By Alec Meer on April 17th, 2012 at 3:02 pm.
Possibly the game we’re most excited about in 2012, Arkane’s immersive sim has just broken cover after a few months of silence. This first full-length trailer is, alas, entirely pre-rendered, but it does show off the rather tasty world-design, the parkour element, the plot set-up and some of protagonist Corvo’s primary abilities. Killing me won’t solve anything, so have a watch of this instead.
Is it really an ‘immersive sim’? Well, I genuinely hope so, and Arkane made some noises to that effect, but it’s hard to say if it lives up to those dark legacies we so love until we’ve seen more of it in action first-hand. Soon…
17/04/2012 at 15:03 GallonOfAlan says:
Paint me like one of your French girls.
17/04/2012 at 15:35 Chaz says:
On a bicycle with some onions around your neck?
17/04/2012 at 17:58 sketchseven says:
Don’t write comments like that when I’m drinking coffee. I nearly died.
17/04/2012 at 23:29 slabgar says:
Do not read comments like that when drinking coffee, or he will nearly kill you.
18/04/2012 at 04:29 Geen says:
Don’t you see? He’s an assassin hired to kill us, and make it look like a coffee-based accident.
18/04/2012 at 18:50 SuperNashwanPower says:
French and Saunders if I’m not mistaken
17/04/2012 at 15:09 ArtyFishal says:
I wish Prey 2 was still a thing. Additionally, I’d like an Aeon Flux game.
17/04/2012 at 15:37 The Sombrero Kid says:
Prey 2 wasn’t cancelled, I’d put all my money on it, remember Doom 4 is unofficially cancelled too (Rumour about Bethesda basically == WRONG).
17/04/2012 at 16:53 Hoaxfish says:
yea, Prey 2 was “rumoured to be cancelled, announced next week”.. next week came, and no such announcement appeared.
17/04/2012 at 16:55 nfire3 says:
Speaking of Prey 2 this trailer is almost like a carbon copy of prey 2′s cinematic trailer
18/04/2012 at 05:16 Ratboy422 says:
Not sure if it means anything but noticed this the other day….
http://www.amazon.com/Prey-2-Playstation-3/dp/B004SG1J8O
17/04/2012 at 15:11 Headache says:
Games For Windows tag at the end, looks like we’ll have to wade through crap to play this game too.
17/04/2012 at 15:12 Duckee says:
No, you are mistaken. If it would say Games for Windows LIVE then yes, we would have to wade through shit. Luckily, it does not!
17/04/2012 at 15:14 CMaster says:
Indeed, so far as I know, Bethesda has been pretty keen on Steamworks over GFWL for a while now. (Why they feel the need for either for their single player titles is a bit of a mystery, but)
17/04/2012 at 15:25 Headache says:
Thank you guys! My mistake. That’s a huge relief!
17/04/2012 at 18:00 Phantoon says:
No surprise someone made that mistake. After the shock of Dark Souls packing GFWL, any amount of horribleness could be possible.
With that in mind, one of the FROM people made a twitter post about “listening to the community” and “wait for news soon”. All might not be lost.
17/04/2012 at 15:15 Unaco says:
Just so you know… Games for Windows != Games for Windows LIVE.
Games for Windows is a set of standards and certifications that games follow, and they get the Games for Windows tag. Things like an Easy Install option, compatibility with x64 systems, widescreen support, parental controls, compatibility with Win7 features like Game Explorer, Media Centre. There’s nothing wrong with Games for Windows in the slightest.
17/04/2012 at 15:59 d3vilsadvocate says:
I’m highly excited for this. But I’d like to get a non-DRM version of this. I’m sick of Steam, GFWL, Origin and all the rest.
Thank you
17/04/2012 at 16:40 Tams80 says:
How did I know this would be one of the first comments.
Your unnecessary blind hate for Games for Windows – LIVE has made you even see Games for Windows, which has been on PC Games since Vista, make you make wrong assumptions.
17/04/2012 at 16:54 Stromko says:
Hating every implementation of GFW-Live thus far, is not unnecessary or baseless. In every game I’ve heard of where it has appeared, it has caused errors and frustrations. There have been few benefits, and not enough to outweigh the problems. It isn’t the only annoying application that games are saddled with, but it’s still not a good thing, and I can’t think of any instance where not having GFW:L wouldn’t have made for a better experience.
