
You implant yourself into the character, and you get to choose who you want to be. Much of the innate appeal of video games is that you get to be the protagonist. Maybe one day virtual reality will advance to the point that you can act as The Rock running through your own personalized movie, but until that day, video games still have the interactive advantage. It gets credit for an attempt at originality, but when the new direction leads to a meteorite splitting the universe into two parallel dimensions, one where some dinosaurs survive and evolve into a humanoid race, resulting in Bowser/King Koopa? Game over. Stray too far from the original source material, and you get something like the completely bonkers “Super Mario Bros.” (1993) movie. This makes for interesting game mechanics but didn’t translate well to the big screen.īut wait! Catch-22. Desynchronized memories occur when you fail and restart a mission. Inaccessible memories are used to explain why you can’t explore certain areas. The storyline was ineffective partly because, as a Forbes film review said, “so much of Assassin’s Creed’s storyline was created to solve very ‘video gamey’ problems.” In the game, much of the action takes place in the character’s mind. Take a look at 2016’s “Assassin’s Creed,” which stuck closely to many of the game’s concepts.
#Best video games 2017 that have a movie free#
“If I wanted a metaphor about free will and inevitable failure, I’d go play ‘ Stanley Parable.’” But, like our game, Hollywood keeps trapping itself in an either-or mentality that leads to horrible movies. Changing this story to a live-action one wouldn’t add much more. “ The Last of Us” has been universally acclaimed as one of the greatest video games of all time, and the actors’ voices and motion-capture performances were particularly praised. Still, a lot of modern games with strong stories also don’t need adaptations at all.
#Best video games 2017 that have a movie movie#
Trying to stuff over 100 hours of gameplay into a two-hour movie is a doomed effort, and it results in what the Washington Post’s Stephanie Merry called a “convoluted mess of an introduction requires more mental effort than any movie this idiotic deserves.”Ī better game to adapt would be something like “Oxenfree,” which has an eerie coming-of-age story that can be finished in about five hours. On the other hand, mythology-rich games like “Warcraft” suffer when adapted into movies, too. The original game’s story is purposefully empty so that the gameplay - car races - can shine. “Need for Speed” failed because studios scrambled to adopt something with strong brand recognition instead of something that actually screams out for a film adaptation. Let’s take a look at two examples: “Warcraft” (2016) and “Need for Speed” (2014). Ideally, you want a game with a rich but still compact narrative. One of the hardest parts of adapting video games is choosing the right story balance. Seriously? Another trick question? It’s almost like this game is a metaphor for something.

Keep playing to learn about the other obstacles. Getting the story right probably seems obvious, but it’s easier said than done.


On the other end of the spectrum, “Mortal Kombat” (1995) might have laughable visual effects when seen nowadays, but its production values were a major factor in the few positive reviews it received. “Her Lara may be the most grounded and believable cinematic video-game protagonist I’ve seen,” he said.

Take this year’s “Tomb Raider”: Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman credited the movie’s watchability to star Alicia Vikander. They can be the one thing standing in the way of a complete critical savaging. Of course, that doesn’t mean the cast and crew are completely pointless. “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” (2010) had high production values and noteworthy actors (Jake Gyllenhaal starred), but the Boston Globe’s Ty Burr still called it the “CVS brand” version of “The Lord of the Rings.” Sorry, trick question! Usually it’s the story that’s most important - and video game movies usually get that part wrong.
