Siliconera Speaks Up: Movie Video Games

By Louise Yang . May 17, 2009 . 7:30am

Siliconera Speaks Up: Movie Video Games

What movie would you like to be made into a game? What type of game would it be?

 

Siliconera Speaks Up: Movie Video GamesJenni: I’d love to see Neil Gaiman’s Mirrormask turned into a game. The basic premise of the movie is that a girl named Helena’s family owns a circus, and she wants a normal life. When her mother falls ill after an argument, she gets her wish. While staying at a relative’s apartment, Helena ends up getting pulled into another world/dimension. She’s mistaken for the Princess of Light by the citizens of the City of Light, and the Princess of Dark by the Dark Queen in the land of Shadows.

It turns out the Dark Princess has taken the MirrorMask from the City of Light. The Light Queen has then fallen into a coma. Helena, along with the City of Light performer Valentine, goes on a journey to reclaim it. It could work as a platformer, an action RPG, a standard turn-based RPG or even an adventure game.

 

Siliconera Speaks Up: Movie Video GamesLouise: The first thing I thought of was anything by Studio Ghibli. Since Spirited Away has the most North American exposure out of all of their movies, it makes sense to start with a Spirited Away game. But instead of turning it into a generic third person platformer like so many animated features get turned into, I’d like to see it as a 2D point and click adventure game.

The intricate and detailed world and characters out of Studio Ghibli movies are perfect subjects for this genre. It gives players a chance to enjoy the landscape and art. I’m excited to see what the Level 5/Studio Ghibli collaboration is going to look like.

 

Siliconera Speaks Up: Movie Video GamesSpencer: Advent Children? I’m sort of kidding, but that would have made a better action game than action movie. The best movie games tend to have the most freedom with a franchise. Games that simply rehash a film tend to be boring since you know the story already. That being said a stylish action game based on Kill Bill would be fun to play, but instead of covering the events of the movie the game could focus on the bride’s past life where she worked as an assassin.

 

Siliconera Speaks Up: Movie Video GamesIshaan: I’d love to see a adventure game based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. According to Wikipedia, there’s already a side-scrolling Dracula game on the NES and SNES, but I would love to see a story-driven point-and-click thriller based on the movie (or the book for that matter) on PC.

Ideally, this game would use only the most basic elements of the movie/book and build upon those to create an 8 – 10 hour-long horror experience with a unique art style and some great voice-acting. (Pre-order bonus fangs and a small vial of wine substituting for blood would be much appreciated as well)


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  • http://denpanosekai.blogspot.com denpanosekai

    There’s already a side-scrolling Dracula game on the NES
    Yeah Ishaan, and it sucks, trust me. The thing is that we already had such high-quality vampire/dracula games (namely the Castlevania series, but hell, even 8 Eyes was better) that anything else just pales in comparison. Although it's sort of stretching it, let's not forget the killer games based on TV shows from the NES era. Duck Tales, Rescue Rangers, Konami's TMNT and Simpsons (arcade). Those were spectacular and still serve as the best example of how to do a conversion from a non-interactive visual media to a playable one. A shame that no one ever uses that model.

    Actually the best movie-to-game conversion I've ever seen (IMHO!!!) is… Van Helsing (PS2/XBOX, 2004). It's hella short, it is a shameless DMC ripoff, but it is a great experience AND it is also about a million times better than the movie. Seriously, pick it up for like 5$ if you can.

  • Ishaan

    Wow, a Van Helsing DMC clone? This I have to see.

    I like Castlevania — Order of Ecclesia especially — and Soul Reaver is one of my favourite games of all time, but I really want to see a genuinely creepy story-focused vampire game. I kind of figured the old NES game must've sucked because I've never seen/heard anyone talk about it…and I go out of my way to find obscure stuff sometimes.

    Also, all TMNT games are awesome by default. I might even pick up that new fighting game by Ubisoft. I just hope it has an adventure mode like Brawl did. :(

  • CleruTesh

    A herring! MirrorMask was fantastic, but I dunno about making
    a game of it. I can't even think of a movie that I would turn into a
    game. Based on experience, I generally assume any attempt to
    turn a movie into a game will be disasterous.

  • Aoshi00

    I agree w/ Spence, movie games should take more liberty instead of following the original materials, so they have more room to expand and fill in the gaps.