17/04/2012 at 18:01 Phantoon says:
I lost my Fallout 3 save entirely when GFWL decided it didn’t like my information.
17/04/2012 at 20:19 meatshit says:
I’ve only owned five games with GFWL and of those five, two have had their saves trashed by that horrible system. All the hate it gets is very well founded.
17/04/2012 at 15:11 Runs With Foxes says:
As much as I’m looking forward to this, it’s still all concept. It’s time to show some gameplay.
17/04/2012 at 15:18 Jams O'Donnell says:
Indeed. Gameplay footage please!
17/04/2012 at 15:24 brulleks says:
Quite. I really miss the days when a game trailer consisted of a splash screen and a few short, scattered moments of gameplay. I don’t miss the generic heavy guitar riff soundtracks that usually accompanied them though.
Mind you, now we have dub step…
17/04/2012 at 15:44 Kollega says:
Do you think there can be such thing as steampunk dubstep? Would go pretty nicely with laser-sighted tactical flintlocks and mechanical stilt-walkers powered by whale oil. =P
17/04/2012 at 16:41 Wreckdum says:
^ this
17/04/2012 at 18:04 Kollega says:
Here is something i got by searching for “steampunk dubstep” on Youtube and doubling one of the first results (because i’m lazy) with the trailer. If anyone can do better, i’d appreciate it.
17/04/2012 at 18:05 Phantoon says:
Why do people keep trying to make dubstep interesting? It won’t work. It’s terrible by design.
17/04/2012 at 15:13 Kynrael says:
I hope the interesting stealth mechanics like looking through a keyhole, half opened doors, etc are actually in the game ! This looks good.
17/04/2012 at 15:45 The Sombrero Kid says:
Looking through keyholes and eavesdropping in general is confirmed to be an important game mechanic.
17/04/2012 at 15:49 Kynrael says:
Great stuff :)
17/04/2012 at 16:08 JackShandy says:
I remember an interview saying that enemies actually have decreased field of vision and hearing when they’re talking to one another.
17/04/2012 at 17:01 Highstorm says:
I hope, though, that enemies can’t spot you so readily peeking through keyholes, ala the trailer.
17/04/2012 at 20:54 Defiant Badger says:
Yeah that was a bit silly.
18/04/2012 at 02:46 Phantoon says:
The guy was a psychic.
17/04/2012 at 15:13 CMaster says:
Exctiing trailer.
Wonder how actual gameplay compares mind. Also, I kind of hope the player character is a little less powerful than that suggests.
17/04/2012 at 15:25 Lhowon says:
I loved the aesthetics.
I agree on the power, the trailer did a great job of portraying the player as vulnerable what with all the desperate running around, but that made for an odd contrast with the stop-time-kill-everyone thing.
Of course it’s a trailer with very limited time, so I guess it’s to be expected that they’d fit an unrepresentative amount of power use into it.
17/04/2012 at 18:16 Phantoon says:
Likely the amount of time for that stop time thing was as long as he had to do it, at some sort of upgraded level.
The trailer looked very, very good. I’m optimistic, especially for new IP.
17/04/2012 at 15:18 Servizio says:
“Revenge solves everything.” Oh Dishonored trailer, it’s like you really get me.
17/04/2012 at 15:18 Stevostin says:
This trailer solves everything.
This is one of the rare games I feel I could buy full price on day 1. Good job !
18/04/2012 at 10:00 konrad_ha says:
If the games lives up to the trailer my wait for HL3 is over.
17/04/2012 at 15:18 LuNatic says:
So is it a game or a movie? Not that I’d be unhappy with a movie with that kind of atmosphere and setting…
17/04/2012 at 15:21 Kollega says:
This looks insanely dystopian, and yet… i like it. Perhaps because it’s steampunk. Or perhaps because it has the style. The panache. The pizzaz.
I also like how the guy in the trailer says killing him won’t solve anything, but Corvo dosen’t even bother to listen. DAT’S MY MAN.
17/04/2012 at 15:44 Quaib says:
Totally agree about the killing won’t solve anything bit, I love how the guy says that it won’t solve anything then the tagline is, “REVENGE SOLVES EVERYTHING”.
Also that introduces the main theme I guess. Does revenge solve anything?
17/04/2012 at 16:56 Hoaxfish says:
It solved my maths homework for me.
19/04/2012 at 12:49 diestormlie says:
Certainly, it solved the problem of my exams.
