GameCentral readers make their suggestions for which films and shows should become a game, from Judge Dredd to Supernatural.
The subject for this week’s Hot Topic was suggested by reader Nick The Greek, who asked what licensed game you’d most like to see get made – even though it’s now quite rare for films and TV shows to be adapted into big budget video games.
We had lots of unexpected suggestions, from River Monsters to Usagi Yojimbo (we also accepted comic book characters) and lots of old school cartoons. Whether any of them are likely to happen is hard to say, but the potential is definitely there…
The power of Grayskull
The TV show I would most like to be turned into a video game would be He-Man. I have been waiting for this to happen.
Since I was a young boy and computers/consoles started getting better with every generation. With Sony Pictures setting a new film release for 2019 for a reboot of the franchise this is surely the perfect time to make an open world game in the style of the 1980s classic.
Masters of the Universe has so many characters. And that’s not taking She-Ra into account, which could have its own game or DLC add-on. The thought of fighting Hordak and Skeletor makes me froth at the mouth. I had high hopes Platinum Games would do this after their take on Transformers but alas it doesn’t seem to be. I can carry on hoping though.
Guypie
Monolithic action
Predator. This movie was released way back in ’87, and unfortunately we were limited to 8-bit graphics at the time.
I would love the game to have the exact plot of the movie, where you’d be one of the soldiers trying to survive the one-by-one slaughter of the predator to eventually defeat it. It would have the exact map of the movie, with the thick vegetation and bushes.
Alternatively, you could take on the role of the predator himself, systematically slaughtering the soldiers one by one. As the soldiers were highly experienced, their AI would be quite advanced.
As we have the hardware to support the scenery now, and as it has plot that would be familiar to gamers, I think this would be a great adaptation.
I’d go further and choose the developer I’d like to do this: Monolith.
Henry
GC: Do you mean Monolith Productions, makers of Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War, or Monolith Soft, who did Xenoblade Chronicles?
Yul Brynner DLC
My dream licensed game would be a Westworld park builder game, like Theme Park mixed with The Sims where instead of designing roller coasters you have to tweak the behaviours of the hosts to entertain your guests.
Set the personalities and routines of each host – will they be friendly? Aggressive? Secretive? Define rivalries and relationships with other hosts, assign side quests which they can hand out to guests to funnel them into certain areas of the park.
As the game went on you would have to deal with all the types of problems that would come up with a park of this kind – a host is acting strange, bring them in without alerting the guests; some jerk is just killing everything, find a way to distract her before she ruins everyone else’s stay; two guests are fighting, each convinced the other is a robot, break it up before they hurt each other.
TGN Professor
E-mail your comments to: [email protected]
Inner space
I’d like to see the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage made into a game. For those who haven’t seen the movie, it’s about a group of people who get miniaturised (along with their submarine) and then injected into a very ill man to operate on him from the inside.
I haven’t seen the film in years, so I don’t know how well it holds up, but what an interesting setting for a game. Who wouldn’t want to explore the interior of the human body?
Your team could navigate through the heart, fight off viruses and antibodies. A game of Fantastic Voyage could be highly educational as well.
I don’t know why Fantastic Voyage has never been remade with today’s special effects. In the eighties we had Innerspace but that was a bit too jokey for me.
There must have been a game set inside the human body before, but I can’t immediately think of one. Has there been many games that feature miniaturisation?
msv858 (Twitter)
GC: Psygnosis’ Microcosm is one of the few that comes to mind.
Better call Telltale
The TV show I would love to see turned into a game would be Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad is my favourite TV show of all time and I also enjoyed the prequel series Better Call Saul, from what I have watched of it so far. The fact that Better Call Saul exists and is good shows that probably the best approach with my theoretical game is to have a spin-off series following a different character. Possibly Gus or Hank, either before or concurrently to the TV show.
