Again, Johnson pokes his head out and rises to the occasion. (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Friday, March 31, 2017, 00:14 (2793 days ago) @ Leviathan

This is clearly Bungie giving a nod and a wink to the players, but they're doing it in-universe, which is a strong departure from their usual style. I know that *I* get excited about loot, but I'd like to think my Guardian has slightly more altruistic motivations when it comes to fighting the darkness.

Firstly, I'm really proud of that subject line. :)

Secondly, I still view both of these ads as ads, not in-game story cinematics. I guess I just don't put much stock in or get excited by trailers much anymore, especially the dark, moody "a storm is coming" sequel trailer I've seen a thousand times, so any departure from that is refreshing to me. If this is the actual, beginning cinematic, I may feel more like you do, but I doubt it will be. If it is though... I'll reveal to you all my first name! :)

Lastly, a nod and a wink to the players in-universe is actually something I've seen in almost every Bungie game and I've come to expect it! I even missed it in all the moodiness of Reach! I guess that's the main reason why the two of us see these trailers so differently: to me they're only a little tad more over the top than Sgt. Johnson spilling forth three different ludicrous speeches in the midst of Earth being invaded and Mombassa being destroyed and then cocking a machine gun and saying "I know what the ladies like." And that's not even considering his after-credits appearances!

Hell, Sgt. Johnson's final words are "Send me out with a bang." :D

The big difference here is that Destiny's Johnson (hehe) is introducing the marketing campaign. But I dont think that's bad for the real game at all! If hypothetically Bungie had used a pretty version of that Johnson bridge speech I mentioned above to reveal Halo 2 instead of its awesome E3 cinematic demo...well, instead of at first being disappointed by the final game (trust me, I grew to love it for its own strengths), I would have been blown away by it! So I guess for me that's why this trailer is just a fun little thing to not worry about too much. :)

I think my reaction comes down to a few things. I struggle to view this trailer as a "fun little thing" because I know how much time, money, and planning goes into every single aspect of its production. This trailer is a very big deal to Bungie, because a large portion of their potential sales is dependant on trailers and other marketing. So it does make me take anything they release seriously in terms of "this is how they've chosen to represent their game".

The other thing is I just don't think the trailer was well done or entertaining in its own right. Setting aside all thought on how this trailer represents the game or any of that stuff, I just found it lame. So I can't really appreciate it ok its own merits either, because I just don't think it was any good.

The Halo comparisons are interesting. To me, Halo was jammed full of pop-culture references and winks to the player right from the start. Johnson himself is all but plagiarized straight Aliens. His cutscenes near the beginning of Halo CE sets up the kind of character he is, and the type of humour he brings. But he's also not alone. There are grunts cracking one-lines, hilarious marines, Elites that yell "wort wort wort". Bungie's humour permeates the game. But that doesn't exist in Destiny. Bungie's humour feels like it isn't even there. There's just Nathon Fillion being Nathon Fillion. And when they want more humour, all they do is add more Fillion. It just doesn't fit, IMO :)