Nothing is more exhilarating than defending Kamino from the endless Separatist threat. Led by the evil General Grievous, the fate of the Republic is at stake. As I eliminate a BX Commando droid who almost took the life of my brother in arms CT-1509 I realize that these clankers are no match for my elite ARC trooper training. I am truly a worthy member of Rancor battalion, as I even look the part in my stylish and fitting Cobalt Hero skin. I see on my HUD that two heroes are on the way to help lock down this command post. Ah yes, this is truly out of the Clone Wars TV show. The magnificent masterpiece that was spearheaded by Dave Filoni the Wise. DICE has mastered capturing legendary moments of War from Star Wars media. You cannot get this wonderful experience anywhere else. DICE truly has something special going on here. As I get a B2 enforcer down to its last sliver of health, I am lifted into the air while life is being choked of me. I frantically wonder, "Who could this be''. Did Asajj Ventress flank us? As I am sent back to spawn, I see in my death feed that it is the notorious Sith Lord, Darth Vader. I wonder the logic of Darth Vader killing clones on Kamino. But don't worry, the level 234 Anakin has finally arrived. He commences combat as my lifeless body is outlined with red on the floor. Wait, is Anakin fighting Vader over Kamino? He is dueling himself from the future! Something may be wrong here. But Vader is no match for Anakin AND the level 6 Finn that just joined the fight. WTF? What is going on!? As I try to squad spawn back into this madness, my only squadmate that is not locked in combat is friend x_RiSing_Dutchy. A Grand Army of the Republic enforcer. A Wookie Warrior. Wait a minute...? Something seems off... As I am scratching my head, wondering why Wookies are deployed during the Battle of Kamino instead of Clone enforcers, my other squadmate TaLK_DiRTytoMe420 spawns in as BB-8. I immediately shut down my application and opened Disney plus. As I rewatch the Invasion of Kamino episodes, I come to a disturbing realization. There were no Wookie Warriors, Vaders, Finns or BB-8s on Kamino. I can’t even tell myself that they might have been offscreen somewhere on the world during the battle. That's what was keeping me from genuinely enjoying the Clone Wars experience. DICE, please dont leave us without addressing these problems. Additions like AI Tank support and the final expansion for capital supremacy and CO-OP show us that you care. Prehaps im in the minority, and im just being selfish. Maybe this is all to keep DICE from leaving a project has grown throughout third years of continual support. Regardless, please do not leave us without making tiny fixes that could be handled in small updates. And also if you do come back, maybe help GA from turning into a dead mode. I just want to say thank you DICE for all you have done to make Battlefront 2 a game worth sinking 100s hours into. You guys did great things. I went from hating the game at its sunrise, to loving it as it's sunset. Battlefront 2 has become one with the force.
In Raycevick's excellent video on Ghost in the Shell video games,
Shirow Masamune's quote struck me.
The manga of The Ghost In The Shell did not place importance on its sustainability as a series because it is faithful to the idea that works in different media, be it film, TV series, manga or novel, should each be optimized to its own art form.
I feel like this captures the reason why most movie-licensed games suck.
Ghostbusters is about some ordinary guys establishing the business of ghost huntings, making their own equipment, hiring guys, and taking requests from people whose home is infested with ghosts. But the game they made was just a Gears of War clone when
XCOM style game would have worked wonderfully.
Harry Potter is about a mystery set in the magic school with the heavy emphasis on the social interactions with various factions with different motives. The games were just Zelda clones and later, Gears of War clones when something like Bully with the roleplaying mechanics would be appropriate.
Mad Max is basically
Shane (1953) set in the nuclear apocalyptic wasteland with the heavy emphasis on the car action and
the survival theme. The game got the car action right, but there was zero survival element. There was no game equivalent of
Max desperately trying to find a tiny amount of gasoline from the crashed car right after the exciting car chase. but only adding the awkward attempt at mimicking the combat of Arkham games when it should have been
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and
Fallout with cars.
All these games followed the trend in the gaming industry of its time with the added surface level of visual and story flavor of the source material instead of truly optimizing the spirit into the interactive art form. It is similar to how video game movies suffer from the same problem.
Just for fun, I would like to share my thoughts about what would be the ideal movie-licensed video game.
Canceling Boba Fett movie was a wise decision, but the idea could work beautifully as a third person bounty hunter open-world game set in the darkest corners of Coruscant. I know
Star Wars 1313 was going to be just that, but it was unfortunately canceled.
My hope is them buying the assets of similarly
canceled Prey 2 and repurpose it as a Star Wars game. Prey 2 was already pretty much a Boba Fett game as the player plays a bounty hunter in the metropolis full of exotic aliens and crime syndicates colored by vibrant neon aesthetics.
