Blog: Movie games?! by Fidget

At first I thought that this was going to be about games based on movies, which typically fuking suck. Having worked on some, I can attest to it first hand. I also usually feel the same way about movies based on games. I fully expect the Gears movie to suck, and Halo would have been cool if it actually got made but I think it would have worked better as a series of shorts rather than a feature length movie. I have high hopes for the Warcraft movie, but it'll be interesting to see which direction Raimi takes it - does he go serious like A Simple Plan, or tongue in cheek goofy like Evil Dead or Drag Me To Hell?

Games like Uncharted2 are good at making playing the game feel like a cinematic experience, so I would much rather have a more polished gaming experience than a bad movie based off an okay game.

I wonder how The Sims movie and Pac man would work out as a movie, if they really are in development. Has there ever been a good movie based on a game? I can't think of any. If done right I'd love to see Splinter Cell and Assassins Creed transferred to movie form. I'm really hoping the Warcraft movie is good, I've never played the game, but the cinematics are always amazing to watch. I agree with JB on Halo, I think it'd be a lot better as shorts.

Game movies have a tendency to have their plots altered to fit the Hollywood formula. Then there are the games that have storylines or gameplay that don't translate into a movie...like fighting games.

I'm glad that there are a lot of game-based movies coming out, but I'm going to be very reserved in my expectations.

inFamous?! If that is true, I'll be in Heaven.

quote:

Games like Uncharted2 are good at making playing the game feel like a cinematic experience, so I would much rather have a more polished gaming experience than a bad movie based off an okay game.

I agree. The cinematic value of games with magnificent story lines and interactibility beat their movie adaptations.

I still want to see Prince of Persia the movie Here is the new foortage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...ture=player_embedded

Sadly the Castlevania film has been put on hold

I really like the Avatar game. I was surprised at how good it is. Usually I don't expect much from games based on movies. But this game plays really well.

The game comes out before the movie, and the game is a prequel to the movie so it wont ruin any of the story for you. I like that. It's kind of an extension to the movie. I think that's cool.

I think the Kane and Lynch movie is going to have Bruce Willis in it or he will be producing it... I think. Also Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) is producing a Bioshock movie.

if you liked Avatar, go play Lost Planet since it looks like they used that game A LOT for reference.

I actually thought that the first Mortal Kombat movie was pretty decent. Doom was also fairly watchable.

I do have to disagree with the idea that most game plots make good movie plots and movies make good game plots. There are several reasons why the two are not as interchangeable as some people think.

Firstly, why do movies not make good games? Well, a lot of people tell me they have an idea for a game. When I agree to listen to their ideas I am normally given an extremely complicated yet amazingly unoriginal narrative. I then ask them what the actual game is and why it would be fun, and they generally get offended that I am suggesting that their story is not enough to drive the game. What they have in fact given me is a plot for a movie or book.

Some commercial games fall into the same trap. They have this narrative and they force the game around it. Sure the game tells the story of the movie: The exact story I could have gotten for $50 cheaper at the movies. It does little else but draw it out for more hours than the plot was actually designed for. It doesn't make it fun as a game at all.

Then there are the deadlines imposed on movie games. If you are working on a game that is not based on a movie and you find it is not as polished or fun as you would like come its original release date you can always delay it. This happens all the time in the gaming industry. Look at Blizzard as they are notorious for this: Top quality games, but when did they ever release a game even close to the original anticipated release date? This is because when the time comes if they are not happy with it they will work with it until they are. This is generally a good idea unless you don't have the money to continue development OR unless you have a hard deadline such as a movie release date. The truth is that most software developers know their movie game is mediocre at best when it is time to release it, but they MUST release it then or they will lose all the sales that are generated by the movie buzz.

Now, what about games that are made into movies? I think there has been a little more success here, though the number of flops really does outnumber the successes. I know I can name at least a couple of bad game movies for every good one I can, and I wouldn't say there ever has been a great game movie to date. So why is this?

Well, games need little or even no story to be good. There have been a great many classic games that will stand the test of time that have no story at all. Even the modern games we consider story heavy in reality have almost no story at all when compared to a movie or novel. But this is good cause if we wanted to sit through story we'd probably watch a movie or read a book instead.

This forces movies based on video games to do one of two things. Either they make the movie faithful to the game and deal with the fact it will be dry (I can't think of any perfect examples of this), or just take the basic settings and character names and perhaps one or two traits of those characters and completely make up a story about them. This story is rarely good as it is forcing those few game elements in there. If by chance you do come up with a good story it'll probably have little to nothing to do with the story of the game it came from.

