Top 5 Movie Tie-In Games That Would Suck

It’s been a while since I did a Top 5 segment. You want another one, yeah? Cool, that’s largely what I’ve got planned. This week, I plan on addressing one of those key issues that affects many Emotionally Fourteen people at some point in their life: Seeing their favourite movie made into a computer game. Generally, the stigma associated with basing the idea of any media from some other media is usually met with immense scepticism.

Think about it: The main source of complaint in movie circles is “Oh, they’re turning Watchmen into a movie” or “Oh that Max Payne adaptation is going to suck!” Granted, they’re not always right – Watchmen was a good movie, and Max Payne didn’t suck THAT much. However, game tie-ins are also a subject of scorn, largely because they don’t often turn out very good. But think of it this way; It could always be worse.

Here then, are the Top 5 Movie Tie-In Games That Would Suck.

THE SNOWMAN

Say what you like about the endless nostalgic appeal of this children’s classic; the game would suck enormous balls. Incidentally, as an aside, did you notice that this film was nominated for an ACADEMY AWARD in 1982? George Lucas hasn’t even won an Academy Award, and he wrote the Star Wars Saga! It must have been a slow year, that’s all I’m saying.

See, the main gripe that gamers would have with this adaptation would be the timeframe. You’re playing as The Snowman, presumably (hopefully) and your goal is to…what? Take a young boy to see Santa Claus (spoilers) before the naturally occurring humidity and temperature levels reduce you to slush? Time-limit games work ok in things like Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask because the time limit serves only to add urgency to the player, but also gives the player a chance to jump forwards and backwards in time in order to trigger certain things. This game would suffer from being criminally short, and obviously the added pressure of reducing the lead character to a mushy water-based compound.

Besides which, you’d spend about 60% of the time walking in the air, with on-screen prompts to keep the people down below from believing their eyes. BORING!

PHILADELPHIA

See, I find myself in a quandary over this particular tie-in, and it mainly stems from the game play mechanic. Obviously, a similar dilemma is presented in the choice of character. If players are put in the role of Denzel’s character, Joe Miller, presumably you’re engaging in some sort of legal defence game, possibly in the style of the new CSI point-and-click adventure games, gathering evidence to use in the trial while simultaneously gradually reducing your “Homophobic Prejudice” meter.

However, if you’re placed in the role of Tom Hanks’ gay lawyer protagonist, the idea presumably is to shatter people’s stereotypes and preconceptions. Of course, you could always go to the other extreme and wear arse-less chaps around the office instead, see where that gets you.
On a slightly unrelated note, why is someone said to have “contracted” AIDS? Is it considered a service for hire? And why, oh why, did they decide to set it in the “City of Brotherly Love”? It just seems, I don’t know, too easy…

SUPER-SIZE ME

Remember the amount of food you had to eat in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? Remember how much you hated that part of an otherwise awesome game? I rest my fucking case.

SCHINDLER’S LIST

See, I’ve agonised over this one time and time again, and it’s another scenario where I just can’t work out how the game would work. Would you play as a prisoner of the Nazi concentration camps, maybe style it a bit like The Great Escape but with help from a benefactor? See, that might actually work as a game, although depending on which character you played, the game may run into similar sort of timing issues as The Snowman: The Video Game.

Would you play as Schindler himself, perhaps in some sort of espionage game mixed with a management sim? That might be a bit more difficult, mixing Sim City and Splinter Cell, but I could certainly see them giving it a go. Would they just junk the idea of any sort of redemption altogether, put you in charge of the trains and make it like Ticket to Ride?

AMERICAN BEAUTY


I can honestly say with this one that I’d be in the camp that was completely against this game being made. Again, the main issue is that it’d be difficult to work out how the game would work. If you play as Kevin Spacey’s character, you end up playing a reverse Sims-style game where you go backwards on the career track. Having said that, using The Sims would probably be a decent framework for this game, as you could easily engineer him catching his wife cheating on him at the drive-thru window.

Apart from that though, your character would spend his time doing a mixture of weight-training, burger flipping and homosexual misunderstandings with the neighbour’s mentally unstable son, who’s secretly doinking your daughter anyway. Not that you will be able to ever explain that to Chris Cooper. Besides which, the ending, without giving too much away, surely makes the game somewhat redundant. Having said that, the game would make for one of the all-time great trophies:

Movie Review: Hard Boiled (Part of E14's John Woo Double Feature)

Hard Boiled
Review by Blake Harmer

What is best in life? Is it finding love? Is it having a great job? Is it to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Apparently, if you are in Hard Boiled, it is kill people in the flashiest way possible, in mid air, possibly whilst wielding two guns. If that doesn’t sound awesome to you, then it probably means that you are either dead, or your life is so entertaining that the thought of high action frenetic gun battles and explosions are too lame as they are a big part of your life already.