Also, it is unfortunate that there has been no proper Clone Wars game except for
Republic Commando since the setting is perfect for the high octane character action game. You slaughter countless droids, cutting them into tiny pieces on the battlefield. The violence would be no problem as all the enemies are droids.
Metal Gear Rising's sword combat lands perfectly for the lightsaber gameplay with the ability to slice everything including the enemies. Ridiculous scripted events that defy the laws of reality fit right into the Jedi's power. If you do not get what I mean, watch
Gendy Tarkovski's Clone Wars series, which is essentially Metal Gear Rising: The Movie. Even the
Dynasty Warrior style Clone Wars game is fitting with the sense of scale, the battle dynamic, and picking different heroes with different abilities.
The biggest problem of post-
Goldeneye James Bond games is the developers are just trying to make an action shooter with a few gimmicky gadgets and vehicles sections thrown in.
At least EA Bond games were somewhat unique and trying to incorporate James Bond elements, but Activision Bond games were horrible, probably due to the Craig Bond's realistic approach. It is ironic that the Craig films actually introduced more campy Bond icons such as fantastical gadgets, tone, and supercars in
Skyfall and
Spectre when the video games did not. Activision Bond just chased what was popular in gaming.
Quantum of Solace,
Goldeneye Wii,
Legends were a shoddy COD reskin, and
Blood Stone was an Uncharted reskin.
Bond films are not just action blockbuster films. The novels and the best movies in the series have been closer to a hardboiled detective genre, and Fleming was inspired by the classic noir: Talking, investigating, interrogating, etc. Of course, the action, car chase, and gadgets are cool and should be there, but they should not be the core of a Bond game.
Super Bunnyhop pointed out that
Hitman is the best Bond game for the aforementioned reasons, but personally, the crown goes to
Alpha Protocol. Alpha Protocol, despite its flaws and glitches, is the only game I felt like playing as James Bond. My ideal would be some studio to buy its right from SEGA, and remake it as a Bond game with Daniel Craig model, bug fixing, John Barry score (or David Arnold score), and the functional combat system.
EDIT:
There is a Goldeneye 64 mod called
Goldfinger 64. It actually exits and I have played via the emulator myself. Basically, the mod is an attempt to adapt
Goldfinger (1964) film into the FPS like how Goldeneye 64 adapted
Goldeneye (1995), expanding the story and detailing events in the film.
While the visual, music and level designs are absolutely amateurish in some sections, it is surprisingly faithful to the film, a hundred times better than any Activision Bond game and feels like an authentic game Rare would have made in the 90s as an expansion.
My dream is Activision hiring these mod devs and make it into the full game with the modern engine, graphics, controls, and fixing some flaws of the mod. The same objective-based structure and the gameplay of Goldeneye 64. Using the real footage of Goldfinger movie in cutscenes, blending them into the real-time cinematic like how
EA's Lord of the Rings games did with their cinematic. And making a 60s Sean Connery Bond game is not that far-fetched idea you think it would. EA has made
From Russia With Love video game with Sean Connery returning as James Bond. And considering how gigantic Activision has become and the recent revival of classic FPS and spy flicks in Hollywood, they absolutely could pull it off.
Both
Blade Runner films and
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? were moody detective stories deeply rooted in the hardboiled genre (I know I'm repeating this word multiple times but...) with the action bits being rare so
Deus Ex approach would not be a good decision. I also do not think a fully open world game where you drive spinners and go around every area of the city like
Cyberpunk 2077 would bode well.
I'd like to see something like the detective gameplay of
L.A. Noire, collecting clues, and cross-examining people that lead to different paths, combined with
Yakuza's smaller world but highly detailed and quest design. It should avoid a mini-map or point marker to educate the player where to go which would undermine the feeling of detective work.
Example: you found the Moscow ballet wooden figure in the crime scene. You can either 1) Visit Moscow ballet organization and ask about it or 2) contact a wood expert and analyze the figure. They all lead to different paths, making the game is replayable.
Since the films' actions are brief but realistic and hard-hitting, the combat can work like The Last of Us, which depicted the incredibly gritty and raw combat system that every shot the player fired was crucial to the battle dynamic. Also, the automatic machine guns were almost entirely absent and the focus was on the close quarter fighting and the semi-automatic firearms just like Blade Runner movies.
