20 Coolest Trailers For Bad Video Games
These 20 games each had incredibly cool trailers which they sadly didn't manage to live up to...
When it comes to pre-launch marketing, a trailer's job is to make a video game look incredibly appealing, in order to convince as many people to buy it as possible. When done correctly, it will increase the hype around the game's launch exponentially, often generating plenty of buzz among fans and critics.
For the 20 games on this list, their trailers all understood the assignment.
Each of them showcased something that looked particularly cool, and left players super excited about the possibility of getting their hands on the finalized version. However, unfortunately, by the time these titles launched, their trailers proved to be slightly misleading at best, and monumentally inaccurate at worst....
20. Aliens: Colonial Marines
Is there anywhere else to start other than Aliens: Colonial Marines? Few, if any games have ever made their trailers look so much more impressive than the final release. Gearbox's first person shooter promised to be a direct continuation of the 1986 movie Aliens, and it's safe to say the trailers showcased something that looked like it would more than live up to that pledge.
Atmospheric lighting and graphically impressive cutscenes underscored by a haunting piano melody gave the entire thing a cinematic feel, and gameplay showed what appeared to be a highly-polished shooter with intelligent AI and sharp gunplay.
When Aliens: Colonial Marines finally launched in 2013, though, everyone was left wondering where it all went wrong. A dull campaign, technical issues, and by-the-numbers gameplay helped the game receive a plethora of poor reviews, with critics and fans in agreement. The difference between promotional material and the finished game was so vast, in fact, that people actually complained to the UK's Advertising Standards Authority!
Publisher SEGA Europe was forced to acknowledge these complaints, admitting that the footage used in trailers wasn't an accurate reflection of the final product, and they even agreed to add disclaimers to the trailers explaining this, stating the footage was actually from a demo version of the game.