The story begins with our hero, Inspector “Tequila” Yeun (Chow Yun Fat), going undercover with his partner to expose an illegal gun smuggling ring in a tea house where there is a deal going down. In their attempt to arrest the smugglers, a huge firefight ensues, leading to much acrobatic gunplay and Tequila’s partner being killed whilst saving him from a smuggler with a machine gun. Tequila then goes after evil mob boss Johnny Wong, leader of the illegal gun ring to avenge his dead partner and finally close the case. Whilst this is going on, Wong is having a war over territory with another gun Smuggler, Mr Hui. Wong tries to tempt over a hired gun called Tony Long, who is already loyal to Mr Hui, to work for him, but there seems to be more to this hired gun than first meets the eye...

Hard Boiled is one of the great action movies; the sad thing is that they don’t really make action films like this anymore. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s, you couldn’t turn without seeing an awesome piece of explosive entertainment with Arnie, Van Damme, or Stallone going out and blowing people up and saying cool one liners and then killing more people in a hail of bullets. Hard Boiled doesn’t really contain any cool one liners but makes up with it with some of the coolest stunts you can do during a gun battle. The action set pieces are usually incredibly frenetic, with people diving through the air, shooting from motorbikes, doing somersaults, sliding down rails, destroying half of the environment around them and being filled with about 50 bullets when they finally do die. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the teahouse shoot out at the beginning of the movie:





And that’s just the beginning of the film, the set pieces just get better and better with some of the final set pieces in a hospital being one of the greatest action set pieces of all time. There is also excellent cinematography with great angles and, slow-mo bits highlighting the action. A personal favourite was in one of the last few action pieces where the camera is permanently fixed behind Tequila as he works his way through hospital corridors taking out bad guys left, right and centre.

Awesome action set pieces aside; the film does have a fairly good story to boot. The film does show some of the difficult and lonely life of being an undercover police officer. It may seem very generic and similar to lots of police action movies such as Lethal Weapon but it’s good enough to hold your interest in between the high action explosions and leaping through windows.

As action movies go though, it still has a couple of flaws. I feel that the film could have developed Tequila’s character a little bit more than a vengeful hard boiled super cop. Very little is said about his life apart from a love interest in the form of Madam (his colleague at the police station). You learn enough about him to like him as a hero, but the character development seems to focus more on the hired gun Tony Long as he does contribute the largest part to the story. Another flaw lies with the actual DVD, as if you choose to watch it as a subtitled Chinese film, then the subtitles are not in sync with the movie and it can therefore be confusing as to who is saying what. Thankfully there is a dubbed English soundtrack on the DVD so I recommend you watch that version. (I sadly persevered with the subtitled version before looking and finding a dubbed soundtrack *smacks head*)

All in all though you probably won’t really care about these flaws, as you’ll be too interested in people being shot repeatedly in the chest by a super cop flying through the air with a machine gun. Go forth and watch one of the most E14 action films out there.

The Emotionally Fourteen Rating:
Violence: As mentioned earlier, several people are shot to death a high energy ballet of death and destruction with several large explosions and gunfire. There is a very high body count and an even higher bullet count. There are a few scenes of blood splatter in the film but not loads to say this is a complete splatter fest. 10/10

Swearing: A few uses of swearing but not enough to get overly excited about. 6/10

Sex/Nudity: None, unless you count naked babies in the hospital, but that’s just wrong. 0/10

Other factors in its favour:
This is a classic Hong Kong Action film and has been a huge inspiration many other great action films such as the Matrix, and computer games such as Max Payne, which ironically didn’t come close to being this awesome when it was adapted into a film last year.

Overall:
This is arguably John Woo’s best film and sadly an achievement he hasn’t been able to reproduce when he came over to America. It could also make a great video game, which is great because a spiritual sequel to Hard Boiled was made in the form of a computer game as John Woo’s Stranglehold. But you’ll see what Rob thought of that in his accompanying article. If you love action movies or are a big fan of film in general then this is a must see for you. 9/10

Don't forget that John Woo's latest movie, Red Cliff, is in cinemas nationwide.

Game Review: John Woo Presents Stranglehold (Part of E14's John Woo Double Feature)

John Woo presents: Stranglehold
Xbox 360 (version reviewed), Playstation 3, PC (BBFC Rating: 18)
Review by Rob Wade

Stranglehold opens with a set-piece detailing both a kidnapping in Chicago and an assassination in Hong Kong, seemingly happening simultaneously or thereabouts. Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to tell if two things are happening simultaneously in everything except the Saw franchise? That is, however, only because the Saw franchise relies on stuff like that, so jams it down your throat. Not an altogether unimaginative punishment, Saw, my kudos.

