Saturday, February 26, 2011

Save the Children

So I came across this trailer for a new zombie video game which seems to be very similar to every other zombie shoot em up. The reason I am blogging about it is because of the trailer and the way the creators are advertising the game. The main character in the trailer is a little girl being chased by zombies. She is ultimately bitten and transformed into a zombie herself, turning on her parents and attacking them. What is so different about this trailer is that the creators are trying to create an emotional connection between the viewer and the little girl and her family. At the end of the trailer we see her family home video and how they were so happy before these zombies showed up. I almost feel like the creators are exploiting the fact that people naturally feel protective of little children and are therefore playing off peoples emotions.
Zombie island isn't alone when it comes to the killing of small children in video games. Over the years I have seen the progression of how kids are portrayed and treated in games and it seems like they are being treated like everyone else. They can be killed, mauled, and basically treated like any other object/character, receiving no special treatment. I find this progression strange due to how we as a society view children. Maybe its the creators attempt to make the game seem more adult or edgy.
This trailer, along with the game, have been receiving a lot of hype, but I feel like the creators may have gone a little too far when they decided to add this little girl into the mix.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZqrG1bdGtg

3 comments:

  1. Haha, I think for some reason, horror movies, games, etc. have a fascination with little girls. They use them to sing creepy songs or just be creepy characters. Think about Silent hill, the Ring, Orphan, blah blah blah and now we have zombie Island. I don't think this is something really new, but I think it's a way of trying to change up the zombie video game genre a little bit. Right now, the zombie killing industry is basically owned by Left 4 Dead 2, Resident Evil, and maybe Call of Duty Nazi Zombie modes. Yes, there's some emotional attachment, but I don't know if I would say this is too far.

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  2. When I first saw the trailer I thought "that girl can't be dead, kids can't be hurt in video games." It tends to be true; you don't see many games where live children are hurt. In the Fable series (also rated M) if you attack children in a village, they just run away and cannot be hit. So naturally, seeing that trailer made me very uncomfortable until I realized she was a zombie...

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  3. What makes this trailer particularly effective to me personally is probably the music and the slow - mo flashback of the whole story, the slow serene yet melancholy music shown together with the blood and gore definitely creates a strong impact on the viewer- making the whole scene more "epic" than it is. Paired with the realistic graphics, the whole scene pulls on the viewer's emotional string.
    on a completely different note, I can't help but notice (the way this trailer started& blood everywhere) the similarities between this and the anime scene in Kill Bill.

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