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A while ago here on Barbelith, back when it was still dying, there was a thread about what a Doctor Who video game would be like that made me laugh. I'd not yet bought a second-hand Xbox or immersed myself into console gaming, so it seemed obvious to me: a 2D platform game where you're the Doctor, pixel scarf waving behind you as you run and jump your way through six levels, dodging enemies from Zygons to Cybermen to Daleks, collecting jelly beans for health and sonic screwdrivers to open doors, and at the end of each level you collect a piece of the Tardis. That's what licensed games were when I last played them on the ZX Spectrum. I saw no reason for them to have changed.
In a way they haven't. There's still a licensed game accompanying every big movie, and they're still mostly crap. Transformers: The Game you'd think could be brilliant, given that the movie's about fighting robots that turn into fast vehicles. But by all accounts it sucks just like every Superman game ever has. Cash-ins are cash-ins whether they're for an 8-bit system or a state-of-the-art console.
But there's a new breed of licensed game which really tries hard to do justice to its source material. Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, which I've raved about elsewhere, is one such game. It's hard to imagine how it could have conveyed the powerful joy of being a big green smashing machine more accurately. Hulk jumps onto planes and kicks them into other planes, he leaps and runs up skyscrapers, he rams Hulkbusters face-first into the desert and he whirls tanks around by their barrels before throwing them into the sea. Muttering "Puny humans won't leave Hulk alone!" while throwing a helicopter into a rock formation doesn't get better than this. And the secondary details are taken from Hulk's long history, even if they're tweaked to fit the game's story. The Abomination is the ultimate enemy. General Ross makes an appearance. Doc Samson is on your side. It adds texture to the gameplay, and allows the player's imagination to fill in gaps.
The game comes after a movie tie-in Hulk game by the same developer, I believe. So it was probably conceived as a Hulk game right from the start. But is that how it works? Does a developer get a licence and try to come up with a game that fits, or do they decide to do a game which combines a sandbox with button-mashing combat and then look for a licence to promote it? Could this have been a King Kong, Godzilla or Great Grape Ape game instead?
Rogue Trooper is another example. It's a great licensed game which shows a lot of respect for its subject and uses the opportunities the licence provides well. Setting up Gunnar to provide covering fire while you ambush a bunch of Norts is just like the 2000AD reader imagined. But, realistically, how many Rogue fans are there out there? Was this ever going to win a big audience because of its lead character? Or is it a case of a developer wanting some material to dress up a competent, if unoriginal, third-person shooter with and picking a character off the shelf?
Star Wars licences seem to be among the most important extensions of the universe, with more players than the novels have readers. Matrix games tried to be an extension of that trilogy's universe but failed because of the gameplay. What makes a good licensed game? How do they come about? Are video games stripmining our culture for cheap thrills? Or are the games better than the material they're based on? What are the best games, and the worst? |
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