Rock, Paper, Shotgun

16/12/2008 at 22:39 McCool says:

I want to die.

16/12/2008 at 22:44 iLIKETRAINS says:

I want them to die.

16/12/2008 at 22:47 LewieP says:

but who watches them

16/12/2008 at 22:55 A Button says:

You say the video game industry completely missed the point? That they made an awful-looking brawler instead of an interesting game?

What a delightful jest.

16/12/2008 at 22:56 Grandstone says:

hooraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay fascism

16/12/2008 at 23:04 Man Raised By Puffins says:

Ooh, electric men and moodily lit hands-in-pockets action. I’m sold.

16/12/2008 at 23:12 roBurky says:

I’m not sure what’s surprising here. This is what they said it would be in the first announcement.

16/12/2008 at 23:17 Pags says:

Sometimes all you can do is laugh.

16/12/2008 at 23:31 unwise says:

I would play any Anna Karenina game, no matter how loosely associated, but I suspect that such a characteristic does not place me within a particularly significant demographic.

16/12/2008 at 23:42 Cat Vincent says:

” turn Anna Karenina into a Railroad Tycoon clone.”
Not Tycoon.
A Call of Cthulhu game would do nicely.
Followed by;
Sense and Sensibility:Castlevania (the Golddiggers of 1820 meet the Alucard family while seeking marriage prospects…)

16/12/2008 at 23:46 A-Scale says:

Nice Anna Karenina reference!

16/12/2008 at 23:50 Pags says:

What other inappropriate game adaptions would you like to see RPS? I’d quite like to see an FPSRPG based on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue; BBC radio is a vast, untapped source of inspiration.

17/12/2008 at 00:04 Mark says:

shouldn’t the Watchmen game be like.. an adventure game or something, not a beat-em up?

17/12/2008 at 00:12 Tei says:

If you buy a game, based on a novel, and is nothing like the novel. Can you get your money back?.
What is lost in traslation here? the ambient,.. and.. is really lost? what more is lost in translation? the point of the novel? the points is like a historic pesimist (read the Ozymandias poem). So.. what? …

17/12/2008 at 00:13 manintheshack says:

‘shouldn’t the Watchmen game be like.. an adventure game or something, not a beat-em up?’

Everybody knows adventure games aren’t down with the kids.

What other inappropriate game adaptions would you like to see RPS?

I’d like to see Once Upon a Time in the West as a slapstick rail shooter on the Wii. Instead of the Bronson/Fonda duel at the end, you compete to see who can play keepy uppy with a coke can longest…

17/12/2008 at 00:26 an ape says:

The state of the gaming industry sometimes make me sad. This is one of those times.

17/12/2008 at 00:33 Pags says:

@Idle Hands: you mean we don’t play Raskolnikov in the Crime & Punishment game? Here was me visualising a GoW-style shoulder-shooter, with axe-murdering instead of chainsaw-guns.

17/12/2008 at 00:40 IdleHands says:

@Pags
Oh I like that idea better. I was trying to get into the mindset of a game developer that misses the point of the original source, i.e. changing the Raskolnikov character into a more likeable anti-hero character that delivers violent justice for the players to connect with.

@Psychopomp
Like Uwe Boll

17/12/2008 at 00:49 Resin says:

Metamorphosis as a platform side scroller
The Yellow Wallpaper – a horror based RPG
Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters / Seymour an Introduction – a Glass family Simms
Gravity’s Rainbow – WWII FPS with an RPG twist
The Road – survival FPSRPG

17/12/2008 at 00:58 The Poisoned Sponge says:

I dread to think what’ll happen if anyone does 1984 as a film… again. Or Brave New World. Everyone’s starting to love Dystopias, so it’s only a matter of time.

17/12/2008 at 01:26 Pidesco says:

Of Mice and Men: The Fighting Game.

17/12/2008 at 01:30 john t says:

Gravity’s Rainbow: The FPS
Infinite Jest: The Graphic Adventure
House of Leaves: Survival Horror

17/12/2008 at 01:51 Bhazor says:

Reply to Gap Gen

“Hell, there’s no reason to do a film of the comic other than to wring money from people.”
That is a pretty popular decision.

