Things that SHOULD be made into video games (Part 3)

This time it is not a movie, that will be transformed into a video game, but a company. I think that we are long overdue for a NASA platform video game.





I know what you are thinking, not another space adventure game. There are plenty of those already, and they are way cooler when you have alien technology and weapons. This game would stray away from that format. It would be a mix between and awesome flight simulator and Myst.

Instead of fighting aliens with laser guns that melt your brain, you would have to solve puzzels and complete tasks to finish the game. You would start off as a cadet trainning to go into space. When you complete your training and get to an appropriate security clearance level, you find out that NASA has found reminants of life on the moon. You are going up in the next shuttle, but during the flight your ship suffers setbacks that you have to use your expertise to solve.

Also, depending on what puzzles you were able to solve during training you would have different tools to help you once you are on the mission. You can be a scientist, engineer, or pilot. Each has benefits and skills that will help you solve different problems on the space craft. Once you get to the moon, that is where the game takes a turn from reality, and you learn that the moon used to support alien life. You find and underground temple, and learn a back story. The actions you take will give you several different endings.

In the end your goal would be to go home. What would ad to this games aura is if the technology and music in the game were from the 1960's. That could add a creepy retro feel to the game. Ultimately, just as with Myst, the storyline would have to be really good, and this would be a largely puzzle solving game. It would even make a good Iphone app.

Things that SHOULD have been made into video games (Part 2)

This time we are going to look at another movie: Casshern. No, I am not talking about the animated series. I am referring to the live action movie from 2004.

I highly recomend this film for an out of body movie expirience. The story is hard to follow, but once you buy in, it will take you for a ride. Before I get into why this movie would make a great game, I need to give you a brief synopsis. This film drops us into a fantasy world ravaged by a long war between humans and machines. The doctors of the city are trying to find a cure for the worlds leaders. They discover "neo-cells", which are thought to regenirate anything. Suddenly, a mechnical lighting bolt from the sky transforms the discarded neo-cells into human like neo-sapiens. The city leaders have them immediately killed, but the five surviving neo-sapiens now vow revenge. They find and reanimate the old robot army to iradicate the humans. The only thing that can stop them is Casshern, the son of an army general who was resurected with neo-cells after dying in the war. The neo-cells give him super powers, and along with a cyborg suit, he fights the neosapiens to an apocalyptic conclusion. (Whew, did you get all that.)

The first thing is that this movie drips with style. The graphics and art direction were some of the best around at the time of it's release. In a video game format this movie would be on par with the likes of Bioshock and The Last Guardian.

This film has three distinct factions in conflict. You have the robots, humans and neo-sapiens. The game play should follow the format of one of the most underrated PC games of the past Decade (Alien vs. Predator). Alien vs. Predator allowed gamers to expirience a multiplayer royal rumble using humans, aliens, and predators. What was truly unique was that these weren't just the same sprites with different skins, but you actualled played the charaters differently. Aliens could crawl on the wall, humans had the deadliest weapons and predators were invisible. Casshern would funcition in a similar way. The protagonist/neo-sapiens would have combo based attacks, featuring speed and chaining ability. The robots would be slow and powerful, and have the ability to fly for breif periods.

Finally, the humans would have the best guns, and can set the best traps around the playing field. This game would have a great online multiplayer community. The ability to play with different characters on different maps will add tremendously to this games replay value.
        I would be hesitant to change the story from the film, but I would add to it. Also the single player mode could be played from the the three different factions. First, you would play through as Casshern, and this would be the mutant story arc. Then after beating the game you would play through on the mechanica story arc, and finally as the human story arc. The same stages would be used for each arc, but the puzzles and challanges would be different. Each character arc would be complete and have a unique ending, but as you play as each group, information is revealed about the other characters. Each time you play you get more information that enriches the story as a whole.

I might just be a fan of the movie, and don't want the story to stop. But this could be an awesome video game title.

Things that SHOULD have been made into Video Games (Part1)

This post is the first in a series where I look at anything that would have been better off as a video game. It could be a movie, toy, comic or presidential election. Today we are going to look at the movie "Sky Line."

