secret levelAmazon’s amazing animated video game anthology is either a gorgeous, impactful vehicle for telling short stories or a soulless piece of content with a capital C, depending on which episode you’re watching.
The series is being developed primarily by Blur Studio, with help from Amazon-MGM Pictures. If you’re familiar with some of Blur’s work Best Movie Trailer Coming from the past decade or so, you won’t be surprised to learn that the animation in all 15 episodes is indeed very beautiful. There’s a distinct lack of heart and soul in its storytelling as it aspires to huge, emotional cachet, which leads to the failure of several episodes that, had they been removed, could have made for a more impressive series. Instead, we have essentially 15 trailers, all of which hit roughly the same emotional beat, and only a handful of which manage to tell a story that doesn’t just feel like a very expensive ad.
When I look at these 15 games secret level‘s anthology episode covers, I’m still not sure why the show chose these stories to tell. But I have a theory: Amazon series releases series based on the company’s MMO New World It’s easy to promote under the guise of artistic endeavor. harmony, short lived hero shooter Sony has no intention of promoting it anymore, but clearly hopes this will be its next hit live service, with an entire episode that feels like an extended movie trailer dedicated to its “We Have Guardians of the Galaxy at home” world. In other words, while some games feature secret level are huge properties with cultural heritage, making them an obvious choice for an anthology that pays homage to video games, with most episodes feeling like an extension of the marketing.
secret level The show will air on December 10, which means some of the show’s highlight games either haven’t launched yet or are in active development alongside the show. harmony Of course, this is the strangest and most awkward inclusion considering the fate of the game, but it is Exodus: Odyssey— the upcoming sci-fi game from Archetype Entertainment, a division of Wizards of the Coast — is one of the most exhaustingly self-indulgent episodes yet. The game has been out for less than a year, and we haven’t even seen it in action yet. Wizards of the Coast property also appears again in Dungeons and Dragons episode. again, secret level As a business deal, it makes more sense than telling 15 stories because someone genuinely felt that those stories deserved to be told.
harmony It’s not the only episode for PlayStation. One of the show’s worst, most self-aware episodes follows a young woman who works as a delivery person for a company that rewards employees for their personal best delivery times with a focus-tested cosmetics upgrade. She escapes the monotony of her corporate life to hang out with blue slime monsters and escape to virtual reality (or maybe real? Not sure) versions of PlayStation characters like Colossus from Star Wars. Shadow of the Colossus and Kratos from Mars as she rides her bike through the city. You see, you wake up every morning with this drudgery of trying to get the best makeup while working your whole life for a careless business owner, but the really cool kids aren’t going to accept this for their stupid little job system, but play PlayStation games? Corporations are evil and they manipulate you into doing their bidding and reaping horrific rewards, but is back on your PlayStation your safe space? Brands will never hurt you? Or what? Unless you are one of its developersI guess. It trades any form of coherent storytelling for a few cameos from PlayStation characters in an effort to get fans clapping and cheering, and could easily be condensed into a Super Bowl TV spot.
Several episodes are surprisingly nondescript. crossfireThe episode is a fairly generic military shooter cutscene characterized almost exclusively by early 2000s edgy gloom. exodus‘This episode looks gorgeous, but if you put a gun to my head, I don’t think I’d be able to identify which game it’s from. era secret level‘s episodes The show really stands out when it leans towards stylized animation and doesn’t blend in with the rest of the series. Here are 15 unique games, why do half of them look the same? It makes a big difference when they look very different, like based on mastersummarizing the game’s roguelike martial arts structure, and Cavingwhich abandons the photorealism adopted by most secret level and capture the adventurous spirit of Mossmouth Caving.
Some adaptations are less than faithful. this pacman The episode took a psychological body horror approach to an early arcade hit, a concept that was fun in a vacuum and resulted in some of the show’s most memorable sequences. However, in this context pacmanTypical all-ages history that feels like an officially licensed Disney character Promoted terrorist assets Once in the public domain. Mega Man It doesn’t try that hard in this direction, but it still turns the colorful action-platformer series into a somewhat dark coming-of-age story, with secret levelPrestige’s storytelling leanings into the father-son dynamic of the titular robot hero and his creator. This is one of the best in the series, but there are better episodes like this one, masterand Caving There’s no way to cleanse the cynical advertising stench that permeates the entire show.
secret level All in all, it’s unbalanced. Its animation is stunning, but it feels like Blur Studio is relying too much on its experience of making trailers with inflated emotional arcs designed to drive customers to the nearest game store. When creator Tim Miller announced the show’s return Gamescom in Augusthe tearfully called it a “love letter” to video games. But the result feels more like a set of expensive ads, one for a game you can’t even play anymore.