17/04/2012 at 18:10 Phantoon says:
Considering the problem was “people aren’t dead”, I’d say it’s very effective.
17/04/2012 at 15:48 The Sombrero Kid says:
The timings impeccable, a split second longer and it’d be suggesting he took the time to listen to reason and disregarded it, any quicker & it’d have seemed like he was trying to shut him up, they got it bang on the nonchalant assassin trope (which is a good thing!)
17/04/2012 at 16:04 sneetch says:
Yeah, there was a very nice sense that the only reason he got to say all that is because it took Corvo that long to kill him. No half-hour long conversation, no confession or debate or repentance, oh no, kill him, then out the window.
27/04/2012 at 23:32 LionsPhil says:
Muchlywise agreedified.
17/04/2012 at 15:23 diebroken says:
/blinks to play NS2
17/04/2012 at 15:23 Moni says:
There’s a lot of fun looking concepts in there: Free running, stealthy-stabs, shooty-shoots, bullet time, super speed, force push, stompy-bots. Moved to ‘interesting’ pile.
17/04/2012 at 18:18 Phantoon says:
He killed those guardsmen with his rooty-tooty point and shooty!
18/04/2012 at 08:03 max pain says:
4-lane rail tracks.
18/04/2012 at 17:27 LTK says:
Yes. Why?
Plus, compound bows with incendiary arrows. I’ll bet Dishonored did it before Crysis!
17/04/2012 at 15:24 Jibb Smart says:
Bethesda’s just the publisher, right? There’s still hope this will be a well-polished game?
17/04/2012 at 15:36 Askeladd says:
Who knows? We should just stop beeing angsty like lil girls… it will be polished or it won’t.
I’m just saying this because theres a pattern in every damn media release.
17/04/2012 at 15:47 Jibb Smart says:
I’m more concerned with Bethesda’s pattern: lots of potential, but buggy and uncanny. Enough so, in fact, that my excitement for this game comes with the assumption that Bethesda’s not making it.
17/04/2012 at 16:23 Wisq says:
I dunno, re: bugginess, the community has usually been pretty good with picking up where Bethesda left off, since they make everything so moddable. The unofficial patches for each of their games have solved thousands of issues each.
I’m more concerned about the depth of their games than about the bugginess. Open world is all well and good, but I’ve found that their approach of slowly getting marginally better at everything, rather than gaining any new abilities that really shake up the dynamic — and having everyone else get marginally better at everything right along with you — lends itself to a total snoozefest. “Oh, I got a tiny bit better at blocking. Nice. Except now everything hits harder anyway.”
This is sounding like it’ll be very different.
17/04/2012 at 16:38 Brun says:
Bethesda has made some improvements to their formula in this regard post-Oblivion.
17/04/2012 at 18:09 Phantoon says:
Have they, Brun? They did the Q&A bugtesting on New Vegas.
17/04/2012 at 18:42 Brun says:
I meant in terms of gameplay depth. The model he’s describing (slowly but continuously getting better at doing things, with monsters that level alongside you) is basically how they did things in Oblivion. In both Fallouts and Skyrim they’ve changed that formula substantially – they added perks (“new skills that shake up the dynamic”) and changed the mob-leveling formula so that it is less uniform.
18/04/2012 at 02:49 Phantoon says:
I suppose, but Point Lookout in FO3 was hilariously stupid if you went there at a high level.
The level scaling there was easily just as bad as Oblivion. Really, only New Vegas did it right with enemies being static, but the people sent to kill you by the Legion/NCR being scaled to be a challenge.
18/04/2012 at 16:46 Wisq says:
Right now, I really only pull up Oblivion when I just want to take a break from games where anything actually happens. And I mean that in the best possible sense, too. After my first few attempts to play it, I now just avoid fast travel, ride everywhere, occasionally get into small skirmishes alongside some modded NPC companions that ride with me, and generally chill out rather than actually playing very hard.
I’ll have to give Skyrim and New Vegas a chance at some point. Sounds like they might actually have a game instead of a chillout simulator. ;)
17/04/2012 at 15:46 GunFox says:
Arkane Studios is the developer.
They did things like Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
Dark Messiah was good fun and Arx Fatalis was a masterpiece in its own right. This game seems pretty well centered in their wheelhouse. Should be quite good.
17/04/2012 at 15:47 Jibb Smart says:
Sounds good to me! Officially excited now.
