I like Harry Potter and his many, many adventures. Even as the books progressed and he revealed himself as a massively uninteresting fellow, he seemed nice enough. But it all started from the first book, which by all counts succeeded through J.K. Rowling’s unfettered and charming and engrossing vision of a world that lived alongside and within our own. It kind of makes me ponder the merits of this Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film.
We already know this world of witches and wizards. Even the introduction of the American counterparts to Hogwarts/Diagon Alley/everything else seems somewhat uninteresting, though the implications of exploring the greater magical universe is a pleasing proposition. But we don’t have the characters we love or the places we love or, well, anything else we love except for the magic. It’s a fascinating situation. Hopefully I’ll have a review up tomorrow for those of you that care.
But fuck it. Let’s look at some trailers.
Beauty and the Beast — Official Trailer
Sweet fuck. That definitely sends some chills up the ol’ spine, right? It feels like my childhood grew up a bit, or at least came with me on the way to growing up. That fresh realization of the traditional Disney slate and the sparse, haunting melody. So good.
And very obviously Emma Watson as Belle is super, super choice. She’s pretty much what I’ve always pictured in my head ever since I met Belle back in 1991 and I just didn’t know it. And Luke Evans as Gaston is almost hilariously perfect. Not sure about this particular vision of the Beast. He’s not quite, I dunno, beastly enough? Anyway, it comes out on March 17, 2017.
The Last Guardian — Cinematic Trailer
It’s happening. I can’t believe it’s finally fucking happening. Barring some hugely unforeseen catastrophe, The Last Guardian will finally see full retail release. That’s crazy, right? The Last Guardian was one of the first things I ever wrote about when I first started doing video games press. That was almost ten fucking years ago.
That being said, it’s been so long, what can you carry into this thing but absolutely fucking nothing. Having expectations is pretty much impossible, but also knowing what it means to be in development for so long can mean just about anything. Owlboy has been in development since just as long and it is dang good. Based on this trailer, though, this will be at least good-looking. It comes out for the PlayStation 4 on December 6, 2016.
Fullmetal Alchemist — Official Teaser Trailer
What I’ve learned from looking into this impending release is that the Warner Bros. Japan online presence is totally bonkers. Their website looks like it was conjured from the aesthetics of three years ago, but it’s also incredibly prolific in blog posts, something generally missing from Western companies. (The movie’s website also is insane for just embedding a raw-ass video file and calling it a day.)
This film, though, has a rock solid look to it. Ryosuke Yamada is a spitting image of the anime and manga versions of Edward Elric. I wonder how much of the god damn nightmare fuel they’ll include in this thing. My first go-round on the source material seriously troubled me. Like, deep to my core. Look for it to hit theatres sometime next year.
Mosaic — Teaser Trailer
I am way into this. It looks a bit like Inside in terms of milieu and general flat, mean sheen, but it also looks like it takes a real sharp left turn into weird town rather than anything quite as menacing as Playdead’s game. The description on Killbrite’s website, in fact, says it all.
“Mosaic is a game about urban isolation and the dread of being a piece in a giant machinery you can’t understand. For our protagonist in Mosaic, one day his mundane life changes completely when strange things starts happening.” Yeah, definitely into that. A bit contemplative, a bit mundane, a bit terrifying, and bit exciting. Almost sounds like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and that’s a good thing. (Also, totally dope website.) Comes out for the PlayStation 4, PC, Mac, and Linux in 2017.
Kong: Skull Island — Trailer 2
First off, let’s talk about how good the posters look for this movie. The film’s Twitter account blasted them out into the wild earlier this week and boy howdy are they a treasure. The one of a closeup of Kong’s face is nice in its own right, but the second one with its painterly, fiery feel is stupendous. It looks like something Olly Moss would make.
Second, just because you set a movie in the 1970s and you feature Americans in helicopters doesn’t mean you have to drop in a Creedence song. We can’t be that lazy, right? But woo nelly does this trailer step up its game fast. That shot of Kong emerging in front of Samuel L. Jackson is topnotch, and boy is this thing full of overwhelming talent, including Nightcrawler‘s Dan Gilroy as co-screenwriter. It hits theatres on March 10, 2017.
unWorded — Trailer
Okay, admittedly, I should have caught this last week when this trailer came out, but I’m here now and that’s what counts. It looks so damn good. Not just in terms of style but also substance. It opens with all you need to know: four simple letters arrange into a lightbulb. And then you turn it on.
That’s so effing cool. Granted, I worry it’ll run into the same problem as many adventure games where solutions you’ve come up with are totally logical but aren’t copacetic with what the developers had in mind. But whatever, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. It’s out now for iOS.
Super Mario Run — Introduction
It’s still nuts to me that there’s a YouTube channel called Nintendo Mobile. For a company so staunchly existing in the now meager market of handhelds, this feels so unnatural. They’ve made good on it so far, though, with Miitomo, though it’s not quite what it wanted to be. It continues to hobble along with updates and minimum intrigue despite having a great foundation of ideas and execution.
But soon there will be Super Mario Run, marking many firsts in Nintendo’s lifetime (and the YouTube channel, which has been strictly Miitomo for the longest time). A mobile Mario, Mario on a platform not wholly owned by Nintendo, and their first endless runner. That’s monumental. There’s a lot of features in this thing, too, and they look worthwhile. We’ll find out how it all shakes out when it lands on iOS on December 15, 2016.
Horizon Zero Dawn — Creating a New World
Yep, still gorgeous. It’s to the point where it reminds me of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, still one of the best looking imaginings of a post-apocalyptic world returned to nature. But this goes even further, expanding into biomes that game didn’t even bother to touch on like arid deserts and snowy mountain peaks. Not sure what it means for the game in terms of play other than being visually pleasing, but there it is.
Get ready to see that little marker in the corner of all PlayStation 4-based footage, though. You know, the one letting you know it was captured on a Pro system, not a standard one. Only for a while, though. Eventually they’ll just assume you’ll know that everything in marketing is on the Pro or Project Scorpio. You should gird yourself for that reality now rather than later. The game, however, comes out on February 28, 2017, for the PlayStation 4.
Retro Winter Sports 1986 — Trailer
Incredible. Any trailer that features that much footage of a god damn Game Gear is all right with me. Just look at it. Fucking look at it! Look at that big, beautiful black brick of early 90s braggadocio. Why did we ever keep making consoles after that? Oh, that’s right, because we wanted something that weighed less than two metric tons and could last for more than 20 minutes on a dozen AA batteries.
Okay, exaggeration and irrelevant technology aside (the Game Gears’ 1990 release != 1986), this does look retro as fuck. This is what video games used to be kids. Or rather, this is what games used to look like put through a modern filter of game design and reasoning. It’s out next month for Android (and possibly iOS later).
Genital Jousting — Early Access Trailer
What. The. Fuck.