In truth I think that anyone who tries to make a game from a movie or a movie from a game is going to give themselves a big handicap right from the beginning that unique movies or games will not have. I can not think of a single movie based on a game that I'd consider better than mediocre, and about the only great game I can think of based on a movie is Golden Eye 64, which unlike modern movie games came out two years after the movie it was based upon.

My thoughts. Feel free to agree or disagree.

quote:

Originally posted by Anim8rJB:
Games like Uncharted2 are good at making playing the game feel like a cinematic experience, so I would much rather have a more polished gaming experience than a bad movie based off an okay game.

That's fine, but imo a game that tries to be a "cinematic experience" is completely missing the point of the medium. I do not disagree with cinematic elements in a game, but when a game has a cutscene every 20 minutes to fill in the parts of the "cinematic experience" that the mechanics do not allow you to play through... something's wrong (this is my biggest beef with Gears of War.) Games and movies are two inherently different mediums, and I think people forget that sometimes (Redcoat, btw, I completely agree with your post, which I'll comment on in a sec.)

I'm going to nerd out for a second.

Interestingly enough, looking at game theory has--in the past--predominately been done through the lens of film theory when applied to games, and as game theory when applied to economics. However, if you look at the semi-recent push to study video games as games the medium is as unique as movies compared to literature. There's a quote I like from a book I once read. It goes like this: "If photographs are images, and films are moving images, then video games are actions." That is the inherent difference that, as Redcoat pointed out--and I've experienced similar encounters--there are people who forget about the actions. It is because of this I think adaptions between games and movies need to occur as carefully as movies and literature. And to mix the two in "cinematic experiences," while it can yield some pleasing results, ultimately means control is being taken away from the player if the studio is serious about their game being like a cinematic experience.

I think what we see with the unsuccessful movies/games adaptions are the proverbial trying to pound a round peg into a square hole. But at this point I'd just be repeating Redcoat, so I'll stop here.

Redcoat, I think the one exception to adapting a game/movie is when the game or movie does not attempt to retell the original source. Movies like Hitman, or what Warcraft is supposed to be, where the film makers (or the IP owners,) make a conscious choice to use the separate medium to tell a separate narrative that is still part of the universe from the original IP. That gives much more creative license to adapt parts of the story to the medium's strength.

Hopefully this all made sense. This is a little bit later than what I'm used to for posting messages.

quote:

That's fine, but imo a game that tries to be a "cinematic experience" is completely missing the point of the medium. I do not disagree with cinematic elements in a game, but when a game has a cutscene every 20 minutes to fill in the parts of the "cinematic experience" that the mechanics do not allow you to play through... something's wrong (this is my biggest beef with Gears of War.) Games and movies are two inherently different mediums, and I think people forget that sometimes

I disagree and so does Metal Gear Solid I think its a very good example of a game series that mixes an amazing cinematic experience with just the right amount of cutscenes and gameplay experience. The games feel so streamlined and polished and filled with many alternative ways to finish an objective but the story and the characters really grip you.

The thing with MGS, is that it allows much more freedom in gameplay than other games do. MGS is one of the few exceptions mainly because it's not so much a "cinematic experience," as it is a game and movie spliced together. I consider a subtle difference between the two: whereas MGS uses cutscenes to fill in story and frame the gameplay, some of the cutscenes in (for example) Gears of War simply restricts what the player can do so you are forced to view what the developers wanted you to see. So where MGS succeeds is that it doesn't allow the cutscenes to get in the way of gameplay as so often happens with quicktime events, in-engine cutscenes, etc. Essentially, Kojima knew when to use a cutscene (when Snake is either not involved, or there would be nothing to do but look around,) and when to let the player play the game, (to avoid a spoiler, I'll just say: the final areas of the game.)

There are always exceptions to the rules, (which, really, it isn't even a rule so much an observation ) which are worth bringing up for sure, but for ever MGS there are probably four or five examples where the design philosophy failed because the designer didn't understand the relationship that needed to be struck between gameplay elements and storytelling.

Personally, I really don't classify MGS4 (it's been too long for the others I played to comment on them,) as a cinematic experience because, like I said, gameplay is such an important part to it. They run in parallel, really, instead of the "cinematic" part taking over like it does in other games labeled as "great cinematic experiences." I suppose that's just getting into semantics, but I figure I'll take the opportunity to explain myself BECAUSE I LIKE HEARING MYSELF SPEAK.

Yes, I read every post I make outloud to myself.

Not really. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't misrepresenting my opinion.