I can only really imagine this game being in the style of the Telltale games, but I suppose an open world with heavy emphasis on narrative rather than role-playing mechanics (e.g. LA Noire) could also work, where the open world is mainly used as a back drop to the narrative. Driving through the desert after something has just gone down could be quite impactful. Get Vince Gilligan involved and I’m sure it could be great.
Truk_Kurt (PSN ID)/trukkurt (Steam ID)/Angry_Kurt (Twitter)
Now playing: Wolfenstein II (PS4) and Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
Blindingly obvious
I think we can safely put this in the ‘unlikely to ever happen’ category but I’d really love to see a game based on Zatoichi, the blind samurai.
For those that don’t know the character, Zatoichi is portrayed in a long running series of Japanese films and TV shows set in the 1830s. He is a blind masseur who wanders the land and is secretly a highly skilled samurai. Having previously spent time as a Yakuza, which he has come to regret, he attempts to involve himself in the business of the oppressed and save them from their circumstances. I’d love to see a heavy focus on character development with some moral ambiguity of who to become involved with and perhaps the option to rejoin the Yakuza for illicit purposes.
I’d love to see an unconventional approach to the visuals, where you are truly reliant on surround sound to determine where your enemies are. I’m not picturing you not being able to see anything but perhaps if fighting in areas where there is a lot of environmental noise the graphics depict your difficulty in ‘seeing’ the world around you, maybe in limited silhouette. This would introduce a tactical element where you are looking to engage with enemies in secluded, quieter areas to give yourself a greater advantage in battle.
Due to Zatoichi’s history in the Yakuza he nearly always has a large bounty on his head and dangerous foes could attack you at any time in the game world, leading to you sometimes having no option but to rely on sound to protect yourself. Add in dynamic weather effects where you could perhaps be in the middle of battle and heavy rainfall starts and your skills become more limited and I think it’s an exciting and tense proposition.
Playing perfectly into an open world style game, Zatoichi has a penchant for gambling, playing chess and even sumo wrestling. I feel that this would be perfect for mini-games and side quests that enrich the landscape.
It’s going to take a heavy dose of Inbox magic to make this happen but there are worse ideas out there surely?
AgentCole1981 (PSN ID)
GC: Much worse, now you mention the idea we’re a little shocked there hasn’t been some kind of adapation over the years.
Not enough said
Coronation Street Fighter – ‘nuff said really!
The Disco Bison (gamertag)
Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here
Impossible mission
Superhero films and Game of Thrones seemed too obvious, so I am going with the much older choice of Alias.
The premise is similar to Mission: Impossible but with a female lead instead of Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt. You work for an undercover US Intelligence Agency and are tasked with infiltrating various facilities to steal documents or dangerous devices.
Sydney Bristow’s approach to missions is usually to misdirect people in conversation by acting as a provocative lady, steal a key card, and then use it to infiltrate an underground facility when no one is looking. And I would imagine the first mission’s briefing to be exactly like that.
Games have attempted to do espionage of this type before but have usually been far too rigid in their approach and have not offered alternative options if conversations breakdown or you are spotted by a guard. I am imagining the character interaction of Dontnod’s Life Is Strange (or Telltale’s Walking Dead) coupled with the mission structure of Hitman but with more brawling than shooting if everything goes wrong.
Like Life Is Strange and Hitman, an episodic structure could be adopted with each mission being a different episode and the structure of the missions will vary between episodes. Some may include pre-mission reconnaissance work such as spying on people or ‘interviewing’ prisoners to gain intelligence.
In the show Sydney’s motives are usually very black or white and it is the motives of the people around her that are variable, but the game could introduce a broad spectrum of greys for Sydney herself. This would enable the game to be very free in not only how you approach each mission but also in the direction the story as a whole develops, and will therefore offer multiple story endings.
The overall story would task you with acquiring the parts to a Rambaldi device before a competing Intelligence Agency can. There would be opportunities for Sydney to defect or withhold information from her superiors if she does not trust them. She could even clone the device to trick her employers and either sell or use the original herself.
PazJohnMitch
GC: There was a tie-in during the PlayStation 2 era. It wasn’t very good.
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