Proof Publishers have zero creative vision

[CptStern]

While games such as Zombie vs. Ambulance get the green light, a game adaptation of the Brit horror flick 28 Days Later doesn't. It's enough to give a guy a complex.

At the Develop Conference in England, movie producer Andrew MacDonald (Shallow Grave, Trainspotting) talked about his failure to bring 28 Days Later to consoles. The low budget flick followed a viral outbreak that turned everyone into zombies. Perfect game fodder, right?

None of the big time publishers MacDonald spoke to were interested. Ironically, it was after Bungie watched 28 Days Later (company movie night, no doubt) that the studio decided to pay the film's writer Alex Garland $1 million to write the Halo flick. It's not you Andrew, it's 28 Days Later. Honest.

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/zombie/nobody-wants-trainspotting-producers-game-186992.php


so much for publishers being interested in creating a movie tie in that's little more than a cashcow tied into a movies release ..as if it was just a another logo plastered t-shirt or children's sippy cup ..no wonder gamers have zero faith in movie to video game adaptations

 

[DeusExMachina]

28 Days Later would've made a great game. They could've got Garland to write the script for that as well.

Alas, Babylon.

 

[VictimOfScience]

They have no vision and not a risk-taking bone in their body. $ really is the root of all evil.

(Good things there are some extremely clever devs out there that are becoming more and more capable of delivering their unbridled content digitally instead of through the digestive tracts of big-time publishers.)

 

[Reaktor4]

The low budget flick followed a viral outbreak that turned everyone into zombies

wouldnt that basically be the same as resident evil?

 

[JNightshade]

Hardly. If they pulled it off, the game would be vastly different. Imagine exploring an enormous digital London, with nobody around, silence everywhere- like an urban Shadow of the Colossus. Only, rather than enormous giants, you come across unrelenting mindless freaks who thirst for your blood. Sounds like an awesome game, no? This is why the game industry can suck my dick :|

 

[Reaktor4]

Well i havent seen the movie, and i dont really remember the re storyline... The third or fourth resident evil (not the fps arcade one, that had no save feature so i had to complete it in one go :hmph i think was in a city with zombies. But that was years ago.

 

[Stigmata]

While the concept for 28 Days Later sounds an awful lot like Resident Evil, the only way it could be further removed from RE is if a) the virus wasn't somehow (be it directly or indirectly) man-made, b) it took place somewhere that wasn't a city, or c) lacked zombies.

And what the hell is Zombie Vs. Ambulance? It must be a wrestling game.

 

[CptStern]

While the concept for 28 Days Later sounds an awful lot like Resident Evil, the only way it could be further removed from RE is if a) the virus wasn't somehow (be it directly or indirectly) man-made, b) it took place somewhere that wasn't a city, or c) lacked zombies.

And what the hell is Zombie Vs. Ambulance? It must be a wrestling game.

here you go:

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/zombies/zombies-vs-ambulance-175377.php

 

[Remus]

here you go:

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/zombies/zombies-vs-ambulance-175377.php

Dear god:|

 

[DeusExMachina]

The game's title should've hinted to you what Zombie vs. Ambulance is about

 

[VictimOfScience]

Hardly. If they pulled it off, the game would be vastly different. Imagine exploring an enormous digital London, with nobody around, silence everywhere- like an urban Shadow of the Colossus. Only, rather than enormous giants, you come across unrelenting mindless freaks who thirst for your blood. Sounds like an awesome game, no? This is why the game industry can suck my dick :|

You've gotta understand that it takes an exceptionally talented team to actually pull-off a game where there is almost no mindless killing, coin collecting, leveling-up, etc, and an exceptionally forward-thinking publisher to bring that vision to the masses. I think that if most publishers heard the idea behind Shadow of the Colossus before it achieved its critical acclaim, most would have been less than excited to publish it (unfortunately). Same thing with a game like the upcoming Okami and many DS titles too...

The fact that these games are even making it out is why we should also be finding some good in the game industry as well...

