which stunned everyone lucky enough to get eyes on it at this summer's Electronic Entertainment Expo has finally been released.

And you have to watch it.

Tags: GameTrailers.com, GTTV - BioShock Infinite, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

So. Speechless?

I know I was.

Having recovered my jaw from the floor, all I'll say is that this marks the last time I'll be paying attention to footage from Bioshock: Infinite. It's still a ways out, alas, and that I'll buy it and play this thing to death and rebirth whenever the release date rolls around, well... after this demo, you can take that as said.

But I'd like to be able to... to discover it for myself, rather than have any more of it pre-empted by videos like the one above. Irrational Games aren't idiots; if they're prepared to give this much of the game away, there has to a whole lot more they aren't showing. And that makes my heart very glad indeed.

That said -- this far, and no farther!

Now, you all played Bioshock, didn't you? I'll thank you not to speak of the sequel, incidentally. Anyone our there as excited as I am to read Bioshock: Rapture by John Shirley? My review copy came in the mail this week - of which there'll be more in The BoSS, returning this weekend - and I can hardly wait to get a start on it.

Actually, you know what? It's not like I've anything better to do tonight...

Trailer Trash | Elder Scrolled

So yesterday, I watched press conferences.

They were not, as a whole, particularly inspiring. There will be new games! Hooray! And who would have thunk it?

Sadly, most of the things I'd hoped to see were not to be. I'll admit to some excitement over the Kinect functionality Microsoft and certain third parties are baking into a select few forthcoming 360 games - primarily Ghost Recon: Future Soldier - but of the four conferences yesterday, honest to God, I think I enjoyed the Ubisoft one the most.


For Far Cry 3, the stealth-developed sequel to an open world FPS which could and should have changed the face of gaming a few years ago, but didn't; and for the next Assassin's Creed - that is to say Revelations, "the final chapter of Ezio's story," as if it hadn't already ended twice - which looked awesome... despite my misgivings about diminishing returns from studios churning out yearly sequels.

But one of the coolest bits and bobs to come out of E3 thus far wasn't at any of the press conferences - though there's still the outside chance it could feature at Nintendo's new hardware extravaganza later today. Rather, released apropos of nothing much at all, seven solid minutes of gameplay from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.


And here they are:

Can I hear a hell yeah? :)

Trailer Trash | Isla de los Muertos

With marketing calendars so stuffed as to leave nary a day bereft of some huge news, these days when a game falls off the radar for any length of time you get to expecting the only news of it you'll here going forward will be of its untimely demise - a la the latest tragedy to befall Mirror's Edge 2, just a few days ago.

Not so with Dead Island, seemingly. In fact by all appearances, Polish developers Techland have been pretty goshdarned busy since announcing Dead Island in 2007. They've found themselves a fairly reputable publisher in Deep Silver. They've got enough code together to have demoed a sliver of gameplay to certain elements of the press. And they've put together a trailer.

If you haven't already, for shame! You really must watch it:

Released yesterday to some pretty ecstatic raves, the three minute piece Techland put together to officially out their melee-focused zombie survival horror (come RPG I dare say)  certainly looks the part. Moreover it feels it, too. But I'd like to think we're all adults here. We must know by now how incredibly deceptive trailers often are, and much as I might hope Dead Island is gaming's answer to The Reapers Are The Angels - rather than the Autumn of Dead Rising 2 - I sincerely doubt it will be.


I first saw the beautifully staged action embedded above over at Dark Horizons, where Garth Franklin writes that "The setting, piano score and emotional character focus of the trailer remind me of Lost [and] the structure is akin to Memento."


High praise - and perhaps there's a case for it. Dead Island can certainly lay claim to having a seriously sweet trailer, but it's much too early to tell much of anything about the game itself. Let's not set ourselves up for a fall. Bear in mind all we've seen of Dead Island so far is CG: no gameplay. And this is a game, not a CG movie.


...also it's coming from the studio which gave us Pet Racer and its world-renowned sequel Pet Soccer.


But I shouldn't be such an dick: Techland also gave the world Call of Juarez, and its sequel Bound in Blood - easily the best in class in western-themed video games before Red Dead Redemption came along and knocked all our socks off in 2010.


So they're capable developers when they sets their minds to it. There is hope!


For the very moment, however, let's not stoke the fires of our hearts with thoughts of a zombie video game with the sort of auteurish aspirations Garth has alludes to... not till we know a great deal more about Dead Island.


(Which I don't believe for a second will meet its projected 2011 street date, incidentally. More likely you'll see it - at the earliest - in the Spring of next year, on Xbox 360 and PS3.)

Trailer Trash | The Wicker... Tree?

As if the dreadful 2006 remake of cult British classic The Wicker Man (now with added Nicolas Cage) wasn't enough of an abomination, along comes a bloody sequel. Would you credit it?


Cube dwellers beware of bums and breasts:

In truth I shouldn't be giving The Wicker Tree shit. It's not so much a sequel as a companion piece to the original film anyway, and on its side it has Robin Hardy in the big chair - none other than the retiring director of The Wicker Man what was. Plus Christopher Lee's coming back, according to the IMDB.


So there's that.


I don't know if I'm actually looking forward to The Wicker Tree, but with a morbid sense of curiosity I certainly anticipate its impending release this Spring. Frankly it's plum weird to see how few folks' respective radars this film is on.


Get right on that, alright internet? :P

News Flashing | I Am Not Spartacus

Spartacus: Blood and Sand was one of my greatest guilty pleasures last year.


