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Media Entertainment Games

Games, Movies, Comics Collide 48

Posted by Zonk from the media-for-all dept.
Three unrelated pieces of news floating around today all point to the ongoing collision of older medias and gaming. Most Exciting: Joystiq reports that the rights to make a Sin City game have been picked up by Red Mile entertainment. Despite their role as the creators of the Jackass game, that seems like good news. Less Exciting: The two Lego Star Wars games sold really, really well, and so it's not terribly surprising that Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga has been announced by the folks at LucasArts. Next Generation has the details, saying the game will be released on the PS3, 360, DS, and Wii. The Wii/DS games will be redesigned for their unique control schemes, and the high-end consoles will feature online co-op play. Truly Confusing: Fox has picked up the movie rights for a The Sims movie. Given the way many people play The Sims, I can only assume it will be rated NC-17 and released straight to DVD.
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Games, Movies, Comics Collide More

Games, Movies, Comics Collide

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  • collision indeed (Score:2, Insightful)

    by superchob ( 578286 )
    Almost without fail (I said almost), any game based on a movie, or movie based on a game has been crap. I suppose the developers are hoping that the popularity of the title from the original medium will generate enough interest that they don't have to invest money in the actual gameplay. I don't see this as a good trend

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Vexor ( 947598 )
      The respective Halo and Half Life movies will undoubtedly burn your retinas. I'd certainly agree that movies to games (or vise-versa)are all bad. Comics to either medium seem to do relatively well if done right.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by (A)*(B)!0_- ( 888552 )

        "Comics to either medium seem to do relatively well if done right."

        I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you sir. Prior to Spider-Man on the PS1, there really, in my opinion, had never been a good video game based on a comic book. Looking back there were games like Maximum Carnage on the SNES that, first of all, was really just a generic beat 'em up with Spider-Man skinned on and, even ignoring that, was a poor beat 'em up at that. You, of course, have all the Superman games which I think most

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Vexor ( 947598 )

          The trick is that the changing medium means you're not usually going to have a direct translation of content. You still have to retain the spirit of the characters and their motivations. X-Men 3 took the idea, flushed it down the toilet, and spit in my face over and over again

          100% with you on that The different director really letdown the masses. Granted it had it's moments but overall it was lousy. As for comics into games the one's of late haven't been too bad. They've certainly gotten a bit better over the years. The Spiderman 3: The Movie game is good to a point. The game got less then favorable reviews mainly because it didn't follow the movie plot really at all. I'd agree with gamespot's review 100%. Step sideways not forward when compared to Spiderman 2:The Movie, which

          • I think it's a really tricky balancing act between satisfying the original fans and appealing to a wide audience. Obviously, in Spider-Man 3 if you want to introduce the black suit, you have to change it because the Secret Wars aren't going to fit into the movie (and still leave time for anything other than the Secret Wars) and I understand that but some of these liberties are a little tough to swallow.

            I missed the Hulk game when it came out - maybe I'll pick it up now. Thanks for the suggestion.

            We're going

      • I'd certainly agree that movies to games (or vise-versa)are all bad.

        Goldeneye was arguably better than the movie it was based on... The Riddick [penny-arcade.com] game was also supposedly surprisingly good. There are others if I take the time to remember them. Important thing is, they're not all crap.

        I can't think of anything spectacular going in the other direction, however... Resident Evil made a lot of money, I guess. If you like anime, there's some good translations from cart to screen on the other side of the pond, but t

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by RsG ( 809189 )
      It's worth remembering that not all adaptations have been like that. Hell, the various AvP games are way better than the AvP movie.

      I think the trend is for game adaptations that try to recreate the original movie/comic/whatever to suck. This covers most of the direct movie tie-ins, which as you say are lacking in actual gameplay. Games that simply use the fictional universe established by their parent sources have the potential to be much better.

      See for example the long list of Star Wars games - the best

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Higaran ( 835598 )
        Yes, but you have to remember that AVP games were made first, and the movie second. Games that try to be tied directly to a movie, suck because they are usually made cheaply and quckly just to cash in on a quick buck from the hype of the movie.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by EWAdams ( 953502 )
      The developers don't have any say in the matter, any more than book authors (with the sole exception of J.K. Rowling) have any say over what happens when their books get turned into movies. It's the publishers and the movie studios who make these decisions, not the developers, and they're concerned with profitability, not quality.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        Sagan had some say in Contact. That's why it wasn't made until after he died. (I could go into why, but if you read/saw them both it should be obvious)

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by !coward ( 168942 )
          I did see the movie and I did read the book. Being a huge SciFi fan, and an avid reader since my childhood, it's no surprise that the book felt so much better to me than the movie. But then again, Carl Sagan was an excellent writer, IMHO.

