I love movies and I love gaming and ever the twain shall rock my socks off.
Out of Hollywood, Rising Fascination With Video Games discusses a recent trend in Hollywood of uber-directors starting to take a real interest in making video games.
We're not just talking about spin-off games that are basically another way for movie companies to milk more money out of a franchise title - often produced in a slam-the-logo-on-the-product-and-don't-worry-about-playability or quality fashion. Many license deals are setup to benefit the film company at a hight cost to the game production house in ways that inflict pretty piss-poor gaming on the consumer. It had gotten to the point where whenever I go into the local game store to buy a new game - and I buy a lot of new games each year - we're talking massive game purchasing, more than a human should own - for our trusty PS2, my wife will use rather harsh language if I'm foolish enough to pick up the latest film license product with a shrill "don't get that, movie games always suck because the company doesn't know anything about games and just wants to throw some trash together quickly to get your money" (unfortunately, ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine- twenty-three times out of fifteen, my wife is exactly right as the resultant games are much more often than not pure undiluted garbage water). Oh, but for the few exceptions . . . and there have been a few, a very few . . . they show that a movie-based game doesn't have to suck big red ones, that they can be playable and fun . . . alas, only a few).
Anyhoo . . .
The article in question, isn't about license games. It's about something very interesting and potentially very wonderful indeed.
More and more Hollywood director types are getting into gaming. They're starting to look at producing new games either to work with their movies or, more exciting, developing gaming entertainment titles. Folks being seduced by the golden lure of gaming who are seriously jumping into the new medium with both feet first include Peter Jackson, John Woo, Ridley Scott, Stephen Sommers, the Wachowski brothers, and others . . . folks whose films are right in there with many of the ones I love (heck, Lucas Arts does more game development than film work of late).
Now, one thing you have to understand about movies and games is that they're two different things. Just as the Drama for stage is different from the drama of the Interactive Drama (or, live action roleplaying game - upon which I wrote my doctoral dissertation - yes, really, this is stuff I love with a passion). Games are interactive and have to be multi-threaded to retain interest. Even though I love table-top and live role playing games, I used to hate hate hate with a passion passion passion any and all computer-based role playing games as they could never capture the ability to be spontaneous and interactive that is present in the pure or true RPG. Now, with fist-person shooters and changes in processing speed, the computer and console can allow much more of an immersive environment that lets one experience the game as if it's you in the driver's seat rather than as a voyeur or a person reading an odd choose-your-own-adventure novel.
I've taught game design and I've consulted on a couple projects involving game design. I also love and teach movies and drama. These are different animals so when folks who are used to the non-immersive cinema experience begin making games, they have to . . . must . . . this is not optional . . . make the experience playable and enjoyable. It can't just be eye-candy.
Let's see how it goes.
Games can certainly use some new blood and vision - a few Hollywood types have been doing consulting with game folks for editing and pacing and scene structure and shots and the like and it shows in a few games. However, when the tables get reversed, it rarely works out . . . films like SK3D don't work as well as most epic pieces partly because audiences don't want to watch someone playing a videogame, they want to either watch a narrative unfold or they want to play the game themselves.
Lately, I've been spending entirely too much time enjoying and playing the Babes of Norrath installment of Everquest . . . er, excuse me . . . that's Champions of Norrath . . . on our PS2 (yes, I prefer my gaming to be on a console rather than a computer, partly as it's more communal to play with my daughter on our large-screen projection entertainment center rather than on a dinky doo computer monitor - in the picture, I am standing in front of our screen, nothing beats killing orcs and goblins on an 80" screen - and partly as I hate installing so much equipment intensive software on my PC only to find out it crashes my system for this or that unknown reason). The convenience of console gaming has it hands down over the PC . . . in my book . . . for now.
In any case, CoN is a great game (if you don't trust my opinion, and many folks don't, see Greg Necastro's fair recap at the The Man Room or you can wait for Dave Zdyrko's take on the game whenever he finally gets around to posting it). The game has a bit more customizability than most console fare in so far as picking and naming your character goes (although I wish it was more sophisticated like Neverwinter Nights, the PC game - same genre, different implementation) and it has an interesting randomizer for some dungeon levels. An interesting aspect of the game is how camera and music help create mood. The catapult level is very intense and the music inside the orc caves really makes one feel like you're living in and acting out a great epic story. Note that the various "the survival of our way of life" or "whether we survive or our defeated may depend upon what you do here and now" type speeches at key moments in the story help intensify the experience - it's very epic and heroic in an incredibly personal heroe's journey a la Joseph Campbell without the plotpoints. The few side quests do well to relieve tension as well . . . complete with a few comedy relief characters such as the gnome guy in the lava fields (a trick to alleviate stress and relieve tension also used by Shakespeare in a number of his plays). If you're a budding game designer, take a peek at CoN - well, okay, oggle the babes for awhile too - and see what works then figure out ways to get even more intensity but fifty times better . . . ask the question of "how can I make this even more immerisive, even more interactive, even more entertaining, even more narratively fulfilling, even more eye candy . . . not just babes (although babes are always a good thing even if they are obvious targeted marketing such as Bikini Karate Babes . . . girls should want to play your game as well as boys - the female game market is growing big time - one reason my daughter, Kaye, likes Champions of Norrath is because there are a lot more female roles to choose to play as while most adventure type games have only a token female role or none at all) . . . I personally like first person shooters or action pieces with randomizers and customization features - the ability to create levels and share them with others is wonderful as is the ability to play online in addition to sophisticated single-player isolation play . . . yadda yadda yadda.
The Hollywood guys are very good at visual storytelling . . . damned good at it . . . now, they need to take what works for mononarrative structure and import the spirit into multinarrative immersive interactive storytelling which is entertainment gaming and . . . do even more . . . of course, encouraging the development of stereoscopic immersive technologies (that's real 3D folks - see other parts of this site) to go along with their games and we'll be off and running with the real entertainment of the future . . . holonovel anyone?
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