Much of my inspiration when it comes to writing these pieces starts off as a tiny, almost nagging thought in the back of my mind during the play-through of whatever title I'm enjoying at the time. I explore that idea a little and if it has legs it eventually grows into what gets published and what you hopefully enjoy reading. In that sense this article is really no different, as thoughts and musings formed while spending the last week or so while pottering around the depressing and dank prison environments of Butcher Bay as part of the newly released 'Chronicles Of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena'. I must shamefully admit that I missed 'Escape From Butcher Bay' the first time around back in 2004, and this is where the idea for this article was sparked. I stupidly let it slip under my radar because I simply had written it off as yet another mediocre movie licensed title and couldn't be dissuaded from that opinion; something I regret a little now and that maybe wouldn't have been rectified even now if I hadn't become such a fan of Starbreeze Studios work following The Darkness. Who could blame me for assuming that? We've all been burned by poorly made movie tie-ins at some point in our lives, and being a completely and blindly loyal Spider-man fanboy you can probably imagine that almost out of a sense of duty I've experienced my fair share of crap when it comes to licensed games. With the excellent Riddick game fresh in my memory and an apparently copiously fun Wolverine title taking a fair share of acclaim it made me wonder why so few games have succeeded in making competent and cohesive partners to their movie counterparts, and what steps developers can make to prevent themselves making the same mistakes over and over. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my four golden rules all developers considering taking on a movie licence should follow.
1. Either stick to the 'canon' source material or take the plot your own way entirely, not both.
This is a particular bugbear of mine. Why do developers feel the need to change key aspects of the movies story when it comes to the game? Use the story as it is or set the game in a different time-frame before or just after the events of the film as not to disrupt the flow of what we regard as the canon storyline. I can kind of understand why it occasionally happens; licensed games are sometimes in development during production and certain areas may have been cut or changed in the movies editing process, but for most part it's inexcusable. Spider-Man 3 was the perfect example of this; changing even small key points such as having Venom kidnapping Sandman's daughter as leverage in getting him to collaborate when that is not how it went down in the movie; it's only going to have you sat wondering why they did it that way rather than the way it did actually happen. This may seem a petty complaint, and don't get me wrong, I can definitely see the need to flesh out these games; after all a standard two and a half hour film length won't cut it when it comes to the needs of a gamer. In the case of Spidey I'm fine with throwing extra unrelated storylines into the mix, providing they don't contradict what the official line is, however in the example above it's purely a simple substitution for little reason other than 'they could'.
Quantum of Solace: the game that could have been...
Another Treyarch title (sorry guys I'm not picking on you on purpose); Quantum Of Solace while being a fun use of the COD engine takes this one step further by drawing most of its material from a completely different movie altogether. Then to make things a little more confusing you are forced to play through events in no particular order leaving you with a convoluted mess. The Riddick games straddle both sides of the fence perfectly by acting as a prequel to the movies proceedings; it not only manages to be canon storyline doing its own thing but also helps flesh out the back-story making the Riddick universe seem that little bit more richer as a result, and after all isn't that the point of a these games? Of course none of this should really have any effect how fun the experience is if your game is worth its salt, and unfortunately in the case of movie tie-ins; they usually aren't.
2. Provide lots of fan service.
For the most part this one comes down to the developers having a decent understanding and a passion for the characters they are working with along with knowing who exactly you are making the game for. Something which has been mentioned in numerous reviews for the new Wolverine game is that the developers Raven were genuinely big fans of the character (and have a decent history of Marvel games behind them). Not only is this shown in the little touches by including all the classic Wolverine costumes as unlockables, his moves and other little nods to the characters history, but also by surprisingly going against the PG-13 rating of the movie and giving fans the brutal and bloody Wolverine title that they've have been craving. In the Riddick titles it's clear they've fully understood what made the character so compelling, and have a game that really puts you in the role of the gravely voiced anti-hero.
Who would have thought...
The finest example of fan service in a movie tie-in however, is probably the Lego Star Wars games. Who would have thought initially that using Lego as a base it would be possible for Travellers Tales to capture everything that people loved about Star Wars so faithfully (far better than Lucasarts themselves have managed to be fair), managing to fit in a massive amount of in-jokes and genuinely funny humour along side it. With the examples I've provided it probably doesn't hurt that these games are all good games to boot, but it's clear that a little playing up to your target audience can make all the difference in atmosphere, presentation and the important area of putting a smile on peoples faces.
