Video games based on movies/television have been less than stellar to say the least.
Not all have been bad though, some showed real promise until the opening cut scene ended and you were presented with horrible controls, buggy gameplay, a game that resembles very little of what it is based on.
Lets take a look at some which deserve to be remade.
1. 24: The Game
Damn it Chloe! This game is crap!
If you presented 24: The Video Game to Jack Bauer you wouldn’t leave the room. Ever.
The game had great promise, everything needed to make a great game was there, original actors providing voice and likeness, a story from the writers of the show itself a competent developer behind it in the form of SCE Studio Cambridge.
But for all it’s promise the game delivered a sub par experience that made the player feel tortured, not the torturer. Sloppy controls, terrible AI and driving sequences that induced pain in brain made this an experience worth forgetting.
Now the series is over and we are looking forward to the feature film (link to IMDB) this presents an opportunity to make good those wrongs. The game wouldn’t necessarily need to tie to the movie either, there could be a bridge between Season 8 and the movie, or even set it after the movie to bridge a potential sequel. Either way, it can be done well if enough effort is put behind it.
Because who wouldn’t want to play as Jack Bauer? Damn it!
2. The Entire Star Wars Series
Disney have recently bought Lucas Arts from George Lucas, and if this is new news to you then where the hell have you been?
Disney buying Lucas Arts brings a plethora of new possibilities with it, new films, TV shows and more importantly to this article: video games.
How many good Star Wars games can you think of? Now how many bad Star Wars games can you think of? Yeah, horrible isn’t it. Disney can shift the balance of the force (pun totally intended) and create some brilliant games, and maybe even release a Battlefront III. We know it was being made, but under poor management it got scrapped before it could ever see the light of day. Disney will be looking to recoup some of the 4 billion dollars it cost to buy Lucas Arts and I would like to personally assure Disney that if a Battlefront III appears soon, they will have made back £44.99 from me.
3. Die Hard Trilogy
Waaaay back in time there was a humble little grey box that gave us our joy through video games,it was called Playstation, or as its most commonly referred to these days, the PSOne, PS1, PSX etc.
One of my all time favorite titles to ever grace the Playstation was the Die Hard Trilogy. If you haven’t heard of Die Hard, go to Google.com and enter the following into the search box: Why am I alive and how do I correct it?
Die Hard Trilogy was basically three games in one, but for one price. Try getting that deal today…
The first game was a 3rd person shooter putting you in the bare feet of John McLane as you re-designed terrorists clothing with artistic bullet holes. You made your way through the Nakatomi Plaza floor by floor killing bad guys and saving hostages. Simple fun for simple people, but it worked.
The second game was based on the second film and was a first person on the rails shooter, much like you would see in the arcade these days. You basically had to use either a controller or a light gun to shoot the baddies and save the day. Typical Die Hard.
Finally, the third was a driving game, played in either first or third person perspective. You had to drive around New York and disarm bombs before the counter hit zero. Again, Die Hard at its best.
The game wasn’t a bad one, but it could be so much more today, and with the edition of Die Hard 4.0 and the upcoming Die Hard 5, it just begs to be remade. It makes sense too, the game was ahead of its time and it’s time is now. We have the HD graphical capabilities to pull off an immersive Nakatomi Plaza, the motion controls in PS Move/Kinect/Wii/WiiU to give us the on the rails shooters, the ability to create open worlds to drive around in, it’s all there just waiting to be made.
The day this gets done will be the day I genuinely scream “Yippee Kai Yay” as I run around in my dirty vest.
4. Superman (Any and All)
There’s a new Superman movie coming in 2013, The Man of Steel. This time Superman is looking like he might actually be a bad-ass mofo who kicks the sh- um, stuffing out of some bad guys instead of being a goody two shoes who flies around looking pretty.
This could quite easily translate to a video game if done right. While we know next to nothing about the script and story, we can assume that fighting, flying and shooting holy fire from the eyes will be present, all of which would make an awesome video game. Again, if done right.
There haven’t been a great many Superman games, but the ones that do exist would make him eat Kryptonite. If you were a child and played Superman 64, sorry to tell you this, but you were abused. If you were an adult and gave this game to a child, you facilitated that abuse. Then ten years later EA thought they could make a game to tie in with the Superman Returns movie. They thought wrong, well, sort of. It wasn’t the worst game ever, but it just wasn’t the super we expected.
Batman has managed to make it to the screen via video games, there is no reason that Superman can’t join him.
5. X-Men (Most of them)
Another batch of superhero games that failed to meet the standards us gamers demand (we are a fussy lot aren’t we) are the X-Men games.
X-Men 3: The Official Game was disappointing with repetitive gameplay, AI that resembled blind kids and graphics that were just plain poor for the time. The movie it was based on wasn’t amazing, but the game could have taken the movie as it’s foundation and built a stronger product, but instead was a rushed creation that quickly found itself at the bottom of the pile.
Since then we have had a couple of attempts to get it right, namely X-Men Origins: Wolverine which had us slash and stab foes until our thumbs hurt. It was a good game, but again, more could have been done.
A sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine is due out next year, so maybe this time we won’t get a rush job, instead let us follow the story whilst adding new gameplay mechanics. Sure the slashing of the last Wolverine game was fun, but it got old quick, we need innovation. We need to feel like this is brand new game, not something we have played before with a different lick of paint on it. A true X-Men game featuring fan favorites as playable characters would do a lot to please the Marvel loving crowd of fans. Note to future X-Men game developers: please let us be Cyclops, just a little bit of Cyclops in HD would go a long way in repairing the damage done in X3.
What do you think? Should these games be re-made, or do you think there are other movies/TV shows that deserve the video game treatment? Let us know in the comments below.