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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?
Are they just assuming that the movie will do well when they start creating a video game for it?
What if the movie flops a-la waterworld, then you're stuck with boxes and boxes of a game that is doomed to the 10 dollar bin at office depot..
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.
Tivo pushed a 2-minute 'preview of'/'making of' 'Chronicles of Riddick' out to my Tivo unit this last Sunday as per their normal marketing arrangements.
It claims (IIRC) that the movie starts where the quite good action sci-fi adventure 'Pitch Black' left off. The character played by Vin Diesel was apparently too intriquing to let go, and a numbered sequel (a la` Pitch Black II) was probably too ordinary.
I admit the universe presented in Pitch Black is interesting. They got a good bit of science right in that they used a planetary eclipse for the mating time, which is unusual enough to be a natural idea. I would have liked to see some vegetation to support this biological system, but on the whole it seemed pretty good.
The spacecraft, the concept of a prison ship, this is pretty normal stuff, but I like the concept of either electromechanichal or biologically enhanced eyesight as a mini-superpower, given present technology trends this seems reasonable given the rest of their technology structures.
If anyone has a further comment on the hard-sci-fi tech aspect of these movies, please post, I am interested if they conform to the almost-reasonable traditions of Niven and Asimov.
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2) It's visually impressive. This is one of the best-looking games I've seen on the Xbox, with lighting only rivalled by Splinter Cell.
3) First-person brawler. It's funny that it took ten years since the invention of the first-person shooter for developers to start making first person games that use one's fists in a more realistic manner than Goldeneye's karate chop. While Escape from Butcher Bay isn't the first to try this, it's probably so far the best implementation. Snapping somebody's neck in first-person is very satisfying, as well. 4) It's immersive. Escape from Butcher Bay really makes you feel like you're Riddick as you play this, and not just because you're playing through the eyes of him. The game has a very immersive, cinematic feel to it, similar to Half Life or Call of Duty. As you first get walked into Butcher Bay with the opening credits on the screen, you can look around, hearing fragments of prisoners' conversations as you walk by, hearing screams of prisoners getting beaten in the distance, you can see the dried blood and filth on the walls, the flies swarming around the trash...you feel like you're in Butcher Bay.
Although not the longest game in the world, it's incredibly enjoyable, and I suggest everybody with an Xbox at least go out and rent it. I think a lot of development companies can learn a lot from this game, especially those that develop movie-licensed games.
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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From what I've read/seen, Vin himself was involved in the game's design, to what extent I don't know, but was involved further than just recording some dialog and sitting still for a body scan.
He's said to be a pretty avid gamer, so maybe this made the difference in this case? Not saying he made the game better, but it could be assumed that he knows the difference between a good game and a bad game and wasn't going to let his image be used in a crap game.
So maybe the fact that he was able to pop his head in at various points in the game's development and put the kibosh on anything that sucked (and his ability to tell suck from not suck) kept the whole thing from turning into the usual fubar license.
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...
is that it allows one to participate in a prison economy, to kill other inmates in exchange for packetts of cigarettes, drag (and toss!) bodies around, shiv guards, etc., all without committing a Class C felony in the first place. ;>
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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