If you haven't seen this movie, and you want to, then I must warn you that this blog will contain some spoilers. If you have seen this movie then you know that you would have begged for a spoiler before wasting 98 minutes of your life. It is fair to say that this was a really bad movie, just look up some reviews. The special effects were good, but that was it. The acting and directing were terrible. The concept was tired and overused. This movie stole concepts from other successful sci-fi movies, but executed them awfully. Imagine a cross between The Matrix, Independence Day, War Of The Worlds, and Cloverfeild created by deaf, dumb and blind chimps. (Well maybe it wasn't that bad) The worst part is that the one truly new concept from the film comes five minutes before the movie ends. (Well, it doesn't really end, they just decided to stop shooting it at this point)

However, this films one redeeming value is that it would make an awesome video game. It has the potential to sell with titles like Infamous and Prototype. To better explain I will have to reference the end of the movie.

(Spoiler)

Most of the film takes place as a group of friends tries to escape an alien invasion in a coastal town. The have to evade constant alien attacks and an unsympathetic military to survive. The aliens use a blue light to ensnare their human prey, and for some undisclosed reason our hero, Eric Balfour, is immune to it's effects.

 At the end of the film Eric finds himself trapped on the alien ship. Also his pregnant girl friend is stuck in another part of the ship. To make matters worse the aliens use human brains to power themselves. After, having his brain harvested and put into a tank like alien, he takes control and tears across the ship to save his girlfriend and unborn child.

Here is where this movie would make a good game. Imagine a game where you get to fight both aliens and the military as a brain switching  monstrous freak. You can change bodies by putting your brain into different alien models.

So, the game starts off, and you are on a weird alien ship. You don't remember a lot but you know that you were once human, and you have faint memories of a girl. You begin the game in a weak alien body, searching for clues to your origin. While scurrying around the ship you have to fight a bigger, meaner alien that you eventually kill. Now, you can put your brain in his body and use his powers. The levels continue like this, until you remember your pregnant girlfriend, and the destruction of your planet. At certain check points in the game you take a brake from being an alien, and flash back to your human body. In these levels our hero learns his back story while dodging the cross fire between the military and the aliens.

After each flashback he returns to his current alien creature. Now, with your body switching power in hand you try to save your girlfriend and your planet, in an all out royal rumble with the alien monsters.

That would be a pretty awesome game, right? However, I would change the title of the game. SKYLINE has too much bad press attached to it, and another name would give it a fresh start in a fresh market.

More Hollywood Hilarity

Well, Hollywood has done it again. Just when you think they have run out of material to make movies from, they mine an untapped source. Board Games!!!! Following the success of Transformers, Hasbro has decided to release the movie "Battleship". Here is a preview:

Is it bad that I kind of want to see this? Is it worse that I want to hear someone say, "You sunk my battleship"? Anyway, I researched some of the upcoming releases, and Battleship isn't the only board game to make it's way to the big screen.

Here are a couple more movies set to be released in 2013:

Jenga

Ordinary construction worker Alan Hall is placed in an extraordinary position, when a failed kidnapping attempt lands a terrorist cell in his building. As the Jenga Corporation's new sky scraper becomes a battle field, this ex-army engineer is the only man who can save the young daughter of a foreign diplomat. Using his knowledge of the building's blue prints he has to outwit the heavily armed rebels, and save the girl before the building is destroyed.





Operation:

 
The year is 2042, and android technology has influenced every aspect of our lives. The  medical field has benefited the most from artificial intelligence, but one doctor disagrees. Milton Brace was once considered the best O.R. doctor in the world. Now, he is a figure head in a hospital run by robots. When a earthquake hits the metropolitan area, his hospital is swamped with patients. Things get even worse when flooding shorts the power to the hospital. Now, Dr. Brace must work with the AI to save as many people as he can before the robots power cells run out.

Monopoly:

Jonathan Edgar Holmes is a self made man. As young hoodlum orphan living in the streets of Brooklyn, he made his way out of the ghetto investing in tech companies in the early nineties. His company now controls the cell phone market. But no one gets to the top without making a couple of enemies. With a pending S.E.C. investigation, and ghosts from his past popping up, he will have to use all of his corporate cunning to stay out of jail.











Okay, so none of these are real, but I can dream. My apologies to the following games that I couldn't make a poster for: Crossfire, Simon Says, and Hungry, Hungry, Hippos.