My Cart - Some things should never be mixed – like strawberries and salmon, Easter and diets, or Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling. But probably the worst of the lot is combining movies and games. Seems like an awesome idea, right? After all, what’s the difference between watching Saving Private Ryan and playing Call of Duty? …Uh, everything!
If you love movies or games, then you may have seen the latest news coming out of Sony HQ. The Japanese tech and film firm has announced that they have a writer for their upcoming Metal gear Solid movie. Sure, he’s an unproven talent, working on films you almost certainly haven’t seen before; and yes, almost every game-to-movie project ends in failure – but that’s not putting Sony off from making a quick buck. In fact, in addition to this, there’s also an Assassin’s Creed movie, and another Hitman film to look forward to (Or look forward to forgetting).
So why do games and movies have such an unhealthy – and frankly disappointing relationship? One word, folks: Money. And that’s the reason we end up with films and games like these…
The Games
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Hey, wasn’t Alien a great film? And how cool was Aliens? So how about taking all that was great about the latter movie – you know, the suspense, the memorable characters, the awesome alien – and shmush it all together into one of the worst games ever made? Aliens: Colonial Marines was a let-down for a ton of reasons. If there’s a video game hell, A:CM is already there, for crimes against humanity. A bland, generic shooter which had gamers gunning down far more faceless soldiers than actual aliens. Precisely what you didn’t want from such great source material.
Jaws
Hey, remember Jaws? Remember how the main characters sailed from one port to another port and back again, collecting shells? Or how, every now and then a really tiny shark would appear – and then the main characters would swim away like cowards until they had enough shells? No, neither do we. So why did the makers of the Jaws video game think that this is what we’d want to play? No idea – but it’s about as lazy as a video game version of a movie can be.
The Films
Resident Evil
You could argue that the video game Resident Evil was already technically a version of George Romero’s Living Dead movies. It sure was an influence, with its creepy, claustrophobic surroundings, shuffling undead monsters and B-movie dialogue. But that didn’t stop Hollywood from giving it the movie treatment which took literally none of the best parts of the game and committed it to film. So instead of a scary survival horror, we got a shoot-em-up with the scantily clad and monotonous Milla Jovovich. Know what’s worse? The film spawned four sequels, with another in the pipeline.
BloodRayne
Uwe Boll is responsible for almost every awful game-to-movie adaptation – in fact, that he wasn’t behind Resident Evil is the only real surprise. House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and Postal are also Boll’s tragic attempts at bringing these games to the big screen. BloodRayne may well be his worst though, as he takes a sweet concept – a part-human, part-vampire (Kinda like Blade) dame who’s searching for her dad first during the 30’s, then in contemporary times. And how does Boll bring this one to life? By turning it into a pseudo-costume drama with gratuitous blood and guts, some of the worst acting you’ll ever see, and effects that were clearly knocked up in on a Friday at 4:59pm.
Not all movie and game collisions turn out bad though. There’s always the Blade Runner game, or Alien Isolation which take the source material and really run with it. But for every Forza Horizon: Fast & Furious, you’ll find a Reservoir Dogs. But on the plus side, bad games give us something to giggle about! Grab yourself one of our cheap LED TVs online and start gaming and giggling today! Simply contact us on 0121 327 3273 and we’ll be delighted to help.