Crime and Punishment the Sierra style point and click adventure game.
>Use violence on woman
You have been struck down by existentialist doubt. (25 out of 300 points)

17/12/2008 at 02:53 Tim says:

I saw an ad for the graphic novel in a bookstore, it said “read it before they ruin it!”

17/12/2008 at 03:03 Nimdok says:

I got no problem with this, if only because I see it as a brawler. Watchmen wasn’t the best comic to begin with, and this just gives some reason to care…

17/12/2008 at 03:11 Frito says:

Romeo and Juliet, the dating sim.
A Critique of Pure Reason-the FPS
Lord of the Flies-the tactical RTS
Dante’s Inferno, the action game.
Nah, no one would be that dumb.

But seriously, where is my Dune MMORPG?

17/12/2008 at 03:57 Radiant says:

Tom Clancy…oh wait shit.

17/12/2008 at 04:27 MrFake says:

I’d like to think this is a poetic use of the Watchmen license, considering Moore’s near universal reaction to “adaptations” of his work. Meta-art realized in video game production, really.

But, in reality, it’s just merely validating Moore’s licensure reticence yet again.

17/12/2008 at 04:31 James T says:

An RTS based on Spike Milligan’s war memoirs would be the FUNNIEST RTS EVER! And simultaeneously the saddest. Ahh Spike.

When are we going to see a rhythm-game based on the Frost/Nixon interview?

17/12/2008 at 04:35 SofS says:

The Satanic Verses – rhythm game with DDR pad
The Man in the High Castle – MMORPG (consult the I Ching to get your quests, maybe?)
Wuthering Heights – dating sim

17/12/2008 at 05:00 Muzman says:

Even if the movie is good, this kind of thing will justify Alan Moore’s rage quite nicely.

I wan a Catcher in the Rye game but its sort of a Hitman clone where you read the book and then try to assassinate people.

17/12/2008 at 05:44 john t says:

Finnegans Wake: The Text Adventure
Godel Escher and Bach: the action platformer.
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle: Meatpacking Tycoon.

Also, the Catcher in the Rye game idea made me spit soda.

———-
Actually what’s interesting about trying to think of these is how many seemingly incongruous combinations actually sound like good games when you say them out loud.

17/12/2008 at 05:59 Nimdok says:

We can’t forget the epic RTS/Squad-level-command magnum opus that would be 2112: Sins Of A Solar Federation

Coming to an XBox 360 near you…

17/12/2008 at 07:27 JM says:

Psychopomp (nice name, by the way):

That… that doesn’t sound [i]too[/i] bad. I mean, it could be good.

But back on topic, I think this game doesn’t look too terrible. Sure, the video shows an amount of wrestling that makes me nervous, but they seemed to have a good handle on the characters’ personalities. Like, the way Rorschach runs around, for instance.

If this game has some genuine depth, other than what is shown in the video, it could be decent…

17/12/2008 at 07:43 Tei says:

The Count of Monte Cristo – Train braining game

17/12/2008 at 08:07 Jazmeister says:

I don’t get the problem. Maybe I’m too sleepy. Watchmen was a great comic, just like His Dark Materials were good films. The actual mechanics of movie-to-game releases isn’t what worries me; it’s the glitches and gaps and general botchedness that bring them down. I’d play a Half-Life pinball game if it was fun to play. They need to show a video of the relentless boredom, or crappy textures. Brawling is what rorsarch spends half his awesome doing. The other half is insane conspiracy, obv.

17/12/2008 at 09:21 manintheshack says:

‘The Man in the High Castle – MMORPG (consult the I Ching to get your quests, maybe?)’

Erm, that’s actually a really good idea… I imagine anyone willing enough to bring the less popularised works of Dick to game would do a faithful job, and how fucking cool would it be?!

Buy the licence! Sell the rights! Make the game! Possibly break my heart! Meh, best not to get carried away. I don’t even like MuhMorPuhGuhs anyway.

