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Editor's note: Evan pokes holes in the stereotype that all movie-based games are crap by examining two games inspired by horrific films. Granted, they won't end up on anyone's top 10 list, but do they show that you can't always judge a game by its cover — or by the movie it's based on. -Brett
The general rule about video games based on movies is that they're not very good. While it's nice to talk about the rare successes (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) and fun to rip on the mind-boggling failures (Street Fighter: The Movie), I'm here to talk about a smaller group: licensed games that just missed being awesome.
These are games that effectively duplicate the spirit of their source material but get bogged down by bad design choices or terrible gameplay. I'll take a look at what these games do right ("Hits") and how they mess things up ("Shits"). And since it's Horror Week, I've chosen two games based on terrifying movies: The Thing and Saw.
The Thing
Computer Artworks' 2002 video game "sequel" to John Carpenter's classic film has you trudging across Antarctica, trying to escape while under the constant threat of attack from the eponymous shape-shifting alien.
Hits:
The concept of trust is central to the movie, and the game's "trust system" recreates some of that tension. Friendly NPCs won't help you unless you give them weapons or administer a blood test to prove you are not infected. Really though, it's you who shouldn't trust them, since every once in a while you'll find yourself fighting a Thing, only to discover that your companion has "popped" and joined in against you.
The game also shows a lot of attention to detail when including locations and elements from the movie. Both the American and Norwegian camps are replicated perfectly, and just like in the movie, the only way to get rid of Things is by burning them.
Finally, the game is just fun to play. The controls are good, the environments are creepy, and the music is foreboding. It's a well-crafted action game that just happens to be based on an awesome movie.
Shits:
The game's biggest misstep is how it deals with The Thing itself. Almost every friendly NPC you meet turns into The Thing just before you fight a boss, so there's no guesswork and ultimately no suspense.
The second problem is that if you're playing the game well, the trust system will never come into play. Of course you're going to arm your party members; there are fucking monsters out there. And of course you're not going to shoot your buddies instead of The Thing; they're your buddies — or they are until you cross that invisible trip wire and they become The Thing. And then of course it's perfectly acceptable to shoot them.
While I'll admit that I once used a stun gun on a guy until he became so convinced I was an alien that he ran into a corner and shot himself in the head, there was no in-game reason for me to do so. The trust system in The Thing is a little bit like the insanity effects in Eternal Darkness: You actually have to play the game poorly to see them work.
Also absent is the connections between characters so integral to the movie. While the guys in the movie didn't necessarily like each other, they at least knew each other well enough to have an expectation of how they should behave, and that made the moment when someone was revealed as The Thing not only scary, but also a betrayal of sorts. Not so in the game: You find NPCs, you walk with them a while, they die, and then you find some more. There is no attempt at character development.
Kurt Russell's hat has more character than the people in the game.
Saw: The Video Game
This recently released game based on the cult-popular horror series fills in some of the time between the first and second movies. You avoid traps, solve puzzles, and rescue victims from hellish mechanical devices, all the while trying to escape from the obligatory Giant Abandoned Building.
Hits:
Saw initially does an excellent job of capturing the tone and feel of the movies. The environment is suitably grimy and spooky, and solving the first few "set piece" traps is enjoyably frantic.
Also worth noting is Tobin Bell's performance as Jigsaw, which not only lends the game a substantial amount of credibility, but is also the only good voice work in the game.
Shits:
In Saw, as in The Thing, there are just too damn many people. Jigsaw has somehow abducted several dozen "goons" and thrown them in with you, just to mix things up. Unfortunately, the game's combat system feels like the unholy lovechild of Resident Evil and Silent Hill — a child they then dropped repeatedly on the head. So getting past those goons is a huge chore.
The game also runs out of ideas at the end, so it just starts reusing stuff over and over. And then, for some inexplicable reason, it makes you play Concentration. Seriously: you have to match pictures together on a big screen, and if you miss, a guy gets impaled with iron rods. After the game's relatively strong opening, this part in particular was a huge letdown.
There is also no real benefit to "solving" the traps, since anyone you rescue is either killed or taken away almost immediately afterwards. All success really gets you is the ability to move on, which you technically could have done even if the NPCs had died. Friendly characters are little more than McGuffins with terrible voice acting.
Despite Saw's flaws, this photo proves there are less entertaining ways to "play saw."
At the end of the day, of course, the smart money says that there will continue to be as many bad games based on movies as there are bad movies based on games. And a mediocre game will be a mediocre game, regardless of the source material.
