Usually if we see a movie adapted as a video game, it's just merchandise tied into the film's release and those are almost invariably terrible. So I don't think those count.
But we're getting to the point where video games are getting more than capable of telling some interesting narratives. And I think it'd be interesting to see video games trying their hands at some classic stories, putting the player in the role of an iconic character.
So what stories would you like to see interpreted as a video game? I'm interested in hearing a few ideas.
I think I Am Legend could make a fantastic video game. It's been adapted as a film a few times, but it's never quite worked. Most recently because they completely changed (and ruined) the ending in the Will Smith film, along with ruining the vampires. The rest of this post will feature spoilers for the actual I Am Legend story, so avert your eyes if you've never read or heard about it and if you care about such things.
In the novel, the protagonist spends his days repairing the defenses around his house, looks for supplies to keep him alive and seeks out vampires in their homes and staking them while they sleep. At night the vampires show up at his house and yell abuse at him, and try to break down the house's defenses to get in at him. The most memorable part of the novel though is the ending, when the protagonist realises that the vampires have developed their own society now and that he has become the strange creature, who murders people as they sleep and strikes terror in the heart of society. He's become the new vampire in a way.
I think this story would work really well as a video game both from a gameplay perspective and a narrative perspective.
First of all, the gameplay. I see this as an open world game where you have a certain set amount of time between dawn and nightfall to accomplish whatever tasks you wish. You can mend your house, or you can go looking for collectibles and trying to find the hiding places of sleeping vampires. You can prioritise whichever task you want, but if you neglect fixing your defenses for too long, one night the vampires are definitely going to get in. And then you're fucked.
Also if you don't make it back home by nightfall, you need to find somewhere else to hide. And that place will be far less well defended. A lot of the gameplay would hinge on making the vampires extremely difficult to kill. Basically if you end up in a one on one confrontation with one, you're dead every time, unless you've set some kind of trap for them. This keeps the focus on survival and stealth rather than action.
The narrative would work really well in a game too though, because we have all been programmed to just kill everything in video games without thinking. It would be a natural move to kill the vampires without thinking. Then as the game progresses and you explore the open world, you would start to see some hints that they're not quite the monsters you thought they were. You could find notes talking about an evil monster that comes at night, and at first it would be easy to think of the monster as one of the vampires, before the entire area had been effected. But gradually you would realise it was you.
I dunno, I just think it'd be really cool. If the game was actually called I Am Legend then it wouldn't have a huge surprise factor for most people, but the story could be loosely adapted in a game with another title. And even without the surprise factor, I still think it'd be a compelling narrative to play out yourself.
Any other suggestions?