Edit: I guess my biggest problem is that it's an idea that's often applied incorrectly, or when used literally is usually done very poorly. Technically, a cinematic experience would be a game where I mostly watch the action. I mean, that would be a simple definition for movies: there is a viewer observing the action. Whereas a game that mixes elements of cinema along side the action (see: MGS,) I don't really consider in that category, because if it's done well it would be part of the game's narrative either to drive the action, or put it in context as opposed to dominating it.

On top of that, it's being used as a buzz word to replace "immersion," which makes about as much sense as me describing a movie by saying it was "photographic." Games shouldn't try to be cinema, just like cinema shouldn't try to be photography (from an artistic standpoint,) and to use the phrase "cinematic experience" to replace immersion is absurd because then a book could be classified as a "cinematic experience."

I get worked up easily over these sorts of things.

I knew someone would bring up MGS as an example to the contrary. In my opinion MGS makes good use of cinematics for a game. Cinematics and plot narration are almost a level of polish for a game. They can make a good game into a great game but they can do very little to change a terrible game.

If you were to strip out the cinematics from MGS you would still have a decent game. In fact the biggest criticism I hear about the MGS series from people who dislike it is that it is too cutscene heavy. Maybe these people would be won over if it was more action and less watching. I don't know, I like the cutscenes myself...

But I do not like the cutscenes and plot enough to pay $10 to watch a shortened version of them in a movie theatre. Not nearly that much. Directors and producers know this and so they try to make a version that I would pay $10 for. The end result is usually something that fans of the game do not like as it is not 100% true to the game. Non fans equally dislike it as they are not only not attached to the characters but it also has huge holes in it that you need to play the game to fill in. The final result is just not a good movie. I really can't think of any video game movie which this isn't the case and I don't see why MGS the movie would be any different.

Nobody's brought up Bioshock, which definitely has a very cinematic feel to it.

I'd go so far as to say Bioshock is one of the games that goes in the opposite direction of "cinema-like," because the player is given explicit choices that do have an impact on the narrative. Yes, Bioshock builds atmosphere well. Yes, it tells a fairly good story. But those two qualities are not cinema-specific qualities, they're storytelling-specific qualities. In the case of Bioshock, they're being used to frame the actions that Bioshock presents to the player in a very well laid out fashion.

quote:

Originally posted by weaselboy:
I'd go so far as to say Bioshock is one of the games that goes in the opposite direction of "cinema-like," because the player is given explicit choices that do have an impact on the narrative. Yes, Bioshock builds atmosphere well. Yes, it tells a fairly good story. But those two qualities are not cinema-specific qualities, they're storytelling-specific qualities. In the case of Bioshock, they're being used to frame the actions that Bioshock presents to the player in a very well laid out fashion.

That makes it better since the writers aren't forced to keep movie plot so limited. They'll have a lot more freedom in what direction they want to take the story.

Good films based on Video games
Mortal Combat
Resident Evil 1
Silent Hill

Bad films made from video games

Everything I did not list above.

Regarding MGS. I am on the fence with that game.
While I enjoy the gameplay, I personally HATE the 25 minute long cutscenes that happen every 15 minutes. It totally destroys the experience and pulls me out of the game.
Sure they are well done, but they are to long and to close together.

It also sucks having to watch the 25 minute cutscene repeatedly as you attempt to get through an area.

There was a game called Advent Rising that was scripted by Orson Scott Card. The gameplay was glitchy and it destroyed the experience but it worked very well with the cutscenes that were also interactive.

CODMW has decent Interactive cutscenes that work well.

As was pointed out earlier, films fail because they take away the actions of a video game and do not replace it with anything that can recreate the experience of user Involvement.

BIOSHOCK could work well as a film if they focus on the plot and design to recreate the world and ignore trying to recreate any of the scenes in the game.
Otherwise it will fail also.

Look at Pirates of the Carribian. It was an Interactive ride that they turned into a film. They kept the conflict that is part of the rides narrative, but then created a rich world with compelling characters around that concept.
that is why it worked.
Most video games have one note characters who are only compelling in short 3-4 minute bursts.

Not interesting enough to build a film around.
Just look at DOOM.

I think I would like to c Heavenly Sword as a movie. I had fun playing the game, the storyline was good and the characters were interesting. Also, I think I could handle Splinter Cell as a movie-it's one of my all time favs so I would b front and center regardless

quote:

Originally posted by Brimtown:
Nobody's brought up Bioshock, which definitely has a very cinematic feel to it.

I did bring up Bioshock in my first comment saying

"...Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) is producing a Bioshock movie."