          That being said, keep in mind that Sagan died December the 20th, 1996, and that the movie was released in July, 1997 -- a little over half a year later. Taking into account that movies don't get released the minute all post-production work is done, and that movies of this s

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AK Marc ( 707885 )
            The way I heard it (before he died) there was continuous head-butting over atheism. The book shows the religious figures in a completely different light. In the book, there are multiple people from different countries that go along. In the movie, she is the only one and asks that people take her word on faith. This echos the religious figures from earlier in the movie, making her a religious figure, and not a figure for science. In the book, she has the science. There is the exact time of the static r
    • One of the top 10 videogames for the original Xbox

    • Re:collision indeed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Friday May 25, 2007 @11:56AM (#19271985)
      Almost without fail (I said almost), any game based on a movie, or movie based on a game has been crap.

      I propose a national task force to deal with this.

      SCENE: Office of a big-shot Hollywood MOVIE PRODUCER. He is sitting back in his big leather chair, smoking a fat cigar, thinking out loud.

      MOVIE PRODUCER: Hey, I know what we could do. It'd be a shitty movie but if we do it cheap enough, we'll still make a profit! We could base a movie on 'Daikatana'!

      Murmurs of assent come from around the room. But suddenly, the door to the MOVIE PRODUCER's office bursts open. We see a FEDERAL AGENT, dressed in a dark suit and dark glasses, burst in, flanked by two members of an elite team wearing body armor and carrying submachine guns. The MOVIE PRODUCER gets up, backs away. The FEDERAL AGENT walks right up to him, stares him directly in the eye, unblinking. Then punches him in the nuts.

      MOVIE PRODUCER: Argh!!! What did you do that for???

      The FEDERAL AGENT pulls out a badge and shows it to the MOVIE PRODUCER.

      FEDERAL AGENT: Sorry, sir. My name is Agent Rex Hightower, and I'm a member of the FBI's Movie Adaptation Task Force. Any time a member of America's movie industry decides to adapt an old TV sitcom, cartoon, or videogame into a movie, I'm required by federal law to intervene and stop them. The American people finally decided that they had taken enough of your crappy movies and that direct action was required. And that's where we come in.

      MOVIE PRODUCER: It'll take more than a tap in the cojones to keep me from making that movie! You don't understand the money involved! That movie will make millions!

      FEDERAL AGENT: No sir. You don't understand. We're very serious about what we do. You see, that was just a warning. Next time, the gloves comes off. [quiet for a moment] You don't even want to know about what happened to that poor bastard who was trying to turn 'Mister Ed' into a feature film...

      So that's my idea for how things would work. Actually, it probably wouldn't work as a law. But it would be a clever premise for a movie... hm. Have your people call my people.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by spun ( 1352 )
        Sounds great, but our focus groups tell us the movie producer character is not sympathetic enough. Could he be played by Brad Pitt? Also, we need a love interest, is Selma Hayek available? Oh, and the FBI agent should be a talking dog. Or a baby, it really doesn't matter.
  • I'm sorry but I just have to say it, the sincity game is going to suck major ass, mostly because of who is making it. A sims movie, what the hell were they thinking, like what the movie even going to be about, or is it people walking around with baloons with pictures on them of what they are talking about, I don't see a way for either of these projects to end well. The lego starwars collection I probably will buy for the 360 when it comes out, since I've only bout one game it the series so far, that is the

  • I only hope Uwe Boll is involved. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Control Group ( 105494 ) * on Friday May 25, 2007 @10:37AM (#19270703) Homepage
    Boy, can I not wait to see a movie where people run around peeing on the floor, sob into their hands, fly into fits of rage over crappy wall art, and wave their arms in the air like a monkey as their house burns down around them.

    Or maybe a movie about a crazy but urbane gentleman in a storm trooper outfit who slaughters people in his back yard by removing the ladder just after they get in the pool?