Anyway, you’re placed in the role of Hard Boiled’s hero, “Tequila” Yeun, on a desperate quest to find out who assassinated a police officer in Hong Kong. Once you find out the specifics, you become aware of the details of the kidnapping in Chicago, and where you come in. I don’t feel the need for spoilers, you can probably guess without too much trouble, going by the traditional action hero template i.e. if it’s not a relative, it’s a romantic connection. If it’s neither of those, it’s probably a pet. It’d have to be an exotic pet though, otherwise who gives a shit, so probably a lizard or something.

The game gets you right into the action without any elaborate storyline being given to you bar the opening, instead allowing you to start shooting guns right away. That’s just one of many plus points in its favour. As soon as you see the action icon on the screen for “jump on roll-cart using Left trigger”, you know you’re in for a cinematic experience, by which we mean “Expect Massive Damage”.

Before long, you’re rolling along the floor on roll-carts, swinging from chandeliers, sliding down banisters, running up banisters and more, all while firing up to TWO guns. As if all the set-piece acrobatics wasn’t enough, Stranglehold lets you fire TWO guns at once! (Fine, I know it’s a fairly common staple of most shooters now, I still think it’s cool ok?)

Let’s get, first, to the things I like about this game. Firstly, it satisfies the above mentioned criteria for awesomeness such as being able to run up and down and jump while shooting. However, there is more, believe it or not. Stranglehold definitely falls into the category of a cinematic piece of entertainment. Right from the off, all in-game cut-scenes are modelled using the game engine, something I’ve always liked in games. There’s really not much point in trying to get players involved in a cinematic experience if the cut-scenes are modelled using anything other than the game mechanics, but on the plus side it seems to be a trend that’s becoming all the more commonplace.

Adding to the cinematic atmosphere is the ability to trigger certain pre-programmed events that add to your style combo, rewarding you with suitably over-the-top moves that can be unlocked as you progress through the game. To give an example, you can get one star for shooting someone normally with a pistol. Shooting them in Bullet Time earns you three. Shooting the sign above them so that it drops down knocking them over the edge earns you up to 10. The emphasis is definitely on making these set-pieces count when they arrive. Add to that a one-on-one shootout called Standoff mode, and the cinematic experience gets bumped up further still.

It also may not have escaped your notice that this game looks pretty cool. Everything has a decent level of gritty realism without being hyper-realistic. Watching someone grasp for their throat once you pop a cap in it is a somewhat visceral thrill, but not sufficiently so due to the graphical style that you feel like a sociopath. Everything is sufficiently brightly coloured and neon-tinged, particularly in the city levels obviously, to make the game sufficiently glitzy without being over-the-top.

That’s not to say that this game is without flaws. While it is nice to pretty much be able to interact with every banister you find yourself near, from time to time you do find yourself getting stuck on a banister or standing next to it, the game being unable to decide whether to run up it or not.

And just a minor thing really, and it may just be me, but I do prefer games that let you carry more than two weapons to choose from. I know it’s more realistic to have people with limited carriage capacity, but come on, it’s a game based on the works of John Woo; since when does realism enter into the equation?


Graphics: 9/10 – Extremely solidly built graphically, with some refinements here and there to make it look more cinematic. Environments have a good degree of destructibility befitting a John Woo experience. Besides, anything that can render Chow-Yun Fat in a reasonable quality character model is aces in my book.

Sound: 7/10- Standard action game fare, dramatic music during fight scenes etc. All explosions and bullets sound reasonable, and cries of anguish are also particularly satisfying.

Gameplay: 10/10 - This game IS an action film. Fast, engaging and frantic, with plenty of cinematic set pieces to keep you searching for that high-score. Let’s face it, however, any game that can do a working Bullet Time model isn’t going to get below an 8.

Lifespan: 7/10 - This game will probably keep you busy for at least one play through, but there really isn’t a tremendous amount of content to keep you involved in the single-player campaign unless you’re a completist or a high-score chaser.

E14 Rating: 8/10

If you’re a John Woo fan, this game is definitely a must-purchase. The game satisfies all of the criteria that we have come to expect from his style. If you’re not a John Woo fan, and are just after a decent game to pass some time, seriously consider picking this game up anyway. You can get it relatively cheap from most places now, and it really is a good one.

Don't forget that John Woo's latest film, Red Cliff, is in cinemas nationwide.