The best and worst of live-action game trailers

Features
By published

Should games ever be marketed without polygons? Yes and no...

In a way, they're just big-budget cosplay, and like all cosplay, theycan go very wrongor very right. So I've collected together a whole bunch of them from both ends of the scale, for your perusal and comparison. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and occasionally you might just cringe yourself into a coma.

More like H.I.L.A.R.I.T.Y. Or C.H.E.E.S.E.For some reasonPoint Man has turned into a greasy Hobo and Paxton Fettel is now played by Cinder out of Killer Instinct.

Happything: This one looks amazing, is moody as hell, and does a great job of getting us pumped to see more of the game. Sad thing: It also shows us exactly what Terminator: Salvation could and should have been.

Ubisoft went one step further than most with Assassin's Creed 2, creating a series of three short film prequels. They were made to both promote the game and provide Ubi with a stepping-stone into the film business. Given the quality of this and the Ghost Recon ad, we demand Splinter Cell next. NOW!

This one is weird for all sorts of reasons. Firstly, it features a guy wearing camoflage gear and a bright orange jacket and cap. Let's think about that for a second. And secondly, it revels in the father/son bonding of a good dose of animal murderising with such hilariously grim relish that we swore therehad to bea punchline coming. Turns out there wasn't. It just wanted to be disturbing at us.

Two Halo 3 clips, one a traditional game ad, and one from Neil Blomkamp's fantastic short films (which in turn led to the even better District 9). The museum ad is pretty divisive. People either findit stirringly emotional ormortifyingly pretentious. Meiks and Iare definitely in the latter camp, and much preferthis version, from the comedy legends at Consolevania.

More from Halo, and that means more grim and gritty, pseudo-heartstring-yanking manly tragedy. Which just doesn't sit right with me when we're talking about a game full of purple explosions and squeaky-voiced battle-Jawas.

Yet more Halo, yet more of the kind of moody, stylised bleakness that you'll very rarely find in the games. Still, the production design on this one is fantastic.

Okay, so we're sort of cheating with this one, as it isn't actually a live-action trailer for the game. It's a live-action trailer for the live-action movie Capcom is making to tie into the game. It looks like a no-budget carnival of gleeful Japanese zombie excess, and thus is the kind of stuff my dreams are made out of.

But what do you reckon? Disagree withme on the quality of any of these? And do you think live-action trailers are the way of the future, or just a tacky fancy-dress-style way to appeal to mainstream audiences? As ever, let us know in the comments, or on our really rather excellent community areas onFacebookandTwitter.

David Houghton
David Houghton
Former GamesRadar+ Features Writer

Former (and long-time) GamesRadar+ writer, Dave has been gaming with immense dedication ever since he failed dismally at some '80s arcade racer on a childhood day at the seaside (due to being too small to reach the controls without help). These days he's an enigmatic blend of beard-stroking narrative discussion and hard-hitting Psycho Crushers.