The highly anticipated additional to the Diablo series, Diablo 3, was released today: and whilst I myself have not been anticipating it as much as others, my interest in the game did pick up significantly once I watched a few trailers and cinematics. I am familiar with the game on a mutual level. I haven't played any of the preceding games, but like Diablo III, I know them to a small extent.
Firstly when I watched this trailer I couldn't but admire the animation in it, at first made to look like an illustration in a book becomes a fully realised war between the factions of Heaven and Hell. The occasional pauses or slowed down moments remind me of Zack Snyder's "300".
It then cuts to an equally admirable but more realistic 3D animation that takes place in the presumed present times, as opposed to the past time of the war we saw in the book. As a sequel, the trailer doesn't need to establish as much story as most games do, as most players will already be familiar with it. However, even for people like me - who only know about Diablo and it's story through what they have willingly gone out of their way to learn; it makes a lot of sense and I want to play it all the more.
This is probably the video that assured me I would download the game and play it on the night it was released. Whilst that didn't actually happen, and I do intended to get it downloaded and play it when I can, it was this video that changed my mind completely. It's strange to think that of all the gameplay videos and information that was already availible, it was an animation produced by the collaborative efforts of the games production company, Blizzard - and that of an independant animation firm Titmouse, (whom I am also familiar with for producing Metalocalypse) that got me into the game.
The animation is wonderful and I really think the collaboration was a great success. I'm hoping to see more like it for the Warcraft series, because quite frankly that would be awesome.
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