Honest Game Trailers

May 8, 2016 2:46 AM

From the makers of Honest Movie Trailers, Honest Game Trailers.

Previously, previouslier, previousliest.

posted by clorox (20 comments total)

It says something about me that I had to scroll down to Starcraft II to find a game I'd actually played, and so I am probably not in the audience, but some of these are really flat and long.

Although, Arkham Asylum was a fun one
posted by Mezentian at 3:36 AM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've enjoyed watching their reviews on an occasional basis for the big tentpole movies, but yikes! - - when you start dipping into the whole archive, it doesn't take many episodes to get sick of that smug 'n' snarky style.
posted by fairmettle at 4:31 AM on May 8, 2016 [5 favorites]

The Until Dawn trailer was a little long, but spot on.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:35 AM on May 8, 2016

Putting TRUMP 2016 at the end of The Division trailer was...probably accurate.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:56 AM on May 8, 2016

The "Honest Trailer" and "Everything Wrong With" series were both amusing at first but they've become far too predictable. It might elicit a small chuckle but it's mostly a lazy kind of humour.
posted by Fizz at 5:35 AM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm ok with the smug attitude, because it's spot on in the criticism that goes with it... still love Minecraft, though.
posted by MikeWarot at 6:31 AM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I understand the snarky tone is what these are all about, but I gave up on them more for the casual, violent misogyny.
posted by thecjm at 7:27 AM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I agree mostly with people's dismissals of these guys, and I haven't seen enough to pick up on misogyny, but I can say that their takedown of the Kindgom Hearts series' amazingly ludicrous story is spot on.
posted by JHarris at 7:42 AM on May 8, 2016

My 12-year-old son loves these things, which helps put in perspective my own parents' eye-rolling exasperation with all the half-clever jadedness I learned from the pages of MAD.
posted by mph at 8:16 AM on May 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

Just Cause is spot on, but yeah, after a couple it's all the same. Snark remark, mention of quality of the game, snark, reference to theme of the game, callback to something related, another mention to quality, snark, featuring snark.


Still, Explosions Explosions Explosions EXPLOSIONS!
posted by lmfsilva at 8:25 AM on May 8, 2016

I'm not a gamer but got a pass to Pax East a couple weeks ago, crowded and intense but, well, most thinks I saw seemed quite repetitive. Occasionally some clever renderings of characters. I was quite excited about one I saw being played up on a huge screen, unique smooth movement, rational (if creepy) actions, but I realized it was a long animation. I was hoping to see something clever in the small indie booths at the back edges of the room but just a glance at each seemed to be a clone of a clone. I was too chicken to chat with the women at the both that had no active display but seemed to be about female romance. I am looking forward to the big budget film of the one title that amused me "Zombie Vikings".

sorry if this is a derail.
posted by sammyo at 9:04 AM on May 8, 2016

I just watched the one for Heavy Rain, which I only ever played a little of and even my hardcore gamer roommate at the time threw down in disgust after far too long. Christ that game sucked. It's all very well to want to make games as art--it's a good thing to do that! The game, however, has to be interesting and engaging and playable, which the creators seem to have missed out on.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:34 AM on May 8, 2016

Hee! In the Twilight Princess one I lost it at "Starring: Hot Topic" (Midna).
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:40 AM on May 8, 2016

X-Com and Diablo were pretty... honest. fwiw.
posted by some loser at 9:55 AM on May 8, 2016

I like this concept, but most of these games have been joked on pretty thoroughly already. Makes it hard to sell a punchline when you've heard it a bunch of times before.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 9:55 AM on May 8, 2016

Fortunately for me I've only played a few of these games, so I only watched a few.

RE: GoldenEye-- what're you saying about me and that rocket launcher? (Yes, I blew myself up a lot. I'm bad at FPSes, what can I say.)

Re: Portal-- Yeah, not that funny. Portal and Portal 2 were much funnier than this trailer. (Also funny: getting my character stuck halfway up various walls. Frequent problem for me in Portal 2. And maybe for someone else, watching me trying to defeat GLADOS at the end of Portal.. .ugh, did I mention I suck at FPSes?)

Maybe they work better when they're funnier than the game they're trying to make fun of?
posted by nat at 10:28 AM on May 8, 2016

I just watched the one for Heavy Rain, which I only ever played a little of and even my hardcore gamer roommate at the time threw down in disgust after far too long. Christ that game sucked. It's all very well to want to make games as art--it's a good thing to do that! The game, however, has to be interesting and engaging and playable, which the creators seem to have missed out on.

I still think David Cage is a shitty screenwriter/director wannabe who turned to games because the bar for quality is so much lower. Not saying a good movie or TV creator would automatically do a fantastic game, because both mediums are different, but along the shoddy QT heavy/bordering-on-abuse gameplay there's always this feeling it is trying so hard to be serious it feels Cage is really frustrated nobody gave him a grant to do a movie in the late 90s and allowed him to be the next Luc Besson and is now showing his true genius to the CNC.
posted by lmfsilva at 11:40 AM on May 8, 2016

Honest Trailers are the worst. Lazy, dismissive snark over the top of someone else's work. Make your own good films and games if it's that easy, doods.
posted by EatTheWeek at 12:02 PM on May 8, 2016

I generally enjoy the honest movie trailers, but each of these I've watched has exactly one decent joke in it. The movie ones give the impression the writers at least saw the movie they are tearing into, as opposed to just reading the most popular criticisms of a series on a message board and recycling them.
posted by Durhey at 5:41 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

thecjm: "I understand the snarky tone is what these are all about, but I gave up on them more for the casual, violent misogyny"

The only one I watched was the Mass Effect one, and I had a similar feeling. I mean, sure, if you're going to critique the ME games then you do have to say something about the creepy camerawork whenever Miranda is on screen, and it's similarly difficult to avoid talking about the fact that the Asari were designed to be the "sexy alien babes", but the video didn't actually seem to be criticising the game for those things? It kind of felt like one of those jokey "you know you loved it har har" things that actually reinforces the underlying sexism of the game rather than undercuts it. The tipping point for me was the bit where the narrator starts talking about Jack - a horribly brutalised woman trying to come to terms with her awful childhood - as "the one you don't take home" or something along those lines. Given Jack's character arc that's unsympathetic and kind of gross and it starts to feel like rather than criticising the sexism in the game, they were kind of enjoying it.
posted by langtonsant at 2:35 PM on May 9, 2016