    I haven't seen X-Men Origins Wolverine yet, but it's one hell of an action game, I just tried the demo and want to play the full game so bad. And there's the Terminator Salvation TPS which seems decent too. I guess it would be cool to do another full-blown Watchmen game, instead of the $20 downloadable one which is a repetitive brawler that lets only lets you control Nite Owl and Rorschach, so you can control other characters in other modes, or play as the original Minutemen. Another one of my favorite movie is Equilibrium, a Matrix-like movie w/ Christian Bale, not sure if it's best game material..

  • http://myanimelist.net/profile/Kuronoa Kuronoa

    Agreeing with Louise on the Studio Ghibli part. My pick would be Princess Mononoke, it could make a decent action-adventure or something.

    Movie/TV tie-ins don't feel that exciting to me much anymore. Back in the day we've gotten licensed games that were interesting and fun ranging from Capcom's Disney titles to Konami's Tiny Toon games.

    Now? Kingdom Hearts, but that's more of a crossover.. anime stuff perhaps as well. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

  • daizyujin

    I rented Wolverine. It is a great action game. It isn't perfect by any stretch but it is a lot of fun. A great example of how to make a movie based game since it captures the character very well.

  • cj_iwakura

    Why hasn't there been a Kill Bill game yet?

  • Aoshi00

    Yeah, usually I don't pay attention to movie-based games at all, like Spidey or Superman, since they turn out to be a joke most of the time. But Wolverine does seem like a lot of fun w/ very intuitive control. I would definitely give the game a try eventually, the graphics is really good too, very gory andstylish, blood gushes everywhere at the mercy of his claws!

  • CidSaijin

    holy crap a princess mononoke game would be AMAZING! I could watch that movie over and over til the end of time…

  • Chris

    Maybe not a movie, but I want to see a Battlestar Galactica game with Newtonian physics in viper battles.

    Mostly movie to game is a bad idea, because anything you can do transforming a movie to a game you could do something better with your own original idea and no plot constraints.

    It's hard to come up with good ideas to transform movies to games also because movie studios aren't even willing to make original movies anymore. All the movies that come out are just the 15000th new version of some old franchise that already has a bunch of video games.

    Also with the old NES games they would just throw the characters from the movies in then write their own unique combat system and levels that were fun, whereas now they just mimic the movie.

    What they should do is video games in particular directors' styles. Like, a video game styled like a John Woo action flick would be pretty awesome. Or one styled like an old western. Or something with David Lynchian weirdness. Anything where you're writing in somebody else's style but you're free to do your own thing.

  • daizyujin

    I have came to the conclusion from the last few movie games I have played that it isn't which movie a game is made from but rather how well it sticks to its source material. That is not to say that they should be copies of the movies, not by a long shot. You just have to make sure that the game you are designing does the franchise justice. A developer can't just slap a character in a generic game and call it a day, it has to fit.

    Wolverine is a good example of this. The game does a great job of capturing the characters animalistic mentality and brutal fighting method. While it isn't a perfect game it does succeed in the one way that most movie games fail, it is better than the movie it is based on.

  • ReturnOfSomeDude

    I remember musing on this when everyone in the public was laughing at how awful video game movies were. I pointed out that movie-based video games had an even worse track record.

    Even classics like Blade Runner turn to garbage when you cram them into a video game.

    I think what I'm looking for out of a good movie-based video game is something that's heavily action based, because it's easy to translate into the game without making it “Look, you just played the QTE sequence of the movie.” and nobody cares if you add additional story content, because they really didn't put any in their movie.

    So, something like Crank or the Transporter would be pretty good. Crank would be a fantastic GTA-style game where your whole goal was to basically do all the other stuff in GTA that doesn't advance the plot. Keep your adrenaline up by doing weird things, taking stimulants, and chaining mayhem combos, while trying to maintain a balance between your wanted level and your adrenaline rate.

    Any Jackie Chan movie could be done really awesome if they just freaking designed it right. Kind of like Ninja Blade, where you got all these super zany QTE events, but you've got more realistic fights before you hit the QTE.

    Alternately, I think it would be funny if someone made a Teen Wolf game. Part basketball, part Persona 4 Social Links, part crime fighting.

  • Happy Gamer

    Back to Oz survival Horror

  • Mr_Qoo

    I believe this John Woo game you are looking for would be “Stranglehold.” =)

  • Mr_Qoo

    I believe the John Woo game you are looking for would be “Stranglehold.” =)

  • http://www.younganimal.com/berserk Mr_Qoo

    I believe this John Woo game you are looking for would be “Stranglehold.” =)

  • http://www.younganimal.com/berserk Mr_Qoo

    I believe the John Woo game you are looking for would be “Stranglehold.” =)

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