Jun 07, 1:31 pm
I have very mixed feelings about game to movie crossovers. There hasn’t been a single game that’s made a genuinely successful movie. Some have had financial success - Resident Evil produced a trilogy of movies. That just doesn’t happen if each doesn’t do well enough at the box office. Tomb Raider also produced a sequel, and Silent Hill did well at the box office too (with a sequel confirmed and in the making.) All of these films though were critical disasters, getting incredibly bad ratings and reviews across the world. So why should gamers care?
Well for me the problem with these poor quality movies is that I feel they reflect badly on me personally. A lot of gamers including myself would dearly love to show non gaming friends, relatives and acquaintances just why we are so in love with our hobby, and what it is that draws us in. They can’t help but see simplistic interactive cartoons. I recently spoke with Game Screen Writer, Rob Yescombe, who said whenever his father came into his room he’d say “Are you shooting more monsters in corridors again?” Rob explained “It’s not about shooting monsters in corridors. It’s about why you are shooting monsters in corridors.” That’s what many gamers hope a movie based on a game can show our non gaming friends, but when they fail to show the incredible drama we experience, it’s more than disappointing - it’s an embarrassment.
Last year I was absolutely blown away by the incredible story and cinematic style of Bioshock. With the movie announced, directed by Gore Verbinski famed for his work on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and being written by Screen Writer John Logan (who penned films such as Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, The Aviator and Star Trek Nemesis) I certainly think the project is being taken seriously. My concern though isn’t so much about feeling embarrassed by it turning out badly, but that it may ruin my unsullied view of the game if the film turns out to be a bit naff. Equally the Prince of Persia movie has every chance at success with Jake Gyllenhaal starring, Harry Potter Director Mike Newall in charge, and the script written by the Prince’s creator himself - Jordan Mechner - yet I still fear that my Prince, the Prince I’ve come to know over the last 20 years, is going to be warped and changed and taken from me.
I suppose it’s no different than how people feel about their favourite books getting the big screen treatment, yet I find they are given far more reverence than any game to movie adaptation. I’ll just have to make a decision whether to see the movie when Bioshock comes out in my local cinema but as Andrew Ryan says “We all make choices but in the end our choices make us.”
May 30, 2:20 pm
Beyond Good & Evil was a game that blew gamers away five years ago. It was released to huge critical acclaim and helped cement creator Michel Ancel’s reputation as one of the games industry’s greatest auteurs.
I personally loved the title and would put it in my top five all time greatest games - if I actually had a top five, which I don’t. It would be too hard for me to decide upon. Suffice to say the one thing I know about my top five is that Beyond Good & Evil would be in it. Between the brilliant character of Jade (a strong, rounded character), the amazing world in which she exists and the incredibly diverse gameplay, BG&E was an odyssey that I remember as one of the great journeys of my life.
I think my favourite element of the game was photographing the varied wildlife throughout the world. Ancel found a way to combine the simple but addictive gameplay device of collecting stuff with exploration and artistic freedom as you set up and framed your photos. No one but Ancel would have you one minute dodging guards in a factory and having hovercraft races, and the next floating on the sea listening to the waves crashing and setting up your shot to take a photo as a huge whale emerges off in the distance and CLICK! You have the image of its tail as it crashes back into the salty waters below. Sublime.
Despite unanimous agreement throughout the gaming world that Beyond Good & Evil was indeed a masterwork, it couldn’t match that with financial success. And so, years passed without a sequel. It’s been particularly frustrating for gamers to hear no word of a sequel all this time, as BG&E ended on a cliff hanger with much scope for a wider storyline.
A few years ago I got up personal with Michel Ancel and took the opportunity to ask him then about a possible sequel. I was never sure if it was just the pleading look in my eyes that made him say it was definitely coming, or if there really were plans to bring Jade back. However, this week at Ubidays, after whisperings over past few weeks following Ancel’s interview with a French magazine, we finally had confirmation that BG&E 2 is indeed on its way. The new trailer gives away little, but anyone who played the original is celebrating right now. For those that are new to the game, I urge you to go back and play the original before this new game appears. Beyond Good & Evil isn’t just a game. It isn’t just some fun gameplay and a weird pig uncle. It’s an amazing story, a genuine odyssey and you should start your journey at the beginning.
May 21, 12:05 pm
Remember what I said in my last blog, about the guys at Free Radical being a bit well… cracked? This video gives you an idea of how I came to this conclusion. I desperately wanted to know all the details of Haze’s multplayer modes. I’d heard a little about it - 16 players, 4 player co-op campaign, incredible diverse moves depending on which side you are playing for, but I wanted to hear the details from the horse’s mouth so to speak. The Free Rad guys were quite willing to impart their vast knowledge to me - but only if I’d make a choice. A frightening choice. The stuff of nightmares really. I had to choose between them… choose which of them I wanted to… date. I could have given them a very quick answer to that, but no. They turned it into a tortuous process that I’m unlikely to ever fully recover from. So with rolling eyes and a huge sigh of resignation at my continuing humiliation on the internet, I would like to announce the very first episode - and I can assure you the very last episode - of Haze Multiplayer Date!
Theme song by Free Radical Design.
{click above to view the video}
May 12, 6:30 pm
It was a great privilege for me to be allowed to enter the hallowed halls of Free Radical Design in Nottingham. Of course it’s a well known fact that not only are they a beacon of light in the UK games development industry, but they are also completely cracked. Every one of them. You do actually have to be mad to work there. It’s compulsory. I had a brilliant day and got to play Haze till my heart’s content. While I was there I took some time to grill the team on what it’s been like these last three years, working on this epic tale, and just what we can expect from the story. Check out the video and hear what Screen Writer Rob Yescombe and Project Lead Derek Littlewood had to say.
{click above to view the video}
May 09, 9:52 am
So I’ve been looking at cover art a lot lately. There seems to be a revolution in cover art and it’s one that I’m liking. No longer do titles seek to cram every element of the game onto the cover using every asset available. No longer is it the style to have zig zags of colour to make up the background. With Nintendo taking the lead, cover art has become iconic, simple, clean and mostly… white.
It seems that what gamers want - not so much in a game but at least on the cover of one - is a bit of class. In days gone by cover art was garish and not particularly something that I would even notice. Now that every cover is a masterpiece of minimalism, I find my eyes stinging with distaste at the old fashined style and genuinely put off by it.
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Both brilliant games but the cover art for Devil May Cry 4 and The Orange box were incredibly off putting. DMC4, despite being a funny and attractive game, comes off as being dank and straight out of the early 90’s if the cover art is anything to go by. As for the Orange Box… It may well have been a bargain given the amount of high quality games that you got for your money, but it didn’t have to look like a bargain bin sticker!
Wii cover art seems to have genuinely moved game covers away to a cleaner look. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the difference between the cover art for Tomb Raider Anniversary on the Wii and on other systems.
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This kind of paring down of a game’s imagery to its most basic component is definitely becoming the fashion and I for one am a fan. I don’t like to judge a book by its cover but in a world now overflowing with games style does come into it. I find myself drawn to those games that can be whittled down to one simple iconic image on the front that says it all. I’m not saying I’m going to stop reading reviews or loking up games to find out more about them, but I can definitely now be swayed or put off by a bad cover. Shallow maybe but who can turn away from such pretty covers as these?
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