17/12/2008 at 09:41 The Rev Owen says:

Kramer Vs. Kramer Vs. Mortal Kombat – No explanation needed, I don’t think.
The Sims 2: Chainsaw Massacre! Expansion – Actually, this one could be excellent for people that play The Sims that way.
Resdent Evil 6: A Spoonful of Sugar – A prequel in which we learn that Mary Poppins was the original founder of Umbrella Corp.
Schindler’s List: Sniper Elite – Sorry.
Burnout Paradise: David Cronenberg’s Crash Special Edition – A special Wii edition of Burnout Paradise, in which you have to waggle the Wiimote furiously during the slo-mo crash scenes.
Dance Dance Revolution in the Dark – I think it speaks for itself.
The Wicker Man: Let’s Go To Summerisle – Animal Crossing, but in Summerisle. Obviously. What’s that they’re building over by the cliff?
Shadow of the Iron Giant – Befriend the misunderstood Iron Giant, then climb up and STAB HIS BRAIN OUT.
Secretary Spankathon – Another motion-controlled Wii game.
Street Fighter Vs. Time Bandits – ‘Nuff said.

17/12/2008 at 09:43 Cedge says:

Eh, looks fine by me. I’ll play it via Steam, for sure. And yeah, Yes, I’m a huge Watchmen fan, but I’m not the sort of nerd who gets into conniption fits when something I’m fond of gets adapted to another medium, and it’s not perfectly true to the source material. I’m hugely looking forward to the film; biggest movie for me in quite some time.

The point of these “Property Title: Unlikely Game Genre Adaptation” comments eludes me. I mean, if not a beat-em-up set in the period during which Rory and Nite Owl were, well, beating up a lot criminals, then what else?

17/12/2008 at 10:06 Man Raised By Puffins says:

Gravity’s Rainbow – WWII FPS with an RPG twist

That’s more impossible rather than inappropriate though. Still, if some Russian developers drove themselves insane and thrashed out an un-hinged broken epic of an adaptation I’d be interested.

17/12/2008 at 10:24 Iain says:

@Gap Gen: You mean like the film of Starship Troopers that was basically a piss-take of the book?

It’s not quite as simple as that – the book and the film do share a lot of commonality – particularly in the portrayal of the egalitarianism of the society (that is, there is only one form of social stratification – the two-tier system of citizens and non-citizens). The film is more of a condemnation of the “violence solves everything” approach of American foreign policy and a social satire (the idea of taking really young and beautiful people and then getting them ground to pieces in a war) than a statement on the book. Indeed, Verhoeven gave up on the book about halfway through and just used the setting and broad strokes from the plot of the book. I can heartily recommend listening to the director’s commentary on Starship Troopers – Verhoeven and the American producers have a real ding-dong when Verhoeven starts trashing US foreign policy and makes parallels to the Federation’s approach in the film.

Getting back on topic – I didn’t really have much hope for a Watchmen game (though I am cautiously optimistic about the film) – it just looks like the standard by-the-numbers cash-in to me. If they were going to do a game that takes place before the main story, they should have done Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam. That could have been fun.

17/12/2008 at 10:38 Bhazor says:

Oh don’t try to defend Starship Troopers. It was truly truly gash.

Denise Richards (!) becomes commander of a battle cruiser in the time it takes Rico to learn how to use his helmet. Despite training to fight bugs all the drills involve fighting against humans and Rico essentially just ricochets cock first from woman to woman. Also marine armour is utterly worthless and where the dickens are the flying suits?

Denise Richards becomes an Admiral. Denise! Richards!

17/12/2008 at 10:56 SofS says:

The point of these “Property Title: Unlikely Game Genre Adaptation” comments eludes me. I mean, if not a beat-em-up set in the period during which Rory and Nite Owl were, well, beating up a lot criminals, then what else?

I think that said comments aren’t really about the trailer at this point. This tangent has legs and it knows how to use them. That said, I think the answer to your likely rhetorical question would generally be “nothing” or “an adventure game”. Watchmen isn’t an action story, so the idea of making an action game related to it doesn’t sit very well. As the trailer shows nothing but fighting, it’s impossible to know for sure whether or not the game will have decent writing or any self-awareness about it. The hallmark of Watchmen is its masterful, clear-sighted writing, and a game (and/or movie) adaptation that didn’t feature it would come off badly compared to something with similar mechanics that better realized its source material. Honestly, I’m not holding out any hope for the movie or the game, but I’m quite willing to be pleasantly surprised.