    FFS, half the time actually playing the game was boring (and let me tell you, there's nothing like playing the Sims at 4:00 in the morning, yelling at your sim, "will you get off the fucking computer and go to bed").
  • Who wants to watch a movie about a bunch of basement geeks playing "The Sims"?
  • This is actually good news as far as the DS version goes. The "Original Trilogy" on the DS was a glitchy mess. Now that it's back in the hands of Traveller's Tales, who made the series in the first place, there's some hope for the completely redesigned game (albeit one that should have come out in the first place).
  • They could make a movie out of the customized Sims I once had going, where blocky, unconvincing replicas of the original Starship Enterprise crew stood around alternately talking, arguing, and/or kissing while nothing else of note happens.

    ...wait, that was already done as "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Never mind.
  • Movies, comic books, and video games share a common trait. Storytelling through visual media. So it makes sense that there are plenty of crossovers. My only problem being is that the crossovers can end up hideously unoriginal and trite. I'm all for a game set in the Sim City universe, but i doubt a visual retelling will be handled as well as the movie. The Star Wars franchise has given us many brilliant crossovers along with many stinkers. All in all i just hope for quality and creative games based in an ex
    • But the simcity universe is supposed to be our universe. It's Simulation of real life. So what exactly makes this different from a movie about things that happend in everyday life? I don't even see how you can turn something like the sims into a movie, because there is no storyline, and it's not about anything that doesn't happen in the real world.

  • The Sims?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by pragma_x ( 644215 ) on Friday May 25, 2007 @10:57AM (#19271013) Journal
    What the hell is the script for this going to look like?

    Girl: blah, blah blah, blah! Blah blah blah!! ::waves arms in a display of frustration::
    Boy: blah. ::sets carpet on fire::
    (continues on page 113)

    This will be the most heavily subtitled movie in history, a complete throwback to silent film, or just highly experimental (no understandable dialog, 100% based on body language and pantomime).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Aladrin ( 926209 )
      Don't forget the thought bubbles with the cryptic icons, occasionally with a 'no' symbol over them. And the ++ and -- floating from their heads as they make and lose friendship.
    • What the hell is the script for this going to look like?

      Forget the script, what is the soundtrack going to sound like? I'd say they'd get some famous artists or even some older artists looking for a comeback to re-record their songs in Silmish and then sell the album as a double disc: English version and Simlish version. Or if they go cheaper they'd just get some unknowns desperate for a deal to torture their lead singers by making them learn Simlish.

      Having said that, I'd nominate "The Humpty Dance" b
  • The Wii is capable... Or will be. Right? Mortal Kombat Armageddon committed such things as well (though getting Khameleon as a selectable character is definitely better than playing online, no doubt). Is Nintendo directly holding back online play by not setting up the system or are these third parties just hanging back and watching, waiting for Nintendo to release their own enabled games and set a good template?
    • Pokemon Battle Revolution is coming out at the end of june and its going to be the first wii game with online multiplayer, and also be the first wii game that'll interface with the DS (pokemon diamond and pearl).

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by morari ( 1080535 )
        It's another Colosseum like game, right? Where you don't actually do anything but upload your handheld critters and watch them fight in 3D. I guess XD did kind of have a small RPG storyline, but still nothing to warrent a purchase unless you already had the handheld games. I'd love to see a full featured Pokemon game on the Wii (you could still upload your critters, if you wanted!). Heck maybe even some quasi MMO, along the lines of the Dreamcast's Phantasy Star. *shrugs*
    • I think we're just seeing the games being released now which were being made when the name changed to Wii and all the features were revealed. Give it another 6-12 months and we'll start to see more online play for the Wii.

      Remember Live didn't have many online games at first, because people weren't going to commit to the unknown, but once they saw what it could do they all started to include it in some form.
    • Online Wii games are already available. Pokemon Coliseum has been available in Japan for a while, and Mario Strikers Charged Football [ign.com] was released in Europe this week.

  • The Sims Colon The Movie (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ghostsixsix ( 1107141 ) on Friday May 25, 2007 @11:39AM (#19271691)
    I think the only way to make this work is to have a gamer sucked into the world of The Sims like Jeff Bridges in Tron. Hilarity ensues. But we all know it will probably end up getting directed by Uwe Boll. Either way, I'll wait until it's free on cable (and if their's nothing else on).

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Seq ( 653613 )
      I was thinking of the game actually ends up controlling real people. I can see the movie studios jumping on this

      "It's like 'Stranger Than Fiction', but with a Video Game! We'll be RICH!"
      "Wasn't there an episode of Stargate Atlantis with this plotline?"
      "People who play the Sims != People who watch Stargate"
      "I'd be stupid not to give you my money"

  • Maybe this version of Lego Star Wars won't crash on Wii. <eyes rolling>

    -l

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