Halo 3 set a precedent for using live footage to pimp a game, and now it seems like every new title has a live-action commercial to go with it. Halo is still the king with the excellent short called “Landfall” by Neill Blomkamp for Halo 3 and the “We Are ODST” video for the half-expansion cum sequel Halo 3: ODST. By rights, Reach should have an awesome trailer depicting Spartans kicking ass and taking names. However, all we’ve had are people on the planet Reach standing around talking, but that changes right now. Take a look at Halo: Reach’s live action trailer:
While I did enjoy the video of civilians before the fall of Reach, something about Spartans in combat just gets me even more excited for the game (if that was possible). It also helped that the video reminded me a little of District 9, which might have been intentionally done to link it back in with the Blomkamp shorts. What did you guys think of the trailer? Actually, what do you think of the current trend of using live-action commercials for games?
I’m going to be honest – the jetpack at the end of that totally ruined the trailer for me.
@ Eddy: Why so?
I pretty much love these things. They are so much fun. They really put some effort into these and they look great. Iv watched it about three times now. Super cool. I love watching Spartans fight. The scene at the end where the ship’s force field can be seen warping like that, that is awesome. Eeeee I cant wait for reach.
As for the live action thing. As long as its done with the best of effort, I think its pretty cool.
Honestly I think this might be my least favourite short of them all, don’t get me wrong it was impressive but for some reason it just didn’t do anything for me not like the previous shorts.
The live action stuff really works for me as long as its done well like the Blomkamp shorts but sadly this one just wasn’t up to par in my opinion.
That was absolutely amazing, and Eddy why?
First things first that was epic. I think the guys did channel a little of Blomkamp with the first person visor view. As for using live action for promoting games I see no problem with it and hope it continues, and gets better and better. Hopefully the company/companies behind the live action shorts are given the opportunity to make a short film about the HALO universe that is not a commercial.
This trailer, I love it!
And the music, oh man, the music! I’ve never really liked Halo for it’s gameplay or it’s multiplayer. The thing about Halo that I always come back to is it’s campaign plot and the music.
As far as Live-Action goes, Halo does it the best, as evidenced in commercials like these. But if you think about it, I doubt a Halo movie could be super awesome, a collection of short films the quality of this live-action stuff, most definitely.
Actually, make Halo a miniseries like Band of Brothers and I think you got a win.
These are cool b/c they are all action. Having story and character thrown in to the mix might not work unless done properly.
But it can be done.
Just watched it again, and the second viewing didn’t bug me as much. It’s funny that MS is so consumed with making these live action trailers, which they also did for ODST. You figure they would just find a way to go ahead and get a legit movie made. I’d hate to see what happened to Doom happen to Halo, where they release a movie 10 years too late. Seriously, if a Halo movie had debuted around the launch of Halo 3 or Halo: Reach, they would have easily recouped the investment. As it stands, don’t they spend 30-100 million marketing the games anyway?
Not as good as ODST’s but still good. It needed more shooting. Now I want to re-read the first and third Halo novels again to see what the other spartans were up to.
@ Eddy
I think they wont make a movie just because of the cost of it. They dont want a Doom to happen to them, they need it to be good. Even something like that jetpack scene can upset fans and cause most of the ‘movie’ to look worse. If they dont do it just right, it will suck, which is what I feared when I first heard they were making a movie. To me, and Im sure a lot of others, it HAS to be done perfectly.
Also perhaps they want to save the movie for after the games just so they can milk it even further over the long run. Who knows.
That’s the problem I think, Sean. When you wait for after the games, your movie isn’t nearly as relevant. If that same Doom movie had come out when the games were relevant, even if it sucked it will make its money back because it still meant something in the moment. They waited a decade later, and the mania around Doom just wasn’t the same anymore. Even a terrible Halo movie will more than make back its cost. Obviously, I’d prefer a perfect and great Halo movie, but the longer they wait the more they are probably losing money, good movie or bad.
I love well done live action trailers. The ODST one blew me away when I first saw it. I watched it so many times. It’s a 3 minute film. In Halo. Not to mention the music is awesome.