All right, let’s divide us into two groups for the sake of convenience. Everyone who gets so stoked watching 300 and runs out of the theater yelling and kicking people into ditches goes into group number one, while everyone who would rather get their kicks out of a corresponding video game can settle for group number two. With the way video game publishers handle movie licenses today, we’re going to have to excuse you if you flinched for a second about joining group number one. You see back in the 16-bit era, game developers would just cram the entire movie experience into 1 of 50 odd side-scroller formats but brand spanking newer console technology has more or less, no wait definitely more, eliminated all excuse.
Games like God of War which fall out of the “movie based” sphere are as cinematically gripping so why can’t a movie based game be the movie on a whole new interactive level. Well, the big gaming corporations know that if you don’t join group one and land up dead or arrested, you are left with an urge to purchase anything that lets you come close to virtually living the movie hype and to that “cashing in” end, they have churned out the most mindless pieces of code ever, the video game equivalent of zombies really.
Here are 5 of those that would probably die walking into each other, in no particular order of course:
Fight Club.
Publisher: Vivendi Universal.
Developer: Genuine Games.
Release Date: 2004.
Fight Club rule # 9: Never let Fight Club be beaten to death mercilessly by Vivendi Universal. Fair enough, escorting the hit 1999 movie to the realms of the glorious fighting genre was quite a plan, but being perfectly serious, the average gamer can beat the games arcade and story mode in their sleep, taking for granted the average gamer can repeatedly hit the punch button in a state of unconsciousness. Why developers would reduce a spectacular array of combo possibilities and fighting mechanics to the heavily repeated dull punch, kick and yay! execute throw format is beyond the disgust of us all. If the mentioned average gamer managed to stay awake he’d probably appreciate a handful of uninspired finishers, mildly intense cut scenes or more simplistically the blood-splatter-on-screen-effects, but all’s appealing just once and what if you still pull through? Well, the games idea of rewarding any further attention towards it is an unlockable Fred Durst, the most annoying rap rocker this generation has witnessed which sort of has us running back to the need for getting some good combo beat downs in this one.
X-Men Game.
Publisher: Activision.
Developer: Z-Axis.
Released in: 2006.
This one was essentially that “occasional intermediate” between a hit movie and its sequel, in this case the happenings of the second and third X-Men movies. So Activision decided to take three popular characters from the films, Wolverine, Night Crawler and Iceman, ignoring Cyclops because he is too smug perhaps, and wrap them up in a mind numbing beat-em-up package. They’ve probably got a lot of Iceman posters up at Activision’s headquarters because he’s the character you get to have the most fun with, what with flying around and shooting ice projectiles in sync with most rail shooters. But that just makes it all the more duller returning back on land as the other two X-Men, stringing together no-brainers to get past a repetitive sea or rather hordes of uninteresting baddies, all while pointlessly getting smacked by bullets. As an added curiosity towards the games of infatuation with Ice Man, he also gets health regeneration! Way to piss off all Wolverine fans. Pure blasphemy.
Jaws.
Publisher: Majesco.
Developer: Appaloosa.
Release Date: 2005.
Once upon a time Jaws developer, Appaloosa came out with the “Ecco the Dolphin” games, which were considered the best underwater-based games at the time, featuring a cute little dolphin embarking on epic quests. Charming, but they knew that would piss off our bloodthirsty generation so they dug up the hit classic film Jaws with its “killer shark mindlessly devouring human” ethics. Now that’s good enough for a “what if” gaming segment but actually going ahead with the idea is pure stupidity. The scope for said shark is pretty limited considering he’s neither a) cute b) saving the earth in any way. The game sort of mocks this limited scope by keeping things open ended and letting you float in the pointlessness of its missions. Sure you’re having mild amounts of fun chewing people here and there but it’s not long before the games deadly mix of awkward controls and shaky camera angles wholly devour your patience, complete with a ripping headache.
Iron Man.
Publisher: SEGA.
Developer: A2M.
Release Date: 2008.
In the movie, you get just a couple of minutes to catch your breath from the moment Robert Downey Jr. dons the slick metallic red and gold suit to the point he’s just ripping past the infinites of the sky. Of course, you’d love to know what it’s like which is why this game gave you just that, a lot of that and pretty much that. But you can’t hit targets at that speed hotshot so your going to have to keep flying back only to realize there’s tons more of enemies to handle this time over. Your only option now is to get over the awesome flight gimmick and hover in one area shooting bolt after bolt after laser after bolt after, oh, a few missiles and lasers, then bolt again to do the needful. You get one chance to drop the controller when things get too repetitive, otherwise you are punished with the latter half of the game that turns out being frustratingly difficult and that by no means points towards the missions getting any more interesting or miraculously posing some sort of a challenge. The game has one last saving grace i.e. the grappling feature that lets you tear through tanks and helicopters for a few kicks, but once you realize its more hassle than utility you will have to get right back to the hovering and the bolt after bolt after… you get the point.
Enter the Matrix.
Publisher: Atari.
Developer: Shiny Entertainment.
Release Date: 2003.
To be perfectly fair, this game isn’t all that bad but it’s a burning example of great expectations gone wrong so it falls right into this dimension. Fans of the Matrix Reloaded can dig in for a healthy share of decent cinematics and visuals (exclusively shot for the game at that) and for all other purposes, it’s probably worth more buying a slick set of shades and doing your best Neo impression. But this game isn’t about Neo either and it stands concurrent to the movie, centering around what Niobe and Ghost were really upto. Once again, fairly good concept but too much is taken for granted while we are left with a rushed and structurally weak storyline, remnant’s of what could have been so much more rather. All the third person combat and shooting action in the game put together won’t distract you from the objectives totally lacking depth, so much so they don’t fit into the story or just have you wondering what the deal is in the first place. However awesome if you consider the cinematics, it is still annoying when you go in for that daring jump and an in engine cut-scene well, cuts in and robs you of your right to aesthetic gaming pleasures. The animations are riddled with inferiority as much as the AI is riddled with stupidity and the good ol’ Matrix bullet time trend won’t raise eyebrows, considering Max Payne beat them to it. Go watch the FMV sequences on You Tube and call it a day.
There’s a whole lot more from where these abominations came from and many more to come, so long as there’s big movie licenses to feed on. If it is way past the “hype mark” for the shelves, game distributors will slap a pretty yellow discount “best price” sticker on them and let that be your warning, then ‘The Movie to Game’ invasion is here and it shows no signs of stopping.