The Movie Game
Posted: 2008-12-05
If I were to say to you, Jumper, what would you think? Would you think of the movie or would you think of the game, would you think of both? I never actually saw the movie and I watched the game being played. I was pondering the movie but after I saw the game I decided against it, because to be honest the game was that bad it put me off watching the film. So in a fit of inspiration, after several bottles of tequila and as I sunned myself in my expensive Villa in Spain next to all the cars and beautiful women that surrounded me, I woke up from that dream and thought: ah, movie to game and game to movie article/rant, just what the doctor ordered.
So this article is going to delve into the murky depths of the industry from both directions, examine some of the sure-fire misses and some of the near-hits as I take a look at the Franchise Game. I'm not exactly sure where it started way back when but there have always been games that attempt to mimic popular franchises, right back during the 8-bit era, Batman and anything that might make a good (I use that term loosely) game was packaged into a cartridge or recorded onto a tape. Shows like Airwolf and even Night Rider were blessed with video game conversions.
I could harp on about the Star Wars franchise being the most overly hyped in terms of games, with some of the worst movie->game conversions ever but that's only part of it. There have been some fairly decent Star Wars games and usually those have nothing to do with the movies, the N64 was graced with a decent effort in terms of Shadows of the Empire, a game based on the book of the same name that also had its own soundtrack. The PC and Xbox had two solid Star Wars games that were nothing to do with the movies and focussed on the events prior to Lucas' prequels - the Knights of the Old Republic, though, the second game is often thought of by fans as unpolished and unfinished.
If it's a TV show, a comic, a movie or even a book the chances are that someone out there will think it needs a game making of it. Eragon, a book and movie that borrows heavily from Star Wars in terms of story and design was thrust into the hands of developers, who made a variant of their Lord of the Rings style 3rd person hack-slash adventure that wasn't very good. Lost had its own game that should have remained Lost according to gamers. Beowulf had a pretty average game made about it. The pattern is universal across a large number of these games; they are often made without a thought for the gameplay and just to cash in on the name of the movie.
Harry Potter, it's had some duff video games and perhaps one game that stood out from the rest recently. That's a pretty big ratio of miss to hit though and whilst you can get die-hard fans to part with anything if you stick it in a plastic replica of Master Chief's helmet, most gamers are going to smile and wave as they move onto the next franchise that's usually made from an original IP. Movie/franchise games don't have a great reputation; this is a bit of a shame since there are some of these games that deserve a decent look.
The Witcher is a fantastic game with a lot of heart and soul, based on a series of Polish fantasy novels. It's a success story that keeps on getting better and better, now, there's light at the end of the tunnel for the 360 owners since the game's coming to the console. It's a good example of how to take established source material, give it a spin and make it work. The Spawn games, Todd McFarlane's creation should have been excellent, they could have really done something with that character and instead they were terrible. It was a sign that the industry had a long way to go in terms of technology and game design however, this was in the infancy of the video game market and the power just wasn't there to support the ideas. If we fast forwards to the Xbox, the same can be said, the power was partly there but the skill was lacking in many developers. Movie games were looked upon with derision by gamers as well; this didn't help the cause at all.
I remember hearing about the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and thinking, just like many gamers at the time. Oh no, not another damn movie game. I was all ready to give this the heave-ho and ignore it but one of my friends worked at Starbreeze at the time and he told me a little about the game, just enough to whet my appetite. So when I booted it onto my Xbox and sat back expecting to be highly disappointed, I couldn't have been more wrong. Minutes melted into hours and I blasted my way through Riddick in just over 12 hours.
So this article is going to delve into the murky depths of the industry from both directions, examine some of the sure-fire misses and some of the near-hits as I take a look at the Franchise Game. I'm not exactly sure where it started way back when but there have always been games that attempt to mimic popular franchises, right back during the 8-bit era, Batman and anything that might make a good (I use that term loosely) game was packaged into a cartridge or recorded onto a tape. Shows like Airwolf and even Night Rider were blessed with video game conversions.
I could harp on about the Star Wars franchise being the most overly hyped in terms of games, with some of the worst movie->game conversions ever but that's only part of it. There have been some fairly decent Star Wars games and usually those have nothing to do with the movies, the N64 was graced with a decent effort in terms of Shadows of the Empire, a game based on the book of the same name that also had its own soundtrack. The PC and Xbox had two solid Star Wars games that were nothing to do with the movies and focussed on the events prior to Lucas' prequels - the Knights of the Old Republic, though, the second game is often thought of by fans as unpolished and unfinished.
If it's a TV show, a comic, a movie or even a book the chances are that someone out there will think it needs a game making of it. Eragon, a book and movie that borrows heavily from Star Wars in terms of story and design was thrust into the hands of developers, who made a variant of their Lord of the Rings style 3rd person hack-slash adventure that wasn't very good. Lost had its own game that should have remained Lost according to gamers. Beowulf had a pretty average game made about it. The pattern is universal across a large number of these games; they are often made without a thought for the gameplay and just to cash in on the name of the movie.
Harry Potter, it's had some duff video games and perhaps one game that stood out from the rest recently. That's a pretty big ratio of miss to hit though and whilst you can get die-hard fans to part with anything if you stick it in a plastic replica of Master Chief's helmet, most gamers are going to smile and wave as they move onto the next franchise that's usually made from an original IP. Movie/franchise games don't have a great reputation; this is a bit of a shame since there are some of these games that deserve a decent look.
The Witcher is a fantastic game with a lot of heart and soul, based on a series of Polish fantasy novels. It's a success story that keeps on getting better and better, now, there's light at the end of the tunnel for the 360 owners since the game's coming to the console. It's a good example of how to take established source material, give it a spin and make it work. The Spawn games, Todd McFarlane's creation should have been excellent, they could have really done something with that character and instead they were terrible. It was a sign that the industry had a long way to go in terms of technology and game design however, this was in the infancy of the video game market and the power just wasn't there to support the ideas. If we fast forwards to the Xbox, the same can be said, the power was partly there but the skill was lacking in many developers. Movie games were looked upon with derision by gamers as well; this didn't help the cause at all.
I remember hearing about the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and thinking, just like many gamers at the time. Oh no, not another damn movie game. I was all ready to give this the heave-ho and ignore it but one of my friends worked at Starbreeze at the time and he told me a little about the game, just enough to whet my appetite. So when I booted it onto my Xbox and sat back expecting to be highly disappointed, I couldn't have been more wrong. Minutes melted into hours and I blasted my way through Riddick in just over 12 hours.
