Why the Movie Is Better than the Game

[Exliam]

I heard people say some good things about the DS Alice in Wonderland game (though I havent had the chance to play it myself). I think the reason for this is that the games tried a more abstract approach, basing the plot of the game off of the gameplay itself, and not off of the scenes from the movie. The minimalist approach to the graphics also helped.

 

[clarissa]

I agree with the article. You gave a very good explanation of the phenomenon of adaptation process games<-> movies.
I studied this subject some years ago (I read L. Hutcheon, for instance), and I have come to realize that these adaptation in both senses (movies into games and games into movies) are generally not successful because of the "original factor". Like you, author, said, movie games tend to follow the paths of the movie too strictly, which results in a boring game, only action, almost no real game interaction.
The adaptations which I find successful are the ones which use the plot as a basis for sth else: sequels, spin-offs, prequels tend to be less boring and more interactive games or better movies that the so-said 'direct adaptations'.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

The Game verion of the 2005 king kong movie was pretty good.

Proably because you actually felt like you were trapped on an island were you were reduced to a insect like state.

You always ran out of ammo, even the weakest dinosaur was enough to produce a response like having a Zealot with an enregy sowrd charging at you in halo 1, AKA "OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT RUN AWAY RUN AWAY RU-" *dies*

 

[AlexanderAstartes]

I loved the Chronicles of Riddick games

This
Republic Commando and Star Wars Battlefront too.
Oh and Battle for Middle-earth!

Personally I enjoyed the recent AvP game as well. Anticipating better things from Aliens: Colonial Marines though.

 

[internetzealot1]

Riddick and a few Star Wars games...that's all I got.

 

[mainlander13]

Can't say I've played many movie tie-ins, mainly because all I have for a computer is an Acer Notebook so PC gaming passes me by. Plus I don't have the money or technical know-how to dump hours of time and thousands of dollars into a decent machine.
That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the Wolverine game. Ya it was an average, but it was fun, and ANYTHING would have been better than the movie. Can anybody else think of an instance where the game was seen as good simply because the movie was terrible?

 

[CL4P-TP]

I thought pretty fondly of "Enter the Matrix", but maybe that's just me :| Path of Neo was alright, too.

 

[Josdeb]

Enter the Matrix is one of the ones I have in my memory as being pretty fun, though I did get stuck at one point I think.

While not actually a movie, does anyone remember the cartoon show Jackie Chan adventures? It was about Jackie Chan and his niece collecting magical chinese talismans that they could use to get super-powers (Super speed, telekenisis, fire-breath, etc). A game was made of it and it worked like Okami actually. I thought it was pretty fun, mostly because it took the shows premise of "Collect the talismans" and just went for it. PLus the fact you gained new abilities as you progressed already helped it as a game.

I would also like to say that, while it was one of the worst games I have ever touched, Iron man 2 did snag me an easy PLatinum trophy, so there were some merits to it

 

[King Yayap]

The Star Wars series of games has such a vast background that a company can take any aspect of it and make it into a successful game, ranging from the Old Republic (KOTOR), the Clone Wars (Republic Commando, which incidentally is in my top ten games), the Empire (The Force Unleashed), and the New Republic (Jedi Outcast). Another example Enter The Matrix, which looks at two minor characters from The Matrix series and focuses on their path.

Similarly, games based on a main character (e.g. James Bond) can work incredibly well if they do not focus on a particular film (I personally loved Nightfire), with an exception to the N64's GoldenEye, which used film sequences by developing them further, adding new sections to the ones used in the film (I have yet to play the Wii Remake).

 

[Sovvolf]

I don't know. I've enjoyed a few games based on movies. The Godfather and Scarface: The world is yours were pretty decent games I thought. Most of the Lord of the Rings tie ins have been decent as have the Star Wars games.

Though to be fair, most of those games avoided what O'l-Steve here listed. They weren't released around the time of the movie (the exceptions being the two Lord of the Ring tie in games which were still pretty decent) and weren't trying to tell the exact same plot.

The Godfather game was set in the same plot however you play a totally different character as you experience the plot of the movie evolving around you. So it worked. Yeah a few plot changes here and there but that aside, it followed the movie extremely well and worked.

The Scarface game was set as a "What if" game and took place after the events of the movie. Meaning it didn't have to follow the exact movie or try and extend the action sequences (with the exception of the end scene which was acceptable).