17/04/2012 at 20:55 Defiant Badger says:
Boy that has made me a lot more interested.
18/04/2012 at 02:49 Phantoon says:
Oh wow, me too. Dark Messiah was highly underrated.
17/04/2012 at 15:25 Tridae says:
Please please. . let us look down and see our feet. . Body awareness is too rare in games. Looks great in the trailer – lets have it ingame
17/04/2012 at 17:37 Faxmachinen says:
Thief: Deadly Shadows had “body awareness”. Everyone* hated it. They might as well have made Dogfighter with the Flight Simulator 2000 physics. Or Need for Speed with the Powerslide physics.
* Everyone being those who yelled the loudest.
18/04/2012 at 11:21 Svant says:
This, a hundred times this. I HATE the stupid FPS design that makes you a floating camera with 2 wierdly placed arms that magically doesn’t create shadows eventhough the game has a brilliant dynamic light engine. In stealth games this is even more important since you will be sneaking about in dimly lit areas alot of the time.
17/04/2012 at 15:32 Quaib says:
Amazing. Simply amazing.
Let’s just hope bethesda doesn’t ruin it, and consolisation doesn’t ruin it… but that’s a slim hope if we’re honest.
I just can’t help looking forward to it though. It has the heart of a PC game.
17/04/2012 at 17:55 Soon says:
Hope forever. Expect never.
17/04/2012 at 15:33 The Sombrero Kid says:
Incase you’re having trouble processing that – this will be the best game ever.
17/04/2012 at 15:58 aseixas says:
I’ve lurked RPS for years and registered just to note how much this game is looking to be like the perfect game I’ve always had in my mind. I just hope to every god that has ever been worshipped that it isn’t plagued by technical problems. And that it actually turns out to be exactly what Arkane have been making it look like.
17/04/2012 at 15:36 S Jay says:
I hope it is not one of those cutscenes that the character does all the stuff that he cannot do in-game.
17/04/2012 at 15:46 Stevostin says:
My bet is that it’s exactly the opposite : valve-style trailer, focus on showing the game basics.
17/04/2012 at 15:55 Runs With Foxes says:
Just about everything in the trailer has been discussed in interviews, so it’s probably all in there.
17/04/2012 at 15:56 JackShandy says:
I haven’t heard of the move where you drop down on an enemy from above to kill them instantly before, but I assume that’s in there. Excellent.
Also excellent: He’s mute in-game, and he’s mute in this.
17/04/2012 at 15:49 Drayk says:
I have really high expectations for this game. Probably my most anticipated game of 2012.
Maybe I am hoping for too much.
17/04/2012 at 15:56 SpinalJack says:
You’ve been wrongly convicted of murder, time to clear your name by murdering a bunch of people.
17/04/2012 at 17:27 Janto says:
You’re a Reaper!
18/04/2012 at 17:29 LTK says:
Don’t you know that’s the best way to clear your name?
19/04/2012 at 12:53 diestormlie says:
My method is simply bribing Heralds and tearing down wanted Posters. After all, when not in Rome, do what you did in Rome.
17/04/2012 at 16:04 Mordsung says:
Looks like you may get your hands on something akin to an 18th century cavalry saber.
Arguably the finest sword ever built, combining aspects of European, East Asian and Middle Eastern sword concepts into a single weapon that, unfortunately, barely came into it’s own before being replaced by firearms.
The power and resilience of European steel combined with the finesse and precision of Japanese swords.
Just the fact I’ll get to use one in this game is enough to make me want it.
17/04/2012 at 16:14 Quaib says:
Oh boy, folded over 1000 times AND made of durable Western steel.
17/04/2012 at 16:26 CMaster says:
Don’t begrudge firearms too much – such a weapon was only ever even worth considering because of the combat environment created by early firearms.
17/04/2012 at 18:49 Mordsung says:
While I’m sure the combat situations created by firearms had a significant effect on sword design, Europeans were moving towards a curved single edged blade before the adoption of firearms.
The grossemessier, falchion and other such weapons were examples of some of the finer adoptions of single bladed curved weapons, but they still maintained much of the bulk of their other European cousins.
I’d say the firearms would have had the most effect on the weight of the weapon, as firearms negated armor, meaning weapons could be much lighter due to not having to cut through a steel plate.