On the story, setting in 2023, bridging the original film to 2049, and exploring days right after the
Blackout in 2022 when the whole country went full chaos and under martial laws due to the EMP strike would be interesting. The player is the Blade Runner tasked to chase who caused and planned the whole Black Out incident and Tyrell Corporation trying to cover it would make a compelling narrative. Side quests are consisted of hunting down Nexus-8 due to the complete Replicant abolition. The player gets to witness how the Blackout impacted the society, how the government responded, how Tyrell fell, the social phobia against the Replicants, and the rise of the Wallace Corporation.
I know
Ghost in the Shell is essentially Blade Runner in the anime form, but unlike Blade Runner, this series is easier to adapt in the video games because of more actions and cyberpunk elements to it.
With that said, the core of GITS is still a detective mystery heavily inspired by Blade Runner with the protagonists being the futuristic police force investigating diverse cyber crimes and terrorism.
There have been many different interpretations of GITS ranging from the original manga to
Mamoru Oshii films,
Stand Alone Complex, and
Arise, all have their own styles, canon, atmospheres, and themes. It should set in either the Oshii universe or the SAC universe as they are the most famous and fleshed out. The manga is not well known and Arise is the easily the worst in the franchise. On aesthetic, I'd want to see the anime-inspired cel-shaded visual like
Guilty Gear and
Kenji Kawai and
Yoko Kano soundtracks are a must.
The game can borrow from
Heavy Rain and
Detroit: Become Human's investigation gameplay--which was the only good part of that game--with finding evidence and the reconstructing the crime scene using the high tech equipment fitting for the cyberpunk setting.
Despite Major Kusanagi having some acrobatic physical abilities enhanced by augments, the way they portrayed them in the films and the TV series was somewhat tactical and grounded to immerse the viewer into the world.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist's fast-paced gadget oriented combat/stealth gameplay is a great template to use.
EDIT:
Based on
Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film, not
Robert A. Heinlein's novel, and ignoring the movie's sequels including
2, 3, Invasion, Traitor of Mars. The movie not only a satire of fascism but was also a warning on the internet culture and how it may be used as propaganda. Why not elevate that theme into the meta-commentary of online streaming such as video game streaming?
The game starts and the menu screen is the off-air message, "Please Stand By" like the streaming is not started yet. Options menu looks like a Smart TV options menu. The player HUD consists of the helmet display and the TV feedback.
Set two decades after the film, the bug war continues similar to how the Afghan war is prolonging. The opening which is the Federation propaganda introduces Rico and Carmen who have honorary discharged and live a happy life as heroes and citizens of the Federation, and encourage young men and women to join the military. It implies that Starship Troopers film was a movie-within-a-movie, propaganda produced by the Federation. It introduces how the researchers of the Federation have invented the powered armor, which was the novel's iconic sci-fi concept that inspired countless sci-fis
Halo and
Metroid's armor but missing from the film, and how it can live stream the combat 24 hr for the entertainment and the propaganda.
You fight in Klendathu and Tango Urilla. The funny advertisements and the propaganda clips famous in the film occasionally interrupt your gameplay.
Like
Bulletstorm, it is the first person shooter and the player's objective is not just defeating enemies, it is about how
cool and
creative you can kill, which is incentivized by
the rating. The citizens of the federation watch your 'playthrough' and every time you do a cool thing, show off, save your comrades, order your teammates (as the player is the squad leader), accomplish the secondary objectives, creating combos, slaughter bugs as fast as possible, the applaud sounds from viewers supplement it, and you earn a bonus from the broadcasting company or the government to buy your new moves or gears for your powered armor. Basically, war as a game to boost the troop's moral and citizens' patriotism.
However, anytime you do friendly fire, see your comrade getting killed by the bugs, or die, they lower the ratings. If the rating is at the bottom of the barrel, the stream is abolished thus game over.
Speaking of Ghostbusters, which I mentioned earlier, despite
NES Ghostbusters' infamous notoriety, the concept was pretty cool. The game makes the player feel like you are managing the small firm: Buying equipment, receiving a request, driving there, and catching a ghost. The modern Ghostbusters games only adapt
catching ghosts part despite the movies equally focused on the formers. One of the major characters' struggles in the first movie was about them fighting the government official regarding the safety of the equipment.
XCOM formula is so perfect for Ghostbusters to the point where Firaxis could buy the right and reskin XCOM with the Ghostbusters theme and it would not feel off. You establish the organization to combat the 'out of this world' forces, recruit the manpower, research techs and create equipment, respond to the call, send the manpower to missions, gain the XP and customize your characters while playing the political game with the government.
All they should do is adapt the combat system to incorporate the ways how the characters fought ghosts in the movies.
So these are my ideal movie-licensed games. What would be yours?