The Star Wars games are mostly set in the past or in different areas of the universe. In the Battlefront games, they have you take part in the big epic battles as merely a mook... So again it works.

So I guess what I'm saying is... Your right. Though if the games avoid what you listed... They can be competent games.

 

[Idocreating]

@Squilookle

Well, fans really dig the LOTR game, Battle for Middle Earth 1 & 2. There are still mods going hard for those games.
And for me, best video-game movie adaptation is Riddick. Great stuff.

Isn't suprising. Vin Diesel is a big gamer himself and has a part in the studio that made the Riddick games. He purposefully made sure the Riddick games didn't suck because he knows license games usually do.

Gotta love Vinny, even if he is in mostly I couldn't care less about.

 

[likalaruku]

I like the HP games & I'm enjoying Lord of the Rings Online way more than I enjoyed the movies.

 

[JemJar]

[quote="Falseprophet" post="6.246979.9066346")Most of the Bond games are competent, even if they can't all hold a candle to Goldeneye, because the Bond setting and formula have been inspirations for hundreds of games themselves. The typical Bond plot incorporates FPS, stealth, combat driving, and puzzle solving (mostly via gadgets). You can even work in roleplaying if you wanted to. Yeah, mixing genres usually makes the whole game shallow, but honestly, Bond films in general are shallow (and I say that as a huge fan of the franchise).[/quote]

This.

Notably absent from the original article (which I felt was a little weak, I'll be honest) was the fact that adaptations of films to the video-game market often try to link together a few genres. James Bond does lots of shooting and lots of driving - to Goldeneye's great credit it never really bothered with the driving part and so development was focused on the FPS side of things.

Merging genres is hard enough, but building a game which covers elements of more than one invariably leads to disaster. Mini-games and silly side stuff can be dropped into a second genre but to have key gameplay levels which switch from one to another always, always ends in a poorly cobbled together game, poor balance and certain levels suffering.

Don't be too critical of film adaptations either, this is true of non-film games too. Did anyone else feel that Mass Effect's driving section felt off-key? It was as if the people who designed the Mako and the people who designed the Mako plot levels sat in totally different buildings, there's no link there (especially when you see the fun climbing you can do with the Mako in the random planets) and that's just a start...

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Hm, actually Avatar the Game was good. But then again the movie was not just good, it was phenomenal and outstanding, so I guess this game also didn't live up to the movie.

 

[JourneyMan88]

I think the only successful adaptations were from the "Star Wars" and "James Bond: 007" worlds.

 

[thebreadbinman]

Spiderman 2 the game was fucking amazing

 

[KP Shadow]

The LEGO Crossover series (LEGO Star Wars series, LEGO Batman, etc.). They seem to work because, well, they aren't rushed to be released at the same time the movie comes out. Though the first LEGO Star Wars game was intended to come out at the same time as Revenge of the Sith, it also covered The Fantom Menace, and Attack of the Clones. The second one came out decades after the movies that it covers, the third one is just the first two combined into one game, and the fourth one was based on expanded universe material. LEGO Indiana Jones was a game based on the first three movies set to release a couple of months after the fourth one, and the second LEGO Indiana Jones was just the previous two plus the fourth movie. LEGO Batman has an original storyline, though launched within what, a year of The Dark Night (Ironically, LEGO Batman is closer to, say, The Batman (More serious than the Adam West series, but a bit more lighthearted than the 90's animated series) than it is The Dark Knight)? LEGO Harry Potter was based on the first four movies/books and was launched about six months prior to the seventh movie.

Also, there's the Harry Potter game on the GameBoy Color, which is a turn-based RPG that lets you explore a bit, and includes stuff that was left out in the transition from book to movie, essentially making it "Harry Potter: The Game of the Book", as opposed to "Harry Potter: The Game of the Movie of the Book" like the other Harry Potter games.

 

[hamster mk 4]

Independance Day, the game was pretty good. It was an arcade flight sim that took place in under the alian city destroyer ships. Supposidly you played as some of the unnamed pilots who destroyed the rest of the alian ships while Will Smith was playing space cowboy. The game forced a time limit on the user as a count down till the city destroying beem was fired. It also implimented many other plot elements as game mechanics. Games like this and Star Wars Battlefront are the best way to tie games into movies, but they only work when there are heroic actions to be preformed outside the main story arc.

 

[tehweave]

Goldeneye? That game is amazing. It loosely follows the movie plot, and is still really really fun.

 

[AugustFall]

Hercules from the Disney movie.


Awesome game.