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Chronicling Riddick - Making A Decent Movie-Licensed Game?
Thanks to Eurogamer for its two-part feature discussing developer Starbreeze's path to making a high-quality licensed videogame in Xbox FPS Chronicles Of Riddick, as the author asks of movie licenses: "Should they mimic the structure of the film and allow players to relive key events? Should they act as a supplement to the main picture, fleshing out secondary characters and back-stories whilst adhering to the tenets of genre?", before analyzing the development of the well-received title, which has drawn impressive scoring from GameSpot, who rated it "one of the most-impressive games on the Xbox and seems destined to be remembered as the most inspiring collaboration between Hollywood and the gaming industry yet." The Eurogamer article concurs with this, praising the "very cohesive first-person game blending elements of stealth, all-out action and storytelling." What did Starbreeze do right?
As usual Tycho has the goods. And it's not whoreing if I don't care about karma right?
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These are the things the game establishes: First, the title should be used to add contour and gradient to the existing property - not merely repackage the film plus interactivity. That's a pretty important distinction, how the license can inherently break the simulation. If my only two choices are to a) continue the preordained story from the movie or b) die, those don't actually count as choices. You have a single choice and the consequences of making that choice. If being interactive means that my decisions are relevant, in the context of a movie narrative - a kind of discrete, linear destiny - in real terms, volition is nonexistent.
So, Riddick sidesteps that by being a prequel that details important developments in the character. The second lesson is that voice talent needs to be of even quality. I don't even want to think about how many janitors or friends of the producer I've had to tolerate in games, busting right through even the best ones and forcibly ejecting me from a more pure translation into the experience. I'd imagine it's the "Universal" part of Vivendi Universal that helped the most with this, but this thing has some of the most pristine voice work to date. Make a note of it: actors pretend to be other people as their job. And if you want to see just how much a voice can bridge that wide span between a 3D model and a human being, go rent The Chronicles of Riddick.
So, original story, don't skimp on the voices. These aren't bad things for any game, but when we're talking about converting a cinematic property they're critical. Riddick throws in something that isn't, in my opinion, necessary - but when added to the other two creates the startled look you see on these reviewers. It has flashes of technical brilliance. This is the sort of graphical presentation we should be expecting at this point. They aren't next generation graphics, even - it's the way this generation should look, and Farcry is the only other game that comes to mind which really presents the argument for modern hardware. The game isn't long enough for the honeymoon period to be over, even by the end you'll still be marvelling at just how immersive an environment can be when its surfaces capture and reflect light properly.
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Spot on from last weeks penny-arcade.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
Pitch Black was a somewhat enjoyable sci-fi movie, if you haven't seen it. I have yet to see Chronicles of Riddick but TechTV keeps showing a making of the game special, which I haven't watched either.
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Riddick speaks of his "shine job" in Pitch Black.
In "Chasm City" by Alastair Reynolds, a character gets an "eye shine", by adding some snake DNA to his eyes so they grow a reflective coating inside of the eye, giving him better night vision by bouncing the light several times against the receptors -- with the minor disadvantage that it makes his eye glow like a cat's. Sort of like Riddick's.
Riddick apparently can't turn his shine job on/off at will in Pitch Black, but he can in the game (though that may just be an abstraction of him removing his goggles).
In Chasm City, Cahuella is able to engage/disengage it by triggering "local cancer growths" that add/remove the eye shine in a few days.
Pitch Black is from 2000. Chasm City is from 2001. And I doubt either of them is the first with the idea of eye shines. (I recommend Alastair Reynolds if you like hard sci-fi.)
The Riddick game is damn good. I finished it yesterday, and today I started replaying it to find a few things I missed or didn't try the first time through. I rarely replay games that quick after finishing them.
There's a few parts in the game where you can advance the plot in several ways. Both of them have the same outcome, but the path is way different. I like that.
If you have an Xbox, give this game a spin. Rent it, at the very least.
Leveling up builds character.
He's listed at several places in the credits. Not quite director, but he was directly involved in the plot and story of the game.
Leveling up builds character.
I can't find a link, but I'm about 95% sure I read in a magazine that Vin owns a favorable percentage of shares in the game studio and developed much of the plot.
it doesn't hurt that the studio puts out high quality games. looking up the titles they have listed on their website at gamerankings, you'll see that all of them are rated >50%, with several very high individual reviews. So releasing high quality games, either original content or based on a movie tie-in, isn't something that's all that surprising. This might just be an example of a good company getting chosen to design the game, and just implementing what they know is good game design...
The movie pulled in over $350,000,000 dollars worldwide(from IMDB). I would consider that a pretty big hit!!
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Vin Diesel founded Tigon studios. A *lot* of the work in this game was done by Tigon studios. (I think their logo is first in the sequence when it loads up... they have a cool tiger logo with glowing eyes.) To my knowledge, this is also the first game Tigon has been really involved with as it is a very new company.
But, in short, yes Vin Diesel had a lot of involvement in the making of the game. A lot more than a bit of motion capture and voice-overs.
(On that note, one of the things that makes Chronicles of Riddick so impressive is the motion capture. It's flawless! When Riddick reaches out to grab something, he actually grabs it instead of the object hovering a few centimeters away from his fingers.)
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you DO know that there was a crappy xXx game before this, right? in fact, vin diesel himself was so infuriated with its portrayal of his likeness that he bought his own game studio, Tigon Studio (which did some consultation on the riddick game)
If you don't frequent Fark.com you might have missed this, but here is some proof for your theory as to Vin's gamer background.
And here seems as good a place as any for my 3.14 cents: COR is a really good FPS. The first person fighting is top notch, the shooting scenarios are well done, the stealth is well implemented, and there is even a very nice little surprise if you make it all the way to the end of the game to. (the last stage is simply one of the best endgames I have ever played)
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