In fact... no. I take that back. It was only a guilty pleasure to begin with: after a couple of hours of daft action and borderline offensive sex, the untold origin story American cable network Starz proffered up during the Summer of 2010 really picked up. By the halfway point, right about the time my interest in most shows tends to sag, I was utterly gripped. And by the end - those of you who saw Blood and Sand will know what I'm talking about - there was simply no going back.


Except back is exactly where they've gone. See here:

"This house offers many pleasures," says Batiatus of the Ludus in which we watched Spartacus become the warrior history recognises him as. "With more yet to be presented," adds Xena of the coming prequel miniseries - equal parts, one presumes, an opportunity to spend a little more time with two of the most memorably treacherous characters television has seen in decades, and a chance to let lead actor Andy Whitfield recover from his treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma.


Sadly, Whitfield's condition hasn't been so easily brushed under the rug, and the rising star has had to give up the role that helped make him. Hollywood waits for no man, not even a leading man, it seems, so in a couple of weeks we'll be hearing all about our new Spartacus - delete as appropriate two of the following: Canadian actor Stephen Amell, British player Aiden Turner and Aussie contender Liam McIntyre. "Hmm" with me.


For the very moment, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena will act as a fine measure as to whether the show-runners of Blood and Sand can capture the impact and the intrigue of that series without him. As to that, the above trailer certainly leaves me hopeful.


Most of you lot will be able to judge for yourself come January 21st, when Gods of the Arena begins airing on Starz in the US. Who knows when (or indeed where) we'll see it here in blasted, behind-the-times Blighty.

I hate you all. :/

News Flashing | Dead Space 2: Dead Spacer

Much as I adored galloping through the old West in Red Dead Redemption, of late astride one or the other of the four horses of the apocalypse - my favourite was the fiery War - home is where the heart is.

My heart is with speculative fiction.

Speculative fiction in all its forms - with science fiction and fantasy, horror - and in every medium - in video games, in addition to books and movies. So Dead Space really did it for me, a couple years ago. It didn't hit me the way Bioshock did, but it came close; close enough that I've been dreaming of a sequel ever since.

That sequel was scheduled to come out before the holiday season hit, but so as not to be crowded out by the other big-hitters on the release calender - what great bullies Call of Duty: Black Ops, Halo: Reach and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood are! - EA pushed Dead Space 2 back. Only till the end of January, so all's well that ends well. And now Christmas and New Year are out of the way, the final phase of the marketing campaign's kicked in.

This recap-come-cocktease has my levels of anticipation approaching climax:

A handy refresher in the events of the first game... but wait, there's more! What grabbed me about that there trailer was the decidedly Aliens-esque twist the narrative seems to have taken. Three years after the events of the first game - three years engineer Isaac Clarke appears to have spent adrift and hardly even half-alive in the shuttle from which he narrowly escaped the Ishimura - our accidental hero awakes "on a hospital on Titan station, an Earth-governed metropolis on Saturn's largest moon."

Which leaves me wondering if his cat made the trip safely, too.

Now Dead Space was never the most original story in the world. It cribbed from everywhere, and that was fine; there had never been a game like Dead Space, no matter how many movies it had taken copious notes from. And so it pleases me, in a somewhat perverse way, to see this sequel cribbing in its turn from perhaps the best sequel there's ever been: Aliens.

With that trailer behind me, I'm going to be going dark on Dead Space 2 till I can get my hands on the game itself, lest I spoil anything else. For those of you who can't wait, however, for the grand sum of nothing at all, there's a playable demo available for download now on the Xbox Live Marketplace. And perhaps on the PSN too. Who could say?

If that weren't enough, there's always the book. Dead Space: Martyr by Last Days author Brian K. Evenson. It's not all that - here's the full review - but if ever there was a time to read it, it's now.

"Ye Ate Ma Daddy!"

Well goddamn!

Rockstar sure know how to put a trailer together, don't they?

You know, I absolutely adored Dead Rising 2. I had more pure, unadulterated fun with it than I have with any other in 2010 to date... but if you're going to review with any hope of objectivity, any notion to speak of the larger thing over - or as well as - your own particular experience of it, there are other things to consider than enjoyment, I think - elsewise I'd be casting my vote in favour of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 or Pacman Championship Edition year in and out. There's storytelling, there's design, even presentation plays a part. And by that more cumulative measure, my favourite game of 2010 is Red Dead Redemption, hands down.

So it was with some trepidation that I met the news of the first single-player expansion for that old west work of art. Because --- well, I don't recall there being any zombies in the history books I was taught from, and one of Red Dead Redemption's greatest triumphs is its invocation of a remarkable period of time not yet run into the ground, which is to say the back end of the old west, when capitalism, industrialism and all the ways of life we know so well came a-knocking. It seemed to me that to throw a horde of the undead in there would be to rather reduce the currency of Red Dead Redemption's setting, and by extension narrative and character; the very things which made is such an incredible piece of work.

And then I saw that trailer. I heard John Marston (oh, John, how I've missed thee) saying "I've seen husbands eating wives, mothers eatin' sons, graves poppin' open and the undead risin' up," and call me a pushover - whatever - all my misgivings fell away. Take my spacebucks, Rockstar! I was never going to make into space anyway...

The Undead Nightmare expansion is going to be available to download the week of Halloween, y'all. That's just a couple days from now!

Come on, now... you know you want it. There are undead bears, didn't you see 'em? :P