17/12/2008 at 10:59 clive dunn says:

William Burroughs’ The Naked Lunch.

A multiplayer FPS populated by all the penis monsters that EA banned from Spore.

17/12/2008 at 11:15 Carey says:

And there was a guy poking a big slimey brain thing with a stick.

17/12/2008 at 11:37 Tom Crowley says:

Ah well. This was never going to be particularly great. Still holding out hope for the film, but the videogame tie-in was a) inevitable and b) inevitably going to be deeply average.

Though there’s always going to be a little bit of me that would like to play as Rorschach and break some fingers.

17/12/2008 at 12:04 Adam Hepton says:

# Edie Sedgwick! Anna Karenina! Arlene Dahl!
# I just want to be a sweetheart!
# I just want to be a sweetheart!

17/12/2008 at 12:18 Gap Gen says:

“Also marine armour is utterly worthless and where the dickens are the flying suits?”

Yes, unlike Battlestar Galactica, I suspect the grossly anachronistic weaponry and armour (given that they have warp drives or whatever) is, again, a comment on sending people to die in pointless real wars like Iraq (where, coincidentally, there were complaints of insufficient body and vehicle armour) rather than a genuine failure to think properly about future technology.

17/12/2008 at 12:49 phil says:

The unisex showers were one of the finest ideas in the movie, beyond the obvious reasons it underlined how utterly dehumanised MI were, ignoring each other and their own fundamental desires.

Equally having a middle aged black woman in a Fuhrer suit, complete with cap, as the supreme military leader, was a perfect visual representation of how the ideas of facism can evolve.

Starship Trooper is possibly the most ironic movie Hollywood has ever financied. It sequels, by gloriously missing the point, underline the archness of the first film.

Books as games – how about the Confessions of An English Opium Eater as a pac-man clone?

17/12/2008 at 12:56 Gap Gen says:

Angela’s Ashes – an adventure game where you struggle to survive in crippling, soul-eating poverty.

17/12/2008 at 13:14 Iain says:

@Kieron: Starship Troopers is a terrific piece of cinema, because it works on two levels. As a pure action flick, it’s very effective, as it’s got some brilliant set pieces and there’s just enough characterisation for you to be able to care about the characters.
But the real brilliance of the film is in the subtext. A lot of it comes from Verhoeven himself (who grew up during the Nazi occupation of Holland during the second World War) – he makes parallels between the Nazis and the Federation, uses a lot of fascist symbology in the uniforms and in the newscasts and then makes a further connection between the American neo-con imperialist agenda in the Middle East (again, this is very clearly stated in the director’s commentary). There’s a double irony in that the All-American Heroes are actually Argentinian (they come from Buenos Aires) and there’s also a clear implication that it’s the Bugs who are acting in self-defense, not humanity.

I’m not sure it’s a case of the film being intentionally disrespectful to the source material – when I read the book, I certainly didn’t get the impression that Heinlein was presenting the model of the Federation as a social ideal (though obviously there are a few things, such as the equality between all races and genders that were) and I certainly don’t buy the anti-Heinlein Bugs = Jews argument… I didn’t get that at all from the book – more that while Heinlein was a social theorist (lots of his books explore alternative social models), Verhoeven is a social satirist and likes to poke holes in America’s innate sense of superiority.

17/12/2008 at 13:36 Ginger Yellow says:

“I imagine anyone willing enough to bring the less popularised works of Dick to game would do a faithful job, and how fucking cool would it be?!”

Oh, don’t tempt me so!

Confessions of a Crap Artist – the Bejeweled clone
Ubik – the afterlife management sim
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch – Can-D Wars

Also, I add my support to Starship Troopers. One of the best satires of the 90s.

17/12/2008 at 13:43 Gap Gen says:

Starship Troopers was a dull, poorly-structured book anyway.