A funny theory some war historians have is that, due to firearms being so bad at first, if some army had decided to take the field in old-school plate, with swords, they probably could have destroyed late 17th and early 18th century gun users quite easily, but armor and helmets had become “unmanly” in the culture at the time.
17/04/2012 at 16:26 Berzee says:
CURVED.
SWORDS.
17/04/2012 at 16:10 Brise Bonbons says:
Even taken as a “cool flashy trailer”, this makes the protagonist feel too much like a jediwizardsuperhero for my taste.
The setting and visual design look great, but I’d be more interested without the time stopping and superhuman athleticism. Limitations build tension and necessitate clever planning. Whereas the ability to just bust into a room and use your superpowers to kill all the guards in a straight-up brawl undermines the combat-averse play styles (see the later Assassin’s Creed games).
Still curious about the game, but this trailer does little to get me excited for it.
17/04/2012 at 16:16 JackShandy says:
From what I understand, you have very very low health. Obviously the trailer wasn’t going to show Corvo dying and reloading, though.
17/04/2012 at 16:17 Tom OBedlam says:
This does look almost entirely My Sort Of Thing, apart from *urgh* magic. Is there any impressions yet about whether you can ignore your magic powers and focus just on tech like Arcanum?
17/04/2012 at 16:22 JackShandy says:
I’d imagine it’d be like ignoring Human Revolution’s augmentations – possible, but really not intended.
But you can possess rats! Cmaaaan.
18/04/2012 at 17:36 LTK says:
Interestingly they never called it magic; the word they keep using is ‘supernatural’. Maybe this is to downplay the traditional association of ‘magic is done by wizards’ or ‘magic is shooting fire out of your hands’.
Then again, Bioshock let you shoot fire out of your hands, and they never said it was magic. What do we call that, genepunk?
I guess lots of games use magic in one form or another even if they never say so outright. I mean, Mass Effect’s biotics were straight-up wizards transplanted into a sci-fi setting, weren’t they?
17/04/2012 at 16:25 Hodge says:
This is looking so astonishingly good that I’m all but convinced that the actual game won’t be able to live up to the impossibly high expectations set by the promo material. See also: Spore, Black And White.
Christ I hope I’m wrong, though.
17/04/2012 at 17:02 aDemandingPersona says:
Gah! The Spore promo material ruined me… The game was so-so… but the promos made it look incredible.
17/04/2012 at 16:43 SkittleDiddler says:
Since this is a Bethesda game, I can only assume that the hype will far outweigh the actual fun.
17/04/2012 at 16:46 JackShandy says:
Publisher, not developer. They’re just providing the money.
19/04/2012 at 12:56 diestormlie says:
Excellent. They’ve always had the vision. Now we won’t get all the Bugs.
17/04/2012 at 16:46 Tams80 says:
This seems to be living up to the promise the earlier glimpses gave us. At this rate I’ll definitely buy it.
17/04/2012 at 16:50 Cryo says:
This is not quite like how I imagined New Crobuzon, but this will do.
17/04/2012 at 16:57 Casimir's Blake says:
Losing interest rapidly. Awesome, inspired dark-ages-steam-punk mish-mash of a world. But the rooftop parkour, and the “super powers” give the impression this is designed for Assassin’s Creed / Prototype fans. i.e. People that aren’t looking for a deep, subtle, experience, and just want to Backstab Shit. None of that was necessary in Thief, but I guess that isn’t the sort of game Arkane are trying to make. Shame.
17/04/2012 at 17:20 kekstee says:
Well, Deus Ex had lots of superhuman offensive skills as well, but you just didn’t need to use them. I still hope for something similar with this. If what is shown here would be the only aspect of gameplay it would turn out to be quite a letdown.
17/04/2012 at 18:05 Soon says:
I think I remember Thief gameplay trailers that showed you running around with your sword, backstabbing guards and shooting Hammerites with fire arrows and not that much actual stealth.
17/04/2012 at 18:54 Mordsung says:
No stealth game trailer has ever managed to capture the gameplay well. Even old stealth games we loved had very flashy/actiony trailers and advertising.
Judge a game based on the game, not the advertising.
17/04/2012 at 17:02 Outright Villainy says:
I hope they’ve a gameplay trailer lined up soon; this game has almost pushed me into that giddy anticipation I so rarely get from games these days. (Portal 2 was the last big example I think.)
Also, on top of the freeform assassination thing, peeping through keyholes lends even more of a Hitman feel to it. No bad thing.
