For this workshop, I had to watch a commercial release trailer for the game BioShock Infinite just first focusing on the type of imagery that's being showcased in the trailer down to the world design that a player might experience whilst playing the game and the enemies they could possibly face and fight during the game, other aspects that are in the trailer that people might be thinking about is what to expect when playing this game in terms of what the main premise/story is about in the game as well as an important question any person would want to find out, will the expectations that are shown within the trailer live up to how the game would actually perform when the game gets released for people to find out if the expectations are true to the final product.
During the first couple of seconds into the trailer, it starts off quite ambiguous as you see a young woman that has a noose around her neck and she appears distressed as she has what appears to be tears running down her face it appears as if she may have been committed some type of crime as nooses were a very common practice during criminal trials especially during the medieval and Victorian era (well-known examples).
Another scene shows a bit of context as to why the woman might appear to be put on trial as there appears to be a preacher/priest type character pointing and shouting at the woman who has a crowd of people who seem to be listening and following the orders the preacher is giving to his followers, it seems as though (judging from what the trailer is showcasing) the woman was once a part of these group of followers but may have committed some type of crime or broken the rules made by the preacher and now must be put through a trial. It then pans out to them being in the background of this scene which means that they are really far away from our perspective and showcasing the world that the player could possibly explore throughout the game.
These scenes together are viewed from the perspective of a lens of a rifle which shows really close-up details of the woman and the followers which is shortly followed by getting a first look at the character behind the rifle who is a young man with a slight stern yet confident demeanor about him there could be evidence to suggest that he could be the main protagonist of this game as whilst he is looking at the woman, the preacher and his followers through the lens of the rifle, he appears quite cross when he is aiming his rifle towards the group of preachers which we might be able to assume that this main character wants to save the woman that is stuck with the preachers.
Next there is a close-up shot of the rifle showcasing the intricate details of the rifle such as the metallic details placed around the wooden parts of the gun, the main barrel of the gun, where the trigger is located and the natural wooden streaks and cracks of the handle of the gun - the possible reasoning behind why the game company might have wanted to show close up details of the rifle in their trailer is that they want to showcase the visual assets of the game and get the audience’s attention by having stunning visuals elements within in a trailer could help interest and grab their attention and possibly get the, interesting and excited to want to play the game as that’s usually the aim to create a successful game trailer is to be able to “sell” to the audience and to be to convince the audience as to why they should buy the game.
Then just as the main character is keeping his aim back to the preacher, his view is suddenly blocked by a human beating heart (covering nearly the entirety of the lens) and then it quickly pans out to a shot of a defined, mechanical figure with quite a grotesque and angry face with its fist clenched and ready to punch the main character - from this dramatic scene alone we can figure out that this figure is a possible enemy that we (the player) might encounter during our play through of the game.
Just as the enemy is about to land a punch on him, he suddenly ducks under the punch, which he just about misses, and jumps off of the building that he was currently standing on and as he starts (and continues) falling down, we get to see a top down view of the buildings that are in this interesting environment and you can slightly see him grab onto the metal railings that are also in this world (before a couple game award quotes pop up in between) and it shows the first person perspective of him slinging and sliding across the railings as if we are zipping around and sliding like the main character is which gets the player excited and curious as we get to feel the excitement of as if we are feeling the adrenaline of riding a roller coaster that has you rocking from side to side and feel the rush as you descend from great heights.
You also get to see enemy chasing after the character using the buildings to try and get to the same distance as the main character and jumps onto a bridge with a couple of people standing there and they become shocked and startled by the sight of it, the enemy punches one of the people and knocks them over the bridge towards roughly the same direction as the main character and just about misses as the enemy’s intentions are clearly to knock the main character from the railings and fall and plummet down to the abyss of the world and fail to reach the woman he is trying to save. Luckily he misses the knocked out person by a fraction and manages to get to the area that the woman and the preacher were when we first saw them (at the beginning of the trailer) and he lands directly and knocks out the preacher so he is able to free the woman and the horse that she is standing on (which is shown during the first couple of seconds/15-30 seconds of the trailer) gets startled from the sudden entrance of the main character.