17/12/2008 at 14:14 Jochen Scheisse says:

Well, as everything else about Starship Troopers has already been said, IMO it belongs to the category of movies that you can see sober, drunk, and stoned, and essentially view 3 different movies.

17/12/2008 at 14:41 phil says:

@Lars Westergren – Your friends are right. The book, whilst well writen and pacy, with a great survival tips if you ever find yourself naked on a mountain, is just horrible in terms of the politics.

The protagonist’s father for example, starts out a liberal pacifist and ends up as the protagonist’s subordinate staff sargent. The whole ‘young teaching the old (to be more violently nationalistic)’ theme was a favourite of totalitarians of all stripes.

@Iain – They are UTTERLY dehumanised; Johnny and the rest change from all American (who happen to live in Argentia) red blooded stereotypes to unfeeling storm troopers of death, who’d rather ‘kill bugs good’ and torture other sentient life than have sex. The shower scene was Vanderhoeven raming his point home with his normal subtle, whilst no doubt providing the studio with the contractually stipulated T & A.

17/12/2008 at 14:56 Iain says:

@phil: Hmm. The scene takes place far too early in their training for any dehumanisation process to have taken much effect. The scene is there to provide character exposition more than anything, though if you’re looking for a social subtext, I took the message from the scene that the society has mixed showers because there’s no reason to segregate – everyone is equal. There’s also a more disturbing parallel here to the “showers” in places like Auschwitz, too. There wasn’t any gender segregation going on there, either…

Though you are correct – by nature, military training is a dehumanising process – otherwise you can’t get people to go into combat and kill (see also: Parris Island in Full Metal Jacket).

17/12/2008 at 15:37 manintheshack says:

@ IdleHands: For the love of God, watch Granny. It’s possibly the best bad film I’ve ever seen.

17/12/2008 at 16:06 Gap Gen says:

I don’t think Heinlein ever fought, anyway. From what I hear he was ill and didn’t serve in the end.

17/12/2008 at 16:35 Pags says:

It amuses me that this comments thread has turned into two things:

a) Ridiculous suggestions for inappropriate game adaptations
b) A running commentary on Starship Troopers

To think we have so little faith in the Watchmen game we would actively go out of our way to discuss other things when time comes to accepting it’s existence.

17/12/2008 at 16:56 Paul Moloney says:

Starship Trooper is indeed a great movie on both levels. It’s ironic that the right-wing “Service guarantees citizenship” idea has been taken up by some on the anti-war side ; you know, the idea that a government of non-soldiers cannot legitimately send soldiers into battle.

Would You Like To Know More?

P.

17/12/2008 at 17:37 aperson says:

I hate my life.

17/12/2008 at 17:49 K says:

Anne Frank’s Squad-based Tactical Shooter.

17/12/2008 at 18:13 Hater says:

this looks like absolute shit. And what’s the deal about the special moves? They look retarded like hell. Really, really retarded. Not only they are not recapturing the charm of the (few, but present) action sequences from the comic book, they look extremely silly and shitty.

What an horrible game

17/12/2008 at 18:48 ordteapot says:

Also, I always imagined Gravity’s Rainbow as an adventuring Deus Ex mod with chronically obscure puzzles.

17/12/2008 at 18:59 phil says:

@Christain – Neither did Terence Trent D’Arby, your point?

17/12/2008 at 19:21 phil says:

Ah, I’d apologise but ‘Some things, once they’re busted, they can’t ever be fixed.’

17/12/2008 at 22:09 Dan says:

There are far too many comments to read.

All I will say is that Rorschach is a fucking sociopath. If that isn’t what the game is about, then they can fornicate themselves with a big iron stick.

17/12/2008 at 23:09 Quater says:

@ Anesthesia: No! A Phoenix Wright game based on Kafka’s The Trial XD (althogh Phoenix Wright represents enough of a Kafkaesque perverse and nonsensical mockery of the justice system as it is).

I still think next to the unbelievable, inexcusable and generally fucking disgraceful bastardisation of Dante’s Inferno (which, to repeat myself, is an atrocity against art) this is comparatively easy to deal with. No way in hell I’m ever playing it though, or watching videos of it or even accepting the idea that it exists at all.

