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Harry Potter Gets Azkaban Game, Stone Brickbats
Thanks to TotalVideoGames for its article revealing EA's announcement of the Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban game adaptation, due some time in 2004 and giving fans "the first chance to play as friends Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, along with Harry Potter, switching between characters and utilising their key attributes and skills to resolve challenges." An interview with the game's producer over at IGN Cube further reveals players "will also get the opportunity to control Hedwig and to fly Buckbeak, the Hippogriff", and this internally-developed EA title will hopefully work better than the recent Warthog-developed Sorceror's Stone adaptation, of which 1UP commented it was "a mystery why anyone would want such an imaginative world filtered through trappings as bad as these", and IGN PS2 lamented was "strangely nowhere as compelling or refined as Chamber of Secrets."
Are there any good ones, for PC or otherwise?
In my, admittedly limited, experience with games based on movies, they all too often really suck. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that we're paying money to simply interact with on-screen characters as opposed to having a creative and innovative plot and interface. The Star Wars franchise, for example, seems to be so focused on porting every movie and book story to video game that they don't bother with the kind of inventiveness and follow-through that mark pure video games, such as Wolfenstein, Warcraft, or Simcity.
Anyone else have similar experiences with movie ports? Were either of the first two Harry Potter games any good?
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We're waiting for the "Order of the Phoenix" game, where we Slashdotters can play the fat smelly house-elf who grumps about everything. It's hardly a stretch at all.
One flick of the wand:
Mammarium INFLATIUM!/I.
I think Ebert said it best when he mentioned that she was in "the early stages of babehood".
She's about 13 I guess, so we'll have to wait a few years to see if she shines or burns out (think Dana Plato). I can't remember a child star that did well past puberty.
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I can't remember a child star that did well past puberty.
Dude. Come on.
That's an obvious one. Punky Brewster is also quite the piece. Not to mention Nikki Cox. Dear, sweet Jesus.
El riesgo vive siempre!
Drew Barrymore grew up to be a beautiful woman. Provided the standards are loosened like a sailor's morals in Bangkok.
We all want to be able to play as Frank Bryce!! Then we can go into the local pub and slaughter all those people that are talking bad about us. Especialy that dot person...
I never did beat V. And there was no quick way in, either...
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
...reminds me of the old Day of the Tentacle game where you could swap between characters as the game progressed. I'll assume that the only difference between Maniac Mansion/DotT will be that they were great and the Potter games...well...will suck for sute :(
Hudson. Hawk.
'Nuff said. =P
I can't remember a child star that did well past puberty.
Natalie Portman! Hot Grits!
Ok, now that I re-read my post, I wasn't clear enough. Yes, all those actresses you mention are quite an eyeful, but they all became involved in projects that stink to high heaven.
Punky Brewster? Besides that show, I only remember her in a baaaad movie about a professor accused of murdering or some shuch.
Alyssa Milano: Rent poison ivy 2. Quite hot, she is, but besides "Charmed", I don't think she's been in anything good.
Nikki Cox: hotness! Limited to bad sitcoms, apparently.
Dana Plato was quite hot (she acted in a softcore movie were she showed everything and engaged in some girl on girl action) until she started hitting drugstores and drugs themselves wich led to her demise.
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DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
Why they haven't just put out a Harry Potter RPG. You could either set it a few hundred years before hand, in the rich for story telling era of the original wizards, or set it around the time of everyone's parents.
You could choose your character's stats, or have them randomly generated.. going through, exploring the school and surrounding area, and moving on. You could spend the time there learning magic and fighting mythical monsters, enjoying it all the way. It'd be like KOTOR, but for Happy Potter.
Instead, EA rapes the licence to the game. We get games that are even more cut up than the movie adaptations, forcing our characters to move along linear paths to a conclusion we already know. It's boring, made worse by the fact that we have to endure horrible gameplay to get between the linear points of the story. EA will only go for the safe money with the licence, and us gamers will lose out because the only thing they can do is make crap game software that looks and plays like a shitty PS2 game.
