I love watching movie trailers. In fact, sometimes I think I love watching movie trailers more than watching movies themselves. After all, a great film trailer compresses all the film's most visceral, compelling moments into a few short minutes, often plucking at your emotional core more intensely than the film itself could ever hope to. Party poem, part short film, a great trailer manages to weave a tantalizing story while still leaving you yearning to know more.
And more and more these days it seems video game companies are taking their cues from cinema when comes to teasing us with their forthcoming games.
Like movie trailers, video game trailers are tugging at our heart strings as they tempt us with rich stories we simply must see played out.
For the latest example, check out the trailer just released for the forthcoming game "Metro: Last Light." It is in itself a beautiful, disturbing short film.
In fact, I'd say it just might be the most compelling game trailer I've seen since this "Dead Island" trailer jumped up and down on my heart last year:
Of course, video games themselves are getting better and better at weaving compelling stories and creating characters just as meaningful and memorable as some of the greats we've seen on the big screen. So it follows that game trailers would showcase their narrative chops.
But it also just makes good marketing sense -- I don't know about you, but I couldn't tear my eyes off of some of these trailers. Of course, whether games live up to their tempting teasers ... well, as with film, that's always the question.
A few of my other favorite recent game trailers:
"Grand Theft Auto V" — I dig this trailer because it not only teases me with some great storytelling and great character elements, it also appears to use footage from the actual game:
Meanwhile this "Mass Effect 3" trailer, gave me chills. (Yes, I'm a sucker for game teasers that throw kids into peril, for obvious reasons).
What about you? What are some of your favorite game trailers?'
Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things here on Twitter or join her in the stream here on Google+. And for more video game news and reviews be sure to check out the In-Game Facebook page right here.
