By Kelmon , 2nd October 8:19 pm
The field of entertainment has seen many meldings of its various fields but with a trend towards films/movies. Books often are used as the basis of film plots or are even turning into movies, usually with dubious results. The same is sometimes true of music, such as with The Beetles’ “Yellow Submarine”, although it can move in other directions as well as can be seen with various on-stage musicals. Video games have also been the subject of such transitions with assorted attempts to bring movies into games (the dreaded “interactive movie”, such as Night Trap on the old Sega CD) and movie versions of games. Initially we may have hoped for great versions of the game that we loved to play but following Street Fighter - The Movie I think we all recognised that the concept was Doomed to failure. Let’s face it, which muppet decided to cast Kylie Minogue as Cammy?
Despite the fact that many games-to-movies have died on their ass this hasn’t stopped Hollywood from trying. Aliens vs. Predator was probably the best known game movie (not seen) and they seem to keep cranking out Resident Evil films regardless of whether they were well received or did well at the box office (not seen either). Doom, however, is about to hit the screen in the US and I decided to check out the recently released trailer and it looks like we’re getting a First Person Movie.
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By Holliday , 7th August 6:27 am
A couple weeks ago I was buying a new book and CD on amazon.com. The total came just shy of $25. If you spend over $25 on amazon.com you get free “super saver” shipping. The saver shipping is pretty slow (5-13 days I think), buy I was in no hurry. So I hunted around for something small I had been meaning to buy to get the free shipping. I stumbled upon The Longest Journey.
This game is something I have been meaning to buy for years. Adventure gaming has never been my forte but for some reason I’ve always wanted to play this game. However, its shelf life in game stores was about a month if that. Now it seems to only exist in obscure bargain bins or online. Thankfully I grabbed it before it dissappeared forever.
The Longest Journey is less of a game and more of an experience. Something I think everyone should play, not just gamers. It is not to say that there is no gameplay there, but it takes a backseat to the extrodinary story, world and presentation. Immersive just isn’t the word.
Anyways Dreamfall is soon to land (the sequel). An interesting aspect of the game’s development is that Dreamfall was produced on a grant from the Norwegian government. More specifically the Norwegian Film Fund ponied up the money to get the game made. The Longest Journey never sold terribly well; adventure gaming is far past its glory days. This marks one of the first times a government has taken active interest in gaming as a productive and meaningful medium. I just thought with the current blaze of criticism on games (Jack Thompson, Hot Coffee etc) it would be refreshing to remind people how far we’ve come.
By Plagiarize , 27th July 2:55 am
With all the recent hullabaloo over sex and violence in gaming, it’s easy to forget that gaming is on it’s way to being the entertainment industry. It’s revenues outstip cinema, and whether or not Jack Thompson likes it, with each year the ‘gaming generation’ gets nearer to being the parents, and then the politicians. Anything that may happen this decade that unfairly treats gaming has fourty years maximum until we, the game generation, are the politicians, but that’s a topic for another day. My point is, gaming is here to stay, even though it’s still considered the black sheep of the family.
Which probably explains what I really want to talk about: The complete lack of promotion regarding Hollywood voice talent.
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By Vermouth , 2nd July 5:40 am
I will admit this right away. I’m not a lawyer, judge, or legal expert of any kind. If I get anything wrong here feel free to let me know if you’re more knowledgeable than me for legal matters. I’m going to take Ben Franklin’s advice and doubt my own infallibility and say that while I was hoping Grokster would win, the US Supreme Court issued a good bit of case law in MGM v Grokster. My only qualification for making commentary is as an interested bystander in such things and as a amateur historian. Everyone feared that they would overturn the protections granted to the consumer in the Betamax Case and those are safe.
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By Vermouth , 16th June 2:36 pm
I don’t really have a “Summer Vacation” per se, aside from the humidity here in central Florida, and the threat of hurricanes, perhaps the worst thing about the Summer time is that there really aren’t many big games being released. So when I’m not working, these are the things I’m going to be enjoying this summer. Some involve games, some do not.
» Read all of “How I’ll spend my Summer Vacation“…
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