Everyone in their right mind is playing Portal 2, As was I. But when my co-op partner (my little brother) had to go to bed, I decided to check out what else there was. And, much to my surprise, the extras section of Portal 2 had something I wasn’t expecting – In addition to the trailers and videos that had previously been released was “Super 8 Interactive Trailer”.
\nYou start off in a train (Big surprise, if you’re familiar with Valve games). The tooltip pops up, encouraging you to use the middle button to zoom. There’s boxes of military looking supplies, and a radio in the center of the car that’s on, and indistinguishable speech playing. You can walk towards the front of the car, and that’s when things start to happen. A clear shout comes over the radio; “There’s something on the track!”. The view warps, as the boxcar collapses around you.<\/p>\n
Seconds later from the player’s perspective, you wake up surrounded by the debris of the train. Fires light your way as you wander towards the front. A barrel catches fire and explodes as you approach, teetering telephone lines suddenly give. You continue walking forward, through the wreckage, til you come to a relatively intact boxcar, and it’s clear why it’s survived better: It’s armored. Suddenly, the area around you explodes, and you’re thrown back, to get a better view of the armored hatch. The hatch starts to thud, then dents appear, and finally, it flies up –<\/p>\n
Fade to black, and launch webbrowser. A flash movie plays, and the credits at the bottom says “JJ Abrams” and “Steven Spielberg”. A curious marketing trick (I’d not heard of Super 8 before), but it seems in the vein of both Cloverfield and ET; A young boy with his Super 8 camera is helping his brother film a movie, and they seem the only ones in the town who believe in the alien entity, despite the fact that the military has shown up en-masse.<\/p>\n
What does this actually mean, though? Is this just a quick marketing stunt? Is Valve making a Super-8 game? Will there be more interactive components to this story? What did I miss in the train car that I should’ve zoomed in on? If anything is clear from Abrams past works, there will be much secrecy, and many more small snippets of information to build hype. After the almost-letdown that was the Portal 2 ARG, is this what Valve should be doing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Everyone in their right mind is playing Portal 2, As was I. But when my co-op partner (my little brother) had to go to bed, I decided to check out what else there was. And, much to my surprise, the extras section of Portal 2 had something I wasn’t expecting – In addition to the … Continue reading Super 8 – What did I just play?<\/span>