There are plenty of gems out there that are often overlooked or on the verge of being forgotten years after its release. This is why gog.com is doing something great. With gog.com, you can download a classic game for a pretty affordable price, some of which are damn near impossible to find now. They just put up the first two Oddworld games for download, a series that was very imaginative particularly with the Stranger series, and is worth the $9.99 price tag.
Mirror's Edge didn't sell well, it's not a mystery. Between that and Dead Space amounting to less than half of EA's top selling game this year (being Madden, also not a mystery), it's no wonder that they're trying to drive the last bit of holiday sales by releasing some DLC. Although this DLC might make the game more fun and worth owning with the introduction of time trial levels. With the option to download top times and race the "ghost" through the level, it has the potential to play the game in a different way. Check out the news post on vg247 here.
Odd that I reference Uwe Boll yesterday and today I find out that there is a movie adaptation of Clock Tower being made being written and directed by people whose credits inclue The Hills Have Eyes 2 and Prom Night, two horror movies of iffy quality, makes me nervous of what will be done with the movie adapatation. The storyline of a girl being chased through a clocktower by a muderous lunatic with a giant pair of scissors is also kind of an unusual story that will definitely be adapted in a weird way.
The issue that many people have with these video game adaptations of survival horror games is that the sense of the game being grounded in some way in reality found in the games is usually absent from the movies. I do think that Silent Hill's movie adaptation nailed it presenting a gritty and realistic looking world absent of the insane, absent from the game shit that Paul WS Anderson usually creates in his films. I don't know how Clock Tower will play out on the big screen, but the movie posters certainly look cool. You can always tell a good movie by how cool the poster looks right? Kotaku has the posters up here.
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4 comments:
...The issue that many people have with these video game adaptations of survival horror games is that the sense of the game being grounded in some way in reality found in the games is usually absent from the movies...
I understand your meaning regarding the survival horror game-to-movie adaptation issue as a discrepancy between the level of realism in the game and the level of realism in the movie, with the movie being more fantasy-like. Is that what you meant?
Yes that is exactly what I meant, sometimes my mind gets ahead of my fingers and when it does catch up it somehow makes sense to me.
Like with the Resident Evil movie having that whole underground facility (from RE2, but with an all controlling AI that slices and dices people using laser beams? C'mon!
It's similar to what is being done with the recent Batman movies, they're a bit more grounded in reality than the earlier ones (post Michael Keaton) where they started using fluorescent rave paint and all the bad guys wearing ski masks and shit.
The reality-fantasy discrepancy observation is a good way of articulating one of my gripes with some of those film adaptations. Also, when I see a comic book brought to life in a film, I don't want it to be obvious that is is a comic book adaptation, like how Batman & Robin was filmed.
Do you think there is a current trend towards realism in adaptations from comic books, games and fictional books? Or is it just that films that use realism are more successful or that they are just getting better reviews than adaptations with more of a fantasy take, and do you think the better reviews (not necessarily professional) are from fans of the comic books (etc. form of media) or just the general public? Or there may not be a trend towards the success of - or better reviews of - realistic fantasy-based films; I don't know.
This is something I think I could talk about at great length. I remember reading a bulletin after The Dark Knight came out that they hoped to make Spider-Man 4 as "dark". It's common knowledge that the grittier version of Batman that we are getting treated to now is a huge financial success. So one could reason that movie companies that make adaptations of games/comics/etc. would be going for the same darker, more realistic portrayal of a story because they know it will equal cash (I never saw War Zone which looked like it had a lot of potential).
Granted, I don't think this will work with every comic or game that they attempt to adapt. I think people need to be able to relate to the protagonist. An interview with the creator of Indigo Prophecy said that a story is easier to accept if they're not trying to save the world or have super powers but is actualized in that medium as being human.
Which draws to a big problem I had with Resident Evil's protagonist played by Mila Jovovich being a damn near super heroine. It's probably harder for the public to accept, let alone fans of the source of inspiration. Silent Hill's protagonist screamed and cried when faced with the batshit crazy stuff she saw. It's hard to see someone whipping out two kukri knives and going to town doing back flips like in RE: Extinction as being anything but pure fantasy.
Both professional critics and fans as a generality really liked The Dark Knight, I saw it and I can see why. I do think a central part of the process therefore, is grounding it in reality. My favorite part about Dead Space is that Isaac Clarke is an engineer, not some highly trained super soldier like in Gears of War. That part about the protagonist being an every man really works. For me, I tend to gravitate towards normal people doing great or brave things, and I think the general public enjoys that element of the story as well. I'd like to see more adaptations done in this way, but I know that movie companies will go with whatever they feel will sell.
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