17/04/2012 at 17:17 Fincher says:
I’d trust a snake before I trust a cinematic trailer.
Brink, Dead Island, etc.
17/04/2012 at 17:26 Hanban says:
I keep getting blown away by the art direction. Looks wonderful!
17/04/2012 at 17:34 Raziel_Alex says:
Great stuff, reminded me of Kieron’s Deus Ex review.
Also, the spell checker won’t accept Kieron as a valid word.
17/04/2012 at 18:10 Post-Internet Syndrome says:
I think this trailer will be the start of my hype fast for Dishonored. I already know that the game is interesting and will likely buy it. Knowing exactly what I’d get ruined saints row the third slightly for me, there were so few surprises.
17/04/2012 at 18:39 Grey Ganado says:
Spoiler Alert: Revenge doesn’t solve everything.
19/04/2012 at 12:57 diestormlie says:
VENGEANCE!
17/04/2012 at 19:06 Shooop says:
This is more like it.
Love the setting and talk of sandbox-styled gameplay, and now finally getting a glimpse how what they want it to play like even if pre-rendered.
Bonus points for that very sinister-looking mask too.
17/04/2012 at 22:04 torchedEARTH says:
Bioshock Infinite, you have just met your match.
17/04/2012 at 22:50 Turkey says:
It kinda seems like their marketing is trying to capture the same audience with this game. The trailer reminded me an awful lot of Irrational’s Bioshock teasers with the first person camera and the various powers and stuff.
I’m more confident Arkane will be able to deliver something closer to the Looking Glass legacy than Bioshock was able to provide, though.
17/04/2012 at 22:56 danimalkingdom says:
Does that sounds like…. Mark Hamill at the beginning?
18/04/2012 at 01:53 eclipse mattaru says:
So do we know anything, you know, real about this game? I sort of developed a Pavlovian reaction of getting excited whenever RPS mentions it, but then I remember I’m still about to learn anything of value, other than the rather vague words “immersive sim” have been used at some point, which might or might not mean anything.
The art style is something I like, though.
18/04/2012 at 02:12 Tunips says:
I’m not sure if they’ve played with human proportion, or if it’s just tighter trousers, but I like the narrow, gangly look the people have. Certainly a pleasant change from barrel-necked chunk marines, or even the quasi-realistic overladen soldiers.
18/04/2012 at 03:26 Armante says:
Steampunk Half-life2, with a dash of AssCreed. Consider me interested.
Still – time for some actual gameplay video now, thanks.
18/04/2012 at 04:26 Thants says:
I DID ask for this! Now let’s just hope the gameplay is anything like that trailer.
18/04/2012 at 05:14 DOLBYdigital says:
“Killing me won’t solve anything…. slice”
That was sweet, I hate unnecessarily long death scenes or filler dialogue. Super excited for this game, love the atmosphere (not surprised coming from the guy who made City 17) and really hope the combat is meaty like Dark Messiah was… time to forget about this game until it comes out!
18/04/2012 at 06:51 JackMultiple says:
You know, Dave Foley (News Radio, Antz) just doesn’t make a very scary guy at the beginning of this video.
Come to think of it… I don’t know what Geralt (The Witcher) is doing in this game either. Is nothing sacred?
18/04/2012 at 07:43 Corrupt_Tiki says:
My god, I only came for the sexy girl on the couch.
But dayum, I shall have to pick this up once they release it.
18/04/2012 at 10:03 noogai03 says:
That looks amazing. Like Mirror’s Edge only dirtier scenery and you can kill people when you want to rather than having to steal a gun first, and only getting a few shot from each gun. Oh, and giant things that look like HL2 striders.
18/04/2012 at 10:23 killmachine says:
naked woman on bed… i’m sold. :D
19/04/2012 at 03:11 ptoxiq says:
I enjoyed this trailer more with the sound off. Mewonders when the depth and breadth of quality in film music (the score) and acting . . . well, I’ll just curtail my rhetorical query to music. As game trailers go, the music is passable. But I’ve found that this is the standard for quality of video game scores and video game music: merely passable at best. No, I’m not a musicologist nor audiophile [swats away hecklers]. But do any agree with me that the quality of contemporary video game visuals, simulation, characterization, story, etc., are far, far above the quality of video game music in general (i.e., you, too, turn off the music in almost all games you play).