At the moment of the announcement of this action, I was incredibly happy. Like, wow, an entire anthology dedicated to video games? And even from the creators of my favorite deadly robots? Want!
But then I saw exactly what games the anthology would be dedicated to, and questions began to arise. Well, okay, Space Marine, Armored Core, my favorite Sifu, classics like Mega Man, Pac-Man and Unreal Tournament – this can be really interesting.
Then I saw Honor of Kings, New World, Crossfire and Exodus on the list – games about which I either know nothing or know not the best things. Nothing to say about Concord.
But what made me most skeptical was the clause about the fact that an entire episode would be devoted to “Sony studio projects”. Like, how are they going to gather together at least Kratos and Jin Sakai (they were the ones who appeared in the first trailer) and make it so that it’s not a cheap advertisement? Maybe things won’t be so smooth with all the other episodes either? The first reviews from critics also did not inspire hope.
But the second part came out, I watched all the episodes, and my impressions are. mixed. On the one hand, it’s beautiful, sometimes it’s not bad from a script point of view. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was just a set of beautiful trailers. Somewhere they clearly wanted to show something beautiful and interesting, but somewhere it was just advertising for advertising’s sake. I even wanted to take everything apart, and now I’m already writing what, the fifth paragraph of the introduction? But literally the first blog! Okay, let’s go. I’ll try, I’ll try to explain where the advertising seemed frankly blatant to me, and where I almost didn’t notice it.
1. Dungeons & Dragons
Need a cleric
And it all started with a pretty good episode dedicated, suddenly, to a board game. Yes, I know that a bunch of video games were released based on this same board game, such as Neverwinter and everyone’s favorite Baldur’s Gate – but they didn’t seem to have D&D in the title. Okay, never mind.
In general, a pretty good episode about the quest of a party of celiks, which ended with the burning of the asses of D&D fans. Why? You can Google who the final boss of this episode is in the world of D&D.
Advertising: 15%
It’s hard to say what exactly this episode is promoting. Tabletop? Baldur’s Gate? Or maybe a great movie in 2023? I wanted to watch it again. One way or another, it doesn’t catch the eye, and the series looks quite cheerful.
2. Sifu
Best dumplings in town
You would know how much I adore Sifu. GOTY-2022 for me, one of the best battles I’ve seen in games, a lot of hours spent in it with great pleasure – that’s all.
And what was my disappointment when I realized that this series is one of the shortest! Only 6 minutes excluding introduction and credits. Two very well shot fight scenes, one of which was shown in its entirety in a special episode teaser – that’s all there is to see here. For some reason, the plot was changed, cutting out all the bad guys except Sean, the main message has now become different and lies right on the surface as much as possible.
And the main character is a loshara, he grew old at the second level like the last noob.
Advertising: 75%
Advertises Sifu, of course, and I wholeheartedly support this, the game is great. And at TGA, the game’s authors announced the football action game Rematch – it’s a stretch to include it here too. But the very fact that the episode lasts less than one of the game’s trailers seems to hint.
A couple of ideas from this trailer were used in the episode itself
3. New World
MMO play whenever they want
I know absolutely nothing about New World itself, and therefore I was pleasantly surprised that this episode turned out to be one of the best in the entire anthology. A funny plot about a king as dumb as a plug, a colorful king himself as the main character (who, by the way, was voiced by Arnold Schwarzenegger himself), a play on the gameplay mechanics of respawn and farming equipment in the dungeon, humor – in a word, a very good film adaptation.
Advertising – 60%
Considering that Amazon is the distributor of the series and the developer of the game, it’s quite obvious that they decided to advertise their game, and damn, if I weren’t allergic to MMOs, maybe I would have been interested in it, but it’s just a pretty good short film.
New World: Aeternum
4. Unreal Tournament
Mutiny™
I admit honestly – I somehow missed the UT boom. Maybe because as a child I was afraid of multiplayer shooters like hell. But nevertheless, I perfectly understand the whole meaning of arena shooters, and I see how well it was conveyed in this series.
There are questions about the plot, namely its stupidity. Like, instead of recycling the rebel artificial intelligence, they decided to publicly execute? Lol? Well, okay, this is kind of like the real lore of the character Xan (gg short film), so let’s reduce the authenticity to the simple lore of the original. Apart from the dull story, this is a great action episode.
Advertising – 35%
Epics mercilessly abandoned UT, but right after the release of the first half of the anthology in Fortnite, they accidentally released character skins from this episode. So yes, I’m really saying that this episode is essentially an advertisement for Fortnite skins. That’s how crazy I am.
Unreal Tournament 3
5. Warhammer 40K
For the glory of plot armor
I’ll say right away – I’m absolutely not a fan of Warhammer, which is probably already considered heresy. But I played Space Marine 2, and therefore I’m familiar with the coolness of the Space Marines. This whole episode is a plotless meat feast, in which I understood almost nothing (if there was anything to understand at all) due to my lack of clarity in vaha, but from which I was completely stunned. Well, I was convinced that even the Emperor does not protect as well as plot armor.
Advertising: 40%
Although there is no mention of her https://casinorialto.co.uk/bonus/ in the title, the presence of Titus in the plot is quite obvious that this is the coolest trailer for Space Marine 2. There is zero semantic load, but considering that this is a wow, it is not needed here if there is pathos, so this episode cannot be accused of callousness.
In general, this episode gave more advertising to the anthology itself, because.To. The strength of the Warhammer™ brand is difficult to overestimate.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II
6. Pac-Man
There could be waka-waka-waka here
Before the release of the anthology, most of all we wondered what the authors would come up with to film Pac-Man? As a result, we got a rather peculiar adaptation, in which only the appearance of Pac-Man and a couple of Easter eggs, such as cherries, remained from the original source. Otherwise, it would have turned out to be a rather original product with beautiful visuals, a whimsical world and a plot about the cycle, if not for one thing.
Advertising: 90%
This was all a teaser for the game Shadow Labyrinth, which was announced at TGA a couple of days later, and which literally continues the plot of the episode. An excellent marketing move: create mystery with understatement so that viewers have a lot of questions, and then announce a game that may answer them? Buy, play and find out!
Shadow Labyrinth
7. Crossfire
Duct tape lasts forever
With the word Crossfire, what comes to mind in my head is an exclusively crap Korean parody of counter from the 2000s, and only then does something with the letter X in the title come to mind, but I don’t know anything about this iteration anymore.
What about the episode itself?? Well, tactical warriors fight tactically, exchanging tactical phrases and tactically pushing morality about the fact that they are normal guys, these are the goats who ordered it. Honestly, I don’t know what its meaning is and what does Crossfire have to do with it?. The episode title could have included any military shooter, from Kolda to Tarkov, and nothing would have changed at all. Well, visually pleasing, like everything else in this anthology, although the car chase is animated lazily.
Advertising – .
After a little googling, I found out that the Crossfire X servers (and judging by the realistic setting, this is its film adaptation) were closed last year. Well, that is, Concorde is not the only one here! Only if the Concorde thing is still clear, then it’s completely unclear what this episode was all about. The game is irrelevant, it doesn’t seem to have any popular love, so why bother??
This is, if anything, what the characters from the original version of Crossfire looked like, that is, the realism that was added only to Crossfire X, and on which the episode relies, does not even smell
CrossfireX
8. Armored Core
He’s the only one
Armored Core 6 itself didn’t appeal to me at all, but I quite liked the episode here. Largely due to the fact that here, albeit briefly, the life of the pilots is shown, and the pilot himself, performed by our Reeves’ Kianochka, is not at all such a stereotyped pretentious hero, which are almost all the characters in AC (and in all games from From, let’s be honest). The action is vigorous, the ending is unexpected, it turned out great.
Advertising: 20%
It’s not entirely clear what exactly this episode is advertising, or whether it is advertising at all. The world in the short film is not shown at all as it is in the game – here it is more alive, or something. However, this is generally a minor problem, and the series looks great regardless of the game.
Perhaps, along with Warhammer, this episode advertises the anthology itself more with the face of Keanu.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
9. The Outer Worlds
Five out of ten
Another confession – in Outer Worlds I wasn’t even able to complete the first planet, largely due to the completely toothless satire on the now popular topic of evil corporations. And also because of the most boring characters, in which there was not a drop of zest at all. Perhaps it’s my own fault that I was impatient and the game opens after 100 hours, but I was impatient with this one.
The main character of this short film is just correcting the last problem, but the first problem is still the same, although this is a matter of taste. Visually, the series, by the way, is creepy – photorealistic character models with unnaturally large heads look creepy. In short, during the course of the episode, the main character more than once stated my assessment of this episode.
Advertising: 60%
It is quite obvious that this series is fueling interest in Outer Worlds 2, the gameplay of which was just shown at TGA. Well, interesting characters gave me hope that in the second part everything will be better.
The Outer Worlds 2
10. Mega Man
What was that?
This episode drove me crazy. I don’t even know what to say about it, since it is the shortest in the entire anthology – less than 5 minutes. The moral about “believe in yourself” is so far-fetched that your eyes roll, the plot is so chaotic that it is completely described by the sentence “something happened, they raised a big robot to sort it out, it was infected by a virus, Megaman blew up the big robot, now Megaman went to fix it.”. All.
Visually, the series didn’t work either, Megaman generally resembles the kid from “Boss Baby,” and I hate this cartoon with every fiber of my soul.
Advertising: .
I don’t even know how to insert advertising here. Mega Man is a pretty dead franchise in terms of games. Apparently, from a pure heart, without selfish goals, they removed the dick, understand that. Or maybe they just remind you that such a series of games even exists, and why are these strange costumes in the new games from Capcom.
Mega Man
11. Exodus
Interstellar at home
Another game I haven’t heard anything about, this time Mass Effect from the answers. The universe appears interesting, a kind of mundane mass with the main theme of the transience of time.
But the narration in this episode just made me laugh. Instead of telling us about the structure of the world in the words of characters or without words at all, they begin to tell us, as small children, almost from “once upon a time”. And ten times they remind us that time passes differently for the characters, and the ending is discontinuous in the style of this meme:
Advertising: 85%
Firstly, right next to the release of the second part of the anthology, a gameplay trailer for the game was released. And secondly, in the series they literally explain to us the structure of the game world, so that it will be easier for you to join it when the game comes out.
Exodus
12: Spelunky
Just death
Perhaps the strangest episode in terms of game choice. I wasn’t sure anyone even remembered this game existed, much less was still a fan. I haven’t played it myself, but a long time ago I watched quite a lot of streams from one let’s player under the nickname Hag (if anyone remembers this one, add a plus in the chat, let’s see how many of us there are).
But in general, to understand the episode, it’s enough just to know that Spelunky is a roguelike, since the main theme of this short film is the ordinariness of death in such games. In principle, it was presented well, although with a slightly banal moral.
Advertising: 0%
Perhaps the only series to which I cannot attach advertising at all, except in the form of a desire to talk about a rather niche game from the late 2000s and express my love for it.
Spelunky
13: Concord
Funeral with pomp
Great and terrible! Oh, and Sony’s management will have a sore butt for a long time after this “event”. Such a deafening failure has never happened and is unlikely to happen in the near future; even the merits of Ubisoft fade against this background.
And the more surprised I was when the series turned out to be. One of the best in the anthology. Seriously, this is an excellent short film with a cheerful plot, beautiful visuals (I should stop talking about this, there are no bad-looking episodes in the anthology), humor, attention – INTERESTING characters, which at the same time have a bright and memorable design. Good character design in Concord – this is where you’ve seen this before? There is even a cute alien, plus or minus, who doesn’t look like a person with dyed skin. The worst thing is that after watching this episode, it’s almost a pity that the developers (or Sony, you’ll figure out who’s right and who’s wrong) screwed up the game so mediocrely, it really could have been a cheerful, relaxed sci-fi universe.
Advertising: 90%
Of course, this is Sony’s attempt to promote its new, fresh game. No one could have imagined that this game would close at such supersonic speed, and now this is not a trailer, but a bright, cheerful and colorful dirge.
Concord
14: Honor of Kings
. and there the Chinese play backgammon
Another game that I only learned about from the series. Turns out it’s a mobile MOBA, so it’s really bad. But, as Arcane showed, the crapness of the original source does not mean that you can’t make a masterpiece out of it.
But not in the case of HoK. Visually, this episode is perhaps the most beautiful in the entire anthology, but script-wise it’s just quiet horror. Why did GG suddenly decide that the city killed his parents?? Why the hell did I go play a game with him as revenge?? How I won? What is the meaning of the ending, why the hell suddenly the AI offered the game to someone again?
I suspect that this is the backstory of one of the characters in the mob, and to understand more, you need to familiarize yourself with his lore. But firstly, it didn’t hurt the same Arcane to introduce us to a bunch of characters in the very first episode. And secondly, have you even seen what this mob looks like?? I don’t even want to go to the wiki about it, if it even exists.
Advertising: 75%
Everywhere you look, the first thing they say is that this is the MOST POPULAR MOBILE MOBA! So the series based on it clearly contributes to this popularity. Even I, who didn’t really appreciate the plot, but was fascinated by the visuals, went to see what kind of game this was. True, he immediately turned around and ran in the opposite direction at the speed of a blue hedgehog, as soon as he saw the visual of the game itself.
Honor of Kings: World
15. Playtime
Reference
Actually, the very same episode that made me skeptical. Season 1 finale. I didn’t know what to expect from it other than a promotional video for Sony projects, but what did I get as a result??
And I got a standard example of how to make the most incompetent set of incoherent fan service without any hint of meaning. You thought Ready Player One had references just for the sake of references?? Compared to this misunderstanding, PIP is a masterpiece in terms of screenplay.
This is some kind of parody of the episode “Automatic Customer Service” from the second season of the love-loving bots, but almost without humor, with strange world-building, and with absolutely incompetent and off-topic characters shoved in from sleepyhead games.
The main character with a disgusting hairstyle works as a courier in a world where everyone has robotic assistants that augment reality through glasses. At one point she receives a package from which some kind of blue goo comes out and now helldivers, Kratos, colossus and other Persians from curling iron games start hunting for the main character from some dick. She runs away, the robot doesn’t like it and for some reason he starts to interfere with her, she breaks it, then a trope from the mentioned LSR series about small points in the agreement appears, and now all the robots in the city are hunting for her. She destroys them with the help of liquid, comes to some house, and inside there is a playstation city.
This is almost verbatim the entire plot of the episode, I retold it just so you don’t watch it. This is such a trash short film that it is largely because of it that I have mixed impressions – it is the last, and therefore leaves an unpleasant aftertaste.
Advertising: 1000%
There’s nothing even to explain here. If in all other short films there was some kind of purpose – a beautiful setting, a plot with characters, some kind of meaning (even in Mega Man there was a moral, albeit a kindergarten one), then here it’s just stupid advertising for the sake of stupid advertising, without any justification or explanation.
P.S. By the way, I never saw Jin from the trailer.
If you remove the last episode, trample it, piss on it and throw it in a ditch, you’ll get quite a good set of cool mini-screen adaptations, which at the same time advertise the games well. Some episodes came out well, some not so much, but overall this anthology is worth watching, something like this doesn’t happen every day.
The show has already been renewed for a second season, and I’m really wondering how strange the choice of games will be this time. And I hope that it will do without Playtime 2.