 

[CptStern]

I found it sad that the director said only indy companies were interested but they couldnt pay for development

 

[VictimOfScience]

I found it sad that the director said only indy companies were interested but they couldnt pay for development

Jeebus that does bring a tear to my eye...;(

But that's also why I have no problem forking over $20 to play an episode of Bone(Telltale Games) or Juniper Crescent: The Sapphire Claw(Juniper Games). We've gotta support the little guy wherever we can! (Of ocurse, it doesn't hurt that the games are/will be great to boot!)

 

[DeusExMachina]

I found it sad that the director said only indy companies were interested but they couldnt pay for development

I think one thing we all need to realize is taking risks isn't always good. Good reception is good, but so is profits. Companies like profit, who doesn't. With 28 Days Later, sure you and I and fans of the movie will buy it, but masses? No, never gonna happen and companies definitely won't be making a good profit.

EDIT: Alrighty, I'll just take that out then.

 

[CptStern]

I meant producer (Andrew MacDonald)

 

[Razor]

28 Days Later would've made a great game. They could've got Garland to write the script for that as well.

Alas, Babylon.

If some publisher had got a hold of the rights to make a "28 Days Later", someone would post in the forums "oh no, not another movie to game attempt, bet it's shit"

 

[destrukt]

28 days later is one of my favourite movies, and when i saw this news on eurogamer, i cried for the many, many stupid publishers.

/shakes head in disapointment. ;(

 

[Raxxman]

28 days later could of been an awesome free roaming survival horror.

Trying to survive for 28 days game time, foraging for food, weapons, survivors.

 

[f0rked]

Don't know about the whole 28 days to do whatever the hell you want without dying concept. Not sure if it would make for fun gameplay. The open-endedness would be cool, but I think it would be best to have goal-oriented gameplay as well as the open endedness, with the overall goal to get the hell out of Britain, or find some sort of safehouse at the other side of the country. Otherwise the player might get bored. It could still be left open-ended, with multiple different ways of escaping the country or something.

In the movie it wasnt some dude who had to survive for 28 days, it was some guy who woke up 28 days after falling into a coma, to find the streets empty, with the exception of flesh-hungry zombies.

Yeah it would make an awesome game though. Dead rising, in Britain.
I'm still waiting for the first game to attempt any sort of realistic-scale representation of a country/state. Sort of like San-Andreas, but based on a real location of that sort of size. I have a feeling it'll be a while before technology allows for this, and even when it does reach that level, it would require a lot of developer man-hours to realistically map a location so large.

 

[Laivasse]

If some publisher had got a hold of the rights to make a "28 Days Later", someone would post in the forums "oh no, not another movie to game attempt, bet it's shit"

QFT. I don't get your point Stern. Some publishers refusing to make a movie to game conversion doesn't signify the death of creativity or anything like that. If anything I'm kind of encouraged by it, if not by the crap derivative games that are still being made at the same time.

Maybe I'm prejudiced by the fact that I thought 28 Days Later was one of the WORST movies I've ever seen. A great concept and opening marred by horrible acting and script, dumb plot moments, and awful jokes and attempts to be hip and chic-ey brit-cool. Everything 15-20+ minutes in just makes me want to gouge out my eyes and ears. BURY THIS MOVIE, I don't want to see it again, in any way, shape or form.

 

[CptStern]

you're missing the bigger picture ...older movies like Reservoir dogs are a sure hit with casual gamers because of name recognition ..publishers know this and will give the green light to development based on the performance of the IP in other media ..therefore the Godfather is almost a "sure thing" whereas the Warriors is a "risk" because it's an unproven IP. So instead of branching out and trying something new/different they fall back on marketing research to decide for them ...to the detriment to the gaming industry as a whole. Gamers have little faith in movie adaptations ..in fact they're almost universally panned mostly because they're watered down reflections of the movie they adapt and rarely stray far from it's narrative structure

if you look at gaming as a whole almost every breakout success is a new idea ..from quake to the sims to Katamari damacy to guitar hero to half-life. The games that play it safe "generic fps where you fight some evil-doer or other" rarely make a big impact in terms of entering public consciousness

 

[Laivasse]

I see what you're saying now, but I still don't think 28 Days would have provided a 'new idea' nor would have been likely to end up as anything other than your generic roam-around zombie-horror game. Maybe the refusal to convert it is symptomatic of the cynicism of the gaming industry at large, but in this specific case I don't think we're losing out on much. Let's face it, games that follow any kind of movie franchise and then turn out to be awesome are in the minority.