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HP is satanic! Everyone know it!!!
Drew Barrymore (was in ET)
Kirsten Dunst (was in Interview with a Vampire)
Jodie Foster (was in Taxi)
just off the top of my head
IMDB is blocked though work's webfilter so can't search for more
cheers
Sara
an Macgrrl in an NT World
I would have to say there are a couple fun ones out there.
While not strictly movie-to-game ports, a number of the recent Star Wars games have made excelent use of the Star Wars universe. "Knights of the Old Republic" and the two recent Jedi Knights games come to mind. And the Rogue Squadron series, which takes place during the origonal trilogy, is pretty damn awesome. That said, all of the strict Star Wars movie-to-games have sucked (except for the SNES versions, which almost entirely ignored the plots of the movie and were tons of fun). And, I guess when you pump out the number of Star Wars games that LucasArts makes, you're bound to hit upon a gem now and again...
The console Lord of the Rings games have also been pretty fun. They've gotten better each game, with the recently released Return of the King being an excelent game in its own right, and made better by the use of the LotR movie tie-in. It skillfully uses clips from the film, has DVD-style interviews, art, and making-of extras, and is an actually FUN game to play. Single player is rental-worthy, but if you have a person you can do co-op with regularly, it might be worth the purchase. Playing co-op through Return of the King was good, old fashion, Gauntlet-style fun.
Before the release of the third Matrix movie, I would have said "Enter the Matrix" was a crime against the Matrix license. But now we know where the real crime lay. "Enter the Matrix" was just prepping audiences for the crap that was yet to come...
That said, I think the idea of "Enter the Matrix" is really cool: make a game along side the movie, so the game (while not needed to understand the movie) adds more backstory and allows you to see stuff that didn't make it into the film. While the Matrix incarnation of this idea sucked, it's definatly possible that someone else will do it justice in the future.
Overall, I'd say games that are based in the same universe, but don't attempt to strictly mirror the movie(s) they come from do the best. A prime example of this is Aliens vs Predator 2 (the first one was okay, but the second one was amazing). AvP2 used a solid movie license, had a fun and engaging single player with good play mechanics and a (relatively) interesting storyline which managaed to interweave between the three species, and was one of the most enjoyable multiplayer FPS games I've ever played. The same is true (as I mentioned previously) of most of the good Star Wars games: they skillfully use the universe, but don't attempt to retell a story that was already put on the big screen.
So I think it's possibly to create a good move-to-game conversion. The problem is very few movies have either the type of plot or the type of action that lends itself to a videogame. AvP2 realized that the actual Alien movies were too slow (and Predator too stupid) so they took the very cool ideas from the movies and made an action-packed game. Knights of the Old Republic took the coolest ascepts of Star Wars and made one of the finest RPGs I've ever played. And Return of the King had enough action that, by taking some liberties in the game, a really fun game was created that kept the spirit of the movie while not being anal about sticking to the same exact plot or events.
-Trillian
PS The real question is, is it possible to create a game-to-movie conversion? I'd wager that no, it is not...
And yes, it's not what I want. As I said, a true RPG where you make your story. You name your character and guide him/her/it through the adventures possible only in the world where wizards and witches hide from muggles. No such game like this exists, but I know every Potter fan wishes it did.
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There was a Poison Ivy 2 ?
WTF ?
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Yes, all those actresses you mention are quite an eyeful, but they all became involved in projects that stink to high heaven.
OK, let me point out one obvious choice that's still making some good, entertaining movies / TV shows: Kirsten Dunst. She was fantastic in Interview with the Vampire in 1994, when she was only 12... that's pre-pubescent, yet now, she's making movies like Spiderman. Or, how about Christina Ricci? She's got a rack that I'd kill for, just to suckle on for an hour (or week).
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance