We select in this report video game trailers with an excellent background song. Some are unforgettable examples, others may be from today.
The video game trailer has used licensed songs on many occasions to make its message more impressive. A good subject that fits perfectly with a cinematographic montage makes its two minutes long with a single viewing. It is more, possibly, you repeat and repeat wanting to enjoy that perfect mix on more than one occasion. We are going to collect some of those great moments here. You will smile accomplices with the most notorious cases, but surely you are hopelessly hooked on those you did not know. We drop the needle on the plate and turn up the volume, we start.
Gears of war
We start with the classic among the classics. The Gears of War trailer marked a before and after in the use of songs in the promotion of a video game. In 2006 it was very groundbreaking, and it is that nobody would have imagined that Mad World, the song that closed the introspective cult film Donnie Darko, would fit like a glove accompanying the military adventures of disproportionate muscular bodies. But boy did it fit. It turned out that the Gary Jules and Michael Andrews theme was forever attached to Marcus and company. His sad and taciturn tone permeated the imagination of a generation of players in what seemed like an impossible fight against an unbeatable enemy.
Far cry 2
The African atmosphere of Far Cry 2 was perfectly reflected by a very racial theme. In Barra Barra, the Algerian singer and activist Rachid Taha shouts in Arabic against fear, oppression, slavery, war, corruption. Far Cry 2, with a strong component from The Heart of Darkness by Josep Conrad (remember, as in Apocalypse Now, that descent into hell that is also based on Conrad’s novel, in the game the protagonist must end with that luck of Colonel Kurtz who questions who really are the madmen in that reality turned into hell) reflects that anger in his trailer rightly.
More conventional is this second trailer. It is here the amazing music of Massive Attack that serves as an accompaniment to the images. Although if we think about it a bit, it would not clash with the previous case if we accept the information that indicates that Robert del Naja, co-founder of the group, and Banksy, the mysterious graffiti artist and activist, are the same person.
Prince of persia
Sia also played forgetfulness for a short period of her career. When the fantastic Chandelier broke with everything in the already mythical clip starring a girl who remembered the Pris from Blade Runner, the songwriter and singer performed with her face covered in numerous live appearances (remember the resounding performance she performed from her back in the Ellen DeGeneres TV Show). Chandelier was a well-deserved global hit thanks to the song’s stratospheric quality – a chronicle of alcohol-dissolved nights and guilty sunrises afterward – and a clip that is a masterpiece, but Sia was no newcomer. A multidisciplinary artist for more than thirty years, his works and collaborations number dozens before achieving worldwide success. In 2008, his song Breath was chosen for me for the Prince of Persia trailer.
We therefore return to Donnie Darko, since his main actor, Jake Gyllenhaal, starred in the film version of the Prince of Persia in 2010. Although his plot was based on the concept of the Sands of Time and the Forgotten Sands, the actor’s face resembled unbelievably the character from the 2008 Prince of Persia. This game was a rare sight in the franchise, but it had something that makes us remember him with tenderness and a smile. We believe that this elusive something is perfectly reflected in the trailer set to music with Sia’s voice.
Dead island 2
What a horror story in Dead Island 2, and not because that was the intention of the game. After a first solvent installment full of zombies that had already had an excellent presentation trailer (which we do not put here because its music was an instrumental piano theme), Dead Island 2 passed into the hands of the Germans Yager. The authors of that cult-inspired game (yes, again) in Apocalypse Now / Heart of Darkness that was Spec Ops: The Line. They were thus faced with a task with which to change their register. As you know, the story ended badly. The game, after years of hard and troubled development, was taken from Yager and finally canceled.
But there was time for a teaser teaser to be released. The trailer ended up doing more harm than good because everyone liked it very much and fueled the hype ahead of the game’s release. In an absolutely contrary tone to the presentation of the first Dead Island, here the harshness, sadness and tragedy were abandoned for a lighthearted tone closer to that of films like Zombiland. The result of musically accompanying him by the trotting and jovial The Bomb, by Pigeon John, was so effective that it is still remembered today despite the six years that have passed.
Dyng Ligth
At an informal dinner we had with Kevin Cerdá from Tequila Works, we talked about that sad ending to Dead Island 2 and why the game ended in dry dock, Kevin told us: the answer is only one, Dying Light. And maybe he was right. That you have been working on a game for years and that the competition releases a title that makes it obsolete overnight must be very hard. Dyng Light was overwhelming compared to the first Dead Island and possibly what was being done in the second. It’s like you’re shooting a zombie movie along the lines of Romero and it suddenly hits theaters 28 days later.
Techland’s game was powerful, aggressive, dynamic. Doing parkour through streets and rooftops avoiding and busting undead was tremendously satisfying, a non-stop. It is an indelible sensation the first time the sun begins to set on the horizon and the sirens urge those outside to seek refuge. What the night brings is much scarier than what we have seen during the day. Run, boy, run, Woodkid’s song chosen for one of the trailers, was not even painted to support that premise of urgency and danger.
Destiny
The hyped new great adventure from the creators of Halo was perfectly defined in this trailer. Bungie wanted a good vibe in Destiny’s co-op play. Also camaraderie, jokes, improvisation through the emerging narrative of an online solar system, and of course, rock and roll. The result is clearly influenced by the recent success in theaters of the festive Guardians of the Galaxy, not for nothing is the song used in the trailer in a diegetic way. In Immigrant Song, the song that opened Led Zeppelin 3 (the vinyl of the cover with holes and a wheel, the most folk of the mythical group despite songs like this), the guitars of Jimi Page, the devastating rhythmic base of John Boham / John Paul Jones and the privileged throat of Robert Plant put the respectable like a motorcycle in this carefree celebration of space adventure.
New legends will emerge was the powerful presentation of Destiny 2. This trailer delved into the line of the first but making the song jump from the 70s to the 90s. The classic Sabotage of the unrepeatable Beasty Boys (curiously influenced here by Rage Against the Machine, a group that in turn had taken advantage of the open door left by these crazy marvels) carries the images shot by Jordan Vogt-Robert, renowned gamer and director of Kong: Skull Island. He must have had a blast making this ad.
Metal Gear Solid V
And we come to the inevitable Kojima. Yes, he is a great cinephile, but I think by now it is clear that he is also a great music lover. The songs that the Japanese genius uses in his games and in his (very long) trailers are chosen with scrupulous care. Death Stranding is the latest example of this, as was, for example, the John Barry / James Bond theme that opened Metal Gear Solid 3. And speaking of MGS, we are going to stay here with the one that accompanied this Metal Gear trailer Solid V. The once child prodigy Mike Oldfield delights us with Nuclear, a great song that, although it belongs to a 2014 album, has echoes of the King Krimsons of 69 (It is not a strange influence, remember that the surprising Tubular Bells, recorded by Oldfield at just 17 years old, it’s from 1973). As is usual in Kojima, the combination of music and image he made gave us a trailer to remember.
The needle finishes its journey on the plate, rises with its characteristic sound and returns to its resting place. During this intense musical journey it is more than likely that excellent examples have come to mind that would have fit without problems in this selection. Let us know in the comments on our social networks, who knows, maybe they will be reflected in a possible B-Side of this report.