18/12/2008 at 03:25 BlahBlahBlah says:

> Ubik – the afterlife management sim

There is already a very little known Ubik game. It is something of an Action+RPG+Tactical game that sucks.

18/12/2008 at 06:56 James T says:

How do you figure?

18/12/2008 at 11:16 phil says:

@Koldunas – I don’t think this thread qualifies for internet anger, there’s too much debate and not enough exclamation marks. I’ll concede that it does contain frequent references to Nazis.

@Iain – Rico’s dad and his voteless, non-combatant friends have plenty in what appears to be a time of plenty. As they don’t have votes, what’s to stop the MI changing this situation very rapidly should the time of plenty end?

What I find insidious in the book is that decision is framed in exactly that ‘you have to do your part’ argument – ignoring that in the process of ‘doing your part’ you are placed in the ‘meat grinder’ and emerged changed – in some ways less human than when you went in, certainly more willing to commit acts with sympathy or remorse. For me the film took this idea and ran with it, and was all the better for it.

@Funky – On the evidence of ST I’d call Heinlem a totalitarian apologist rather than a Nazi – that he could express other view points will equal skill is lovely, though does excuse him from the lack of counter points in ST. Also, Paddy Ashdown would probably have lost to Iain Duncan Smith.

19/12/2008 at 05:45 SofS says:

Cedge: That confusion probably does account for some of the disdain towards this game. I was aware that it was set before the events of the comic and therefore not doomed to being utterly absurd.

I think the problem with this game, thus far (aside from being totally unnecessary and therefore needing to prove itself from the ground up), is that it hasn’t shown any signs of having what makes everybody love the comic so much. Watchmen achieved many things, among them extremely deep characterization; in fact, I would say that any success this game enjoys would be predicated largely on the audience’s familiarity with its characters. The only reason anyone would really care right now is that we all know Rorschach and Nite Owl II. If the developers somehow managed to absolutely nail their characterization and give them a good, moody, ambiguous plot to go through, it would be a great success for tie-ins, which everyone justifiably hates based on prior experiences. The trailer focused only on stylish fighting, so I’ll stick with my skepticism.
The funny thing is that I rather like this genre and would probably be openly interested if it were using an original fiction. I’d probably even be fine if Alan Moore had actually been behind this sort of thing. He hates these adaptations for reasons that I entirely agree with, and it doesn’t sit very well with me that his work gets adapted by whoever has enough money to get the options. All I’m saying is that the stakes are high.

Also, my earlier comment about an adventure game being more appropriate definitely doesn’t apply to the plot of the comic. I was thinking that it would work for the period they’re using for this game, where a story could be made without everyone knowing what happens next. I just don’t see these guys operating by beating up legions of mooks, you know? It’d be more like a few interrogations, a few dangerous scraps, and then some sort of set-piece at the end.

As for that link about the movie: it sounds fine, but a bit uninspiring. I think the only thing that can really make this work is fantastic acting, so I’m hoping for that.

Finally: having just watched that Dante’s Inferno trailer, I’m entirely unconvinced that it isn’t a joke. If it’s for real, it is absolutely the worst idea I’ve ever heard of related to gaming.

24/12/2008 at 16:25 Hypocee says:

What totalitarianism? Perhaps you guys mean authoritarianism. And waaaay upthread, actually The Forever War is a book about armoured infantry being sent to their horrible deaths despite being hopelessly obsolete. In ST the reasons for the MI’s existence, and their adaptation to a role in the bug war, are firmly pinned down – ‘you don’t spank with an axe’ and ‘glassing doesn’t bother them much’ respectively.

24/12/2008 at 19:37 Doc MacRae says:

I’m disappointed that people are judging Heinlein’s politics on one book some of them have never even read. A Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Red Planet, and others of his books are strongly anti-authoritarian.

I’d also like to point out that in the society of Starship Trooper, service didn’t have to be military – essentially community service (though more difficult than contemporary community service) was also acceptable.

Also also I enjoyed the Forever War as well.