These days game based on films, TV shows, childrens’ toys and even film/toy cross overs are pretty common. Generally speaking these games seem to fair quite badly as far as the reaction from critics and hardcore gamers goes, but as long as the film/TV show/product they’re based on is popular they will always sell well enough to make a healthy profit. I guess the same goes for films based on computer games, generally speaking they’re considered to be pretty awful and yet they keep making more and more of them, so someone must be making money. So I started thinking, are there any really good games based on films or films based on games? The Lego Star Wars and Indiana Jones games were pretty cool, but one could argue that it’s the Lego-ness of them that makes them so much fun. I was also thinking about the strangest game tie-ins I’ve ever come across and was reminded of the truly weird Frankie Goes To Hollywood game I had on the Amstrad. To this day I have absolutely no idea what it was about.
Anyway, over to you guys…
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29/06/2009 at 3:36 pm
djmousefarm
I hate to refer to a game that’s yet to come out, but the Batman : Arkham Asylum looks very promising indeed. (But then i am a huge Batman fanboy.)
Spiderman 2 (PS2) had a lovely free-roam environment and fairly decent web-spinning controls. It would be criminal to neglect Goldeneye (N64) as it was both groundbreaking and a LOT of fun. That game alone made me buy an N64!
Looking even further back to my Amiga days, i would say that Robocop 3 took up a lot my time as did the game of the first Batman movie. Neither game was particularly awesome, i just had a lower throughput of games in those days.
And on the first games capable machine i owned – my lovely rubber-keyed Spectrum 48K – i remember spending many hours playing Ghostbusters and even more struggling my way through the Aliens game. Landing the dropship alone took me many attempts but i persisted and eventually completed the whole thing. I also fought long and hard through the Cobra game. I think that was during one of many bouts of extended illness i had when i was a teenager.
As for strangest, i honestly don’t know. Worst would have to be the absolutely awful Superman game that was released to coincide with the not good Superman Returns movie. You might still be able to download the demo on Xbox Live. Do so. Play it. Loathe it. Delete it. Then delete the part of your brain you played it with.
30/06/2009 at 8:49 am
Si
Good call on Goldeneye and Ghostbusters, I loved both of them. However I also loved “Superman Returns” the film, but I’ve not played the game.
29/06/2009 at 5:18 pm
wwrs
Interesting timing, as last night i finished the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (360). I have no recollection of watching the Riddick films, although depending on who you talk to, they’re supposed to be pretty good. The game however was thoroughly enjoyable and i guess they did exactly what they *should* do with film/game tie ins, and instead of simply trying to guide you through the story, come up with a whole different story and let you just play as the character. Although of course this is aided in this case as the character is such a badass he’s great fun to play and his particular skills are ideally suited to building a game around.
I am also quite looking forward to Arkham Asylum, although its noteable that that is again more of a comic book adaptation with a new-ish story allowing you to play an awesome character, than a feeble attempt to walk you through a story.
I think maybe thats an overall problem with games – they’re trying to become more and more like films in the way they engage you, but the reasons films work so well on this level is you sit back and focus only on what is happening and get taken through the story – any introduction of puzzles, things you have to work out – challenge, or even stop start checkpoints, dying and starting again – the things that make games a game, completely ruins the flow the film has. Not to mention the fact you have to be physically and mentally involved in playing a game – where as a film is for a lot of people an enjoyable switch in to mental standby mode.
This could be part of the reason mediocre film tie in games are that mediocre – we already know the outcome, (how many games do you play already knowing exactly whats involved and what happens at the end?) and ‘being’ the hero, usually an action one a that, but having to follow a linear path down a predetermined story arc often finds itself going against what being the hero is all about.
Spiderman 2, as Bob mentioned, was a nice little game, because instead of trying to replicate the happenings in a film gave you control of the hero in question and a big free roaming environment to mess about in, with plenty of (eventually quite tedious, but meh) side missions to keep you interested while you weren’t following the story part.
Goldeneye gets a special mention although its top quality non movie related multiplayer did huge amounts for its longevity, it was one of the first of its kind to execute what it did effectively. It certainly had that x factor that some games just have as multiple pretty crap re-hashes of exactly the same formula showed.
While game developers and movie studios lamely cashing in have a lot to answer for as with every major film comes a tie in game of generally dubious quality, it’ll be interesting to see what technological as well as gaming advances will bring in future. We now have games that are built around exploring your own vast sprawling world (fable, fallout) and other games that have changed our expectation from playing games in general, putting much more focus on multiplayer aspects (L4D) that doesnt strike me as something that will easily tie in with any film as it is generally driven by a single hero character. It strikes me that largely tie-ins were better when they were so limited in what they were able to do (turtles, star wars, and many others on the NES) , they had to just use the right colours for the pixels, reference the right character names, and then make a cool little platform game. Whether bigger better capabilities in games will help to develop better, more engaging games of films or it will just end up with there being far more of a gap that games will be so much about ‘make your own story’ that trying to make a game of a predetermined story will not interest anyone.
01/07/2009 at 5:17 pm
djmousefarm
I am playing my way through Dark Athena part of the game at the moment. Michelle “Admiral Cain” Forbes really brings some sparkle to it as a twisted Captain of a band of mercenaries with rather extreme recruitment practices. The gameplay’s more gun orientated and at some points the targets are a little too small for my SD tv. I’m finding it a bit of a slog now though, i generally find stealthy games get like that after a while.
It almost feels like a cliche to say this, but the line between movies and games is become more and more blurry. When the Prince of Persia and Gears of War movie come out, will that make the games into movie games? (Certainly GoW will be one of the best Game/Film crossovers ever!)
02/07/2009 at 12:16 pm
Si
Like I said in the original post, it goes both ways and there’s plenty of examples of films based on games (Resident Evil, Max Payne, Silent Hill) but I’m yet to see a decent one. Peter Jackson was supposed to be making a Halo movie but that has stalled, apparently.