3. Get the proper voice actors in and use them to their fullest ability.
Yes, it's another area that is totally irrelevant to how the game will actually play, but personally a large part of where I draw my fun from gaming is in the pure immersion factor; I like to lose myself to the atmosphere and when something isn't right it's easy to be dragged kicking and screaming right out of the experience. My most notable experience with this technically wasn't a movie licensed game, but a TV show tie-in; LOST: Via Domus. The game was on the whole a very poor, but in the early stages it at least seemed to grasp the feel of the series. That was until one of the major characters spoke… with a totally different voice than what I had expected. Confused, I went straight to IMDB and saw that all but a few of the really uninteresting characters were actually voiced by the actors that usually portray them. The replacements were flat, uninteresting and instantly put me at odds with a game that already didn't have many other redeeming features.
LOST: one decent video game
Saying that, it's not to say that acquiring the real actors always guarantees a better performance, especially if Tobey Maguire's phoned in performances for the Spidey games is anything to go by, in what is to my knowledge the three worst 'Oh my god am I really contractually bound to do this' voice acting displays I've ever had to sit through. This is a professional actor we are talking about, surely these guys should approach the job in hand with the same level of professionalism as they would any production, or maybe more comparatively an animated movie, so why did Treyarch stand for it not just once but thrice? This isn't a one off scenario either as there are a host of movie tie-ins I can list that just allow poor production values in the vocal talent department. While I'm on the subject, what was the point in Warner Brothers Interactive having the rights to develop the game for Terminator Salvation, but not getting the rights for Christian Bale to appear as John Connor in vocal capacity or likeness capacity? They may as well have just made a totally unrelated title.
4. Realise that meeting an unrealistic deadline to coincide with a big movie release isn't a suitable alternative for quality control.
Now this is the big one isn't it? The real problem with most of these tie-ins is that they are generally rushed out of the door before they are finished, simply so that everyone can get their share of the pie when taking advantage of the poor suckers who get caught up in the release hype. I suppose that the need for movie companies to get the accompanying game out on the same day as the movie may never go away, but as the Wolverine game has been proving it's at least possible to create a fun and competent product a fairly short timeframe. This begs the key question: why can't other usually trustworthy developers manage the same feat as Raven? Closer relationships with movie studios could be one answer, working on the game-engine and basic core gameplay mechanics far earlier another, but isn't the simplest answer to just not put the game out until it's completely ready?
5. Your thoughts.
I guess I just find it funny how every time a new tie-in is released many seem to get sucked into the hype machine, led to think 'This time it may just be different, maybe this will be the time to buck the trend'. Hell, I often do it myself, but it rarely proves to be the case. Hope isn't totally lost, recent releases and a few key others do show that there are developers willing to take these projects seriously, I just wish the rest of the industry would catch on. These are just the stepping stones that instantly come to mind when I think of suggestions when it comes to improving the general quality of these titles. Take exception? Think I've missed something? Would you do something different? Why not let us know in the comments section below.
3 Responses to “Five tips to improve movie-licensed tie-ins” Leave a reply ›
From N4G: Not a bad list at all. Having the same people voice the characters they play in the movies is always a nice touch. Also I would love to see more movie based games come out after the movie has already came out. Video games take longer to make normally then movies.
So when you cut that time to make the game come out a few weeks before the movie that means the game will be less good. I would prefer to see more video games come out when the DVD comes out this way you get at least another 6 months to work on the game. Even better would be if you could bring out the game whenever this way you are not tied up with the movie and can make the game an excellent game to enjoy.
On balance, I have one rule for movie tie-ins: DON'T BUY THEM.
But reading your article has made me think a fair bit.
And the conclusion is thus: "Don't buy ACTIVISION movie tie ins!" These are generally knocked off the line in about twenty seconds with no deep plot, far too many "collectables" and so many identical enemies you'd think their mother must have had identical centruplets (that's a hundred if you're wondering).
But nice article, I found that to be all true.
Aside from plot I didn't really have much complaints about the QoS game for a fiver. I thought they used the engine well. Could have been much longer though.