amazon's weird new secret level show pre-emptive episode breakdown

[sanctumsys]

so some trailers were put out today. i skimmed the mega man and armored core ones. my thoughts:
armored core: recency bias, big-budget game (though a very good one as is expected of fromsoft), they're going to butcher it
concord: recency bias, sony marketing push planned before the game died within weeks, i'd say they're going to butcher it but how do you butcher what is already finely diced
god of war: recency bias, the new god of wars look like the last of us genre of HBO imitators but i hear they have decent writing so maybe it'll appeal to god of war fans even though they've already like, played the games
crossfire: it's one of the most-played video games in asia but outside of that practically no one gives a shit so the choice to adapt it here is strange
dungeond & dragons: it's not going to be anywhere near as memorable or funny as the Honor Among Thieves movie because they're almost certainly going to try to play it seriously
Exodus: the only way i know what genre this game is (action RPG) is from the description on the game awards trailer. the trailer itself shows barely any actual gameplay other than it being third-person over the shoulder. this episode is very obviously being made entirely for marketing the game
honor of kings: it's a mobile MOBA. obviously purely for marketing
mega man: look how they massacred my boy
new world aeternum: hahahahahahahahahahahahaha fuck you amazon
pac-man: obligatory classic coin-op arcade game
playstation: how the fuck do you adapt the abstract concept of the "playstation" brand into a tv episode
sifu: this one could actually be pretty cool if it was being handled by people who give a shit, since sifu itself is basically a playable martial arts movie and those fucking own
spelunky: they had to include an indie game or people would yell at them (this is not a sleight against spelunky which is a fantastic game)
the outer worlds: they couldn't get the fallout license so they went with the next best thing (i'm joking. maybe.)
unreal tournament: what?
warhammer 40,000: space marine 2: maybe it'll be cool if the people making this episode actually give a shit about warhammer
i find it endlessly funny that they keep calling secret level "groundbreaking". breaking what ground, exactly? video game to TV/movie adaptations have existed for almost fifty years now, and they're certainly not going to push new boundaries with visuals if the mega man trailer is any indication
this is all made funnier by the fact that they very obviously pulled the name "secret level" out of their asses; besides the pac-man kill screen (which i'm not even sure counts) and maybe armored core and some older mega man games, i'm not sure any game on this list has a secret level

[RT-55J]

idk. the megaman one looked fine enough -- i mean, dr. light called our boy "rock" (unlike powered up or mm11). it gives me similar vibes as the mid-aughts western-made CGI astroboy film which, while i doubt we'll get a performance as good as nic cage's dr temna here, was acceptably middle of the road

curious how much money amazon is pouring into this project

playstation: how the fuck do you adapt the abstract concept of the "playstation" brand into a tv episode

let me tell u about this game called "astrobot's playroom" aka "here's a super-happy eulogy to our homegrown japanese game studio we just buried in the ground :) :) :)"

[sanctumsys]

honestly, i'm not sure if the "playstation" episode will be astro bot. sony doesn't put nearly as much marketing push into it as the mascot character for that i think, though i guess it's possible
what i really want to know is how they'll handle concord

[veni-vidi-ascii]

Isn't this the same thing as Star Wars: Visions? Standalone gaiden episodes by different animators.

[sanctumsys]

Isn't this the same thing as Star Wars: Visions? Standalone gaiden episodes by different animators.

it's like star wars visions except the episodes are all a "revolutionary" (they keep using that word in the marketing) adaptation of video games because the amazon execs think it's prestigious when a game gets a tv adaptation

[RT-55J]

I just saw the trailer for the Pac-Man thing, and the fact that Amazon is funneling money to make that is high art in and of itself.

Isn't this the same thing as Star Wars: Visions? Standalone gaiden episodes by different animators.

I think the operative difference here is that a good deal of these are probably backdoor pilots, rather than full one-offs.

[RT-55J]

lol the l33tsp34k game names at the end of the trailers are actually passwords you can input into the secretlevel website for Cool Stuff (like a short clip or being able to enter a drawing for some rare merch or whatever)

[sanctumsys]

I just saw the trailer for the Pac-Man thing, and the fact that Amazon is funneling money to make that is high art in and of itself.

i just now saw it too via a friend who compared it to bomberman: act zero
and i saw a reply to it calling it "2014 artstation core" and i just cannot come up with a better roast than that

[RT-55J]

https://www.rockman-corner.com/2024/12/amid-poor-reviews-secret-level-s-mega.html

protodude is reporting that the megaman short is receiving positive impressions from critics (at least compared to the rest of the anthology)

but also it's runtime is 5:20 which, idk, seems kinda slight

[sanctumsys]

SO HEY TIME TO REVIVE THIS THREAD BECAUSE APPARENTLY SECRET LEVEL HAS INTERESTING NAMCO LORE SHIT (spoilers below)


so apparently there's a cipher that's used in the pac-man episode that's hinting at a direct connection between pac-man and xevious and maybe some other namco things. and also the 2012 xevious comic depicts the xevi aliens as floating golden orbs. sound familiar?
on top of that the "PUCK" imagery in secret level is reminiscent of GAMP from Xevious
i don't think namco should be allowed to make me care about secret level even a little bit so i'm annoyed
source

[RT-55J]

now that's what i'm talking about!

[RT-55J]

(i don't know what i'm talking about, but that seems cool)