Here we get a preview of a game mechanic that we (the player) might be able to use during the game - the main character has his (left hand) palm open towards the woman and a sudden gust of wind appears from the ground that they are standing on and a subtle glow outline surrounding the woman - this might suggest that the game mechanic shown here has to do with levitation, though if you pay close attention to the mans hand - you’ll see loads of veins running across his arm towards the tip of his finger with some sort of stone texture with cracks to suggest that it might be more related to elements, so the levitation would indeed be caused by a wind or earth related mechanic.
As she drops to the ground, she points towards the direction behind the main character and she shouts his name, Booker and sees the same enemy is back once again to try and defeat the main character and starts to jump up and head down to
where they are, hunter quickly turns his open palm towards the crowd of people that were alongside the preacher (as seen during the first couple of seconds of the trailer) and uses the same wind/levitation mechanic that he used on the woman, but when he uses this mechanic on the group of people he not only raises them, as the enemy is just about to touch the ground, he pushes the crowd of people towards the enemy and it stumbles and crashes straight to the ground, as it starts getting up from the ground, the woman chucks Booker’s rifle to him, then with some fast pace action, he catches the rifle and pulls the trigger, with a loud bang and a quick camera angle change to see the smug face of our main character who has shot the enemy where it’s heart is located in the middle of its hollow chest, the way we know this is that we can see through the chest completely and the heart that we saw at the beginning of the trailer isn’t there now.
As the enemy crashes down to the ground from the impact of the shot, the woman slowly turns round as she starts to hear something that the main character is unaware of as he’s focused on the enemy, she pulls a shocked and concerned face when
this is done and the main character also starts to turn his head around to see what the woman is gazing at and airship starts to rise up from under the ground which could possibly open up the idea that this won’t be the only world we’ll be able to explore and there is more to discover which gets people excited as looking at a first impression of this game environment looks very visually pleasing and fun to explore that of course there must be other worlds like this which will be equally as pleasing.
Overall, this game trailer was really interesting to analyse and watch as I really liked the visuals that had been presented by the trailer and they have shown off the game mechanics really well especially when it came to the very last couple of seconds of the trailer when the main character used the mechanic on the group of people and chucked them towards the gigantic grotesque enemy and quickly shooting the enemy before it could stand up and land another punch on the character. Though one thing to mention, personally I haven't played the game myself as I have only seen footage of the game through game trailers so I cannot personally comment if the trailers expectations actually look like the gameplay footage, but I have heard from people who have actually played the game from beginning to end, they have mentioned that the trailer expectations do not line up to the reality of what the game actually looks like, which slightly disappoints me, in my opinion, as I feel like if a game company advertises a game with stunning visuals that have us in awe and makes us want to pick up the game straight after seeing such a spectacular trailer, then they should expect the actual game to be able to offer the same quality that they expected to get from the actual game.
Now I need to review the same game trailer again, but this time I need to think about what the essential experience could've been intended to be for the games designer to be able to sell this game trailer to the public and to think about which of the three lenses (lens of beauty, lens of projection, lens of inherent interest) could be the most relevant within the essential experience that is shown in the trailer.
The possible essential experience that could be for this game trailer is that you're exploring a new land adrenaline rush from doing things you couldn't do in real life so to say, to help heighten this experience through the use of dramatic moments, visuals and sound effects as good visuals and sound design can help to grip the audience's attention and to be able to convince them to be interested in the game that you as a games designer (or any type of designer for that matter e.g. movies) are trying to present to your audience. The possible pitch that could've been presented towards their colleagues about the game is that they should mention that every choice throughout the game is deliberate which means that every choice between the placement of enemies or NPCs might be placed specifically to drive the story forward and to give the player motivation to play through the game if the aspects placed within the game have a genuine purpose - their isn't any point putting something in the game if there isn't a point of drive/motivation for the player to continue playing the game. Now finally, the possible lens that we see throughout the game trailer is the inherent interest because of the flexible gameplay experience players would gain by using the powers to save Elizabeth (the woman shown in the very beginning of the trailer) and the lens of beauty from the spectacular world design that we get to see within the beginning seconds of the trailer as the player would be in amazement by the world they are exploring such as the gigantic buildings to jump off from and zip and slide around the railings and get that feeling of adrenaline so that they love to explore every unique area from one point to another.
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