 

[f0rked]

What they should really make a game of is Shaun of the Dead. Then you could sit, in game, and play video games with your zombie friend! Talk about revolutionary gameplay.

I actually thought The Godfather was a pretty awesome game. I should really reinstall and finish taking over New York.

The reason people keep making watered down game adaptions of movies is because people keep buying them. If people stopped buying crappy games in general, people would stop making them. Or at least the ones that kept at it would go out of business pretty quicky.

 

[AiM]

Yeah it would make an awesome game though. Dead rising, in Britain.
I'm still waiting for the first game to attempt any sort of realistic-scale representation of a country/state. Sort of like San-Andreas, but based on a real location of that sort of size. I have a feeling it'll be a while before technology allows for this, and even when it does reach that level, it would require a lot of developer man-hours to realistically map a location so large.

The Getaway tried and got ~10 square miles of London? I've never been there but I know a friend who did and it was amazing since he remembered what roads to take to see the tourist locations telling me to "turn left / head straight / or what not"

But yeah, they originally set out for ~70 square miles and that was too costly and time consuming matter and had to minimize it down. But then again, they went for accurate representation of minute details such as shops so maybe if it was purely geographical it would be easier but it'd still be damn hard.

 

[Steel.Inferno]

How big/realistic is Hellgate London in that regard?

 

[Cole]

Hellgate London randomly genereates almost everything(think Diablo). It however does keep some key locations of london included in each level.

 

[Flyingdebris]

the problem with a 28 days later game is simply this, to make it accurate to the movie, if you get bitten or clawed at, congrates, you are dead.

Besides its very rare to see a good movie tie in game.

and if you go the other way and keep a traditional health meter like in the mediocre Land of the Dead Game, the zombie fighting just doesn't feel right either.

 

[StardogChampion]

I'm glad this hasn't been made into a game.

Movies don't make good games. Games don't make good movies. Comics don't make good movies.

Apart from the odd comic like A History of Violence.

 

[DeusExMachina]

Escape from Butcher Bay? Sin City? Batman Begins? Ghost World? V For Vendetta? The Crow? Hellboy? Road to Perdition? Spider-Man?

 

[AiM]

Escape from Butcher Bay? Sin City? Batman Begins? Ghost World? V For Vendetta? The Crow? Hellboy? Road to Perdition? Spider-Man?

QFE

Also more notables: (Deus already named the best though)

Superman Returns, XIII, A Scanner Darkly (I can't see this failing), King Kong, and maybe Constantine.

 

[StardogChampion]

Escape from Butcher Bay? Sin City? Batman Begins? Ghost World? V For Vendetta? The Crow? Hellboy? Road to Perdition? Spider-Man?

They're decent, but not over 7.5/10, except maybe Sin City. Neither are anywhere near as good as their original versions. Sin City is probably the most faithful of them all.

If you take something complex like Watchmen, it can't be made into a movie, or a game.

QFE

Also more notables: (Deus already named the best though)

Superman Returns, XIII, A Scanner Darkly (I can't see this failing), King Kong, and maybe Constantine.

It's all opinions, but Superman is an average movie, A Scanner Darkly has mediocre reviews, King Kong was pants, and Contantine was OK but nothing more.

 

[DeusExMachina]

It's not really about being faithful. Batman Begins takes the mythos and makes its own story out, arguably using the best Batman comics in the whole series to make a great film. Watchmen could be done in a television miniseries (preferably on HBO). I think you've agreed with me on this before.

And have you played Escaped From Butcher Bay? It's an excellent game.