The First Person Innovation

It seems we are at the point in the gaming industry where there are at least eight different first person shooters coming out every year. I don't know about anyone else but I'm getting sick of gunning down bad guys from a first person perspective. Not to say I don't enjoy those games from time to time but I'm just ready for something a little different. I don't think the first person genre should be left behind completely but there is plenty of room for advancement. While any game that has a first person perspective is more than likely going to involve a gun and the player shooting dudes but that doesn't mean there isn't room for other features. 
 
In the last couple years we have seen an advancement in the genre with realistic animations (which may bother some but I really enjoy as it gives a sense of character) and varied game play features.  The first games that come to mind are The Darkness and The Chronicles of Riddick. These games introduced some interesting concepts such as experiencing every day things (watching a movie and kissing your girlfriend) and hand to hand fighting from a first person perspective. I found these games to be highly unique and a great fun experience when they came out and I am glad to see sequels to these games being released. Far Cry 2 and 3 seem to be good examples as to how you can take a standard first person shooter and make it a little more interesting with dynamic character animation. I feel like varied animation can give a lot to a first person character even if it is a silent protagonist you can still get a feel of how this person thinks or feels in the position that they are in. Some people find this distracting to game play and that it slows them down but I am more than welcome to embrace good character animation in my first person shooters just so I can have a little more variety.  
 
Prey 2 is on the horizon and this game is giving me a lot of hope for the future of first person shooters. While it has the makings of most standard shooters it is also far more in depth with the fact that there are choices to make in the game and traversal elements for making your way around the environment (something Brink tried to implement, but well . . . yeah.) The one thing about Prey 2 that is most interesting to me is living through the life of a bounty hunter in first person. This is something that I wouldn't mind seeing more of in future games. All of the different things you can do in Prey 2 make this game so fascinating to me (aside from the fact that this seems like an awesome sequel to a terrible game) such as the option to play through your missions differently and the world they have created for the game. 
  
I can only hope to see more variety in first person games in the future. There have been plenty of attempts with games like The Darkness, Riddick, Prey 2 and even fatal frame with the camera mechanic. I would even be interested in a first person puzzle game with no weapons (a first person horror puzzle games could be pretty fun.) I'm not saying the average Call of Duty game should disappear but a break might keep the series from going stale.

A Retrospective Look At Mortal Kombat

2011 has without a doubt been the year for Mortal Kombat. With the release of their reboot title, a popular web series, and the classic arcade collection we have seen a plethora of MK material this year and I couldn’t be more excited. Mortal Kombat was the franchise that drove me so deep into video games and is the first game I ever played in arcades. I probably pumped more quarters into the original MK cabinet than any other machine in an arcade. Spanning from 1992 to 2011 Mortal Kombat has still managed to wow its fans with every release and somehow manage to keep everyone wanting more. There have been a lot of fighting games throughout the years and next to Street Fighter Mortal Kombat has managed to stand out among its competitors as one of the best.

Mortal Kombat first burst onto the scene in 1992 and was highly controversial for its extreme level of violence. It’s easy to understand how people could be upset about a game where you can rip off your opponents head after you just finished beating them into the ground. While the violence was argued upon it didn’t stop the game from pulling in a lot of attention or keep it from winning awards. Thus a legacy was born and Mortal Kombat turned into a thriving franchise that still pushes strong today. Mortal Kombat was developed by Midway (now NetherRealm Studios) and created by Ed Boon and John Tobias. Midway had previously already created some of the most memorable arcade games of their time and continued to dominate with the success of the Mortal Kombat series. With a colorful cast of characters and amazing special moves, it was not easy to forget a series such as this that only continued to improve over the years.

Mortal Kombat II and III only improved upon the franchise with introductions to new characters and game mechanics such as the ability to run and the implementation of a combo system. However after the first three games Mortal Kombat proved that it too could suffer. Mortal Kombat 4 was the series first introduction into 3D and was the least successful of the franchise to date. MK4 was also the last title to be released in arcades with the company moving onto console version with the next iterations. Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance and MK Deception improved on the 3D fighting and brought the violence to a whole new level with updated graphics and more gruesome fatalities.

One of the most interesting things to me about the MK franchise was all of the rumors that circulated about the original arcade games. Supposed secret characters or glitches that were passed around by word of mouth by kids who had sworn they knew a guy who had a friend whose brother had unlocked. Midway never turned a deaf ear to any of these rumors and in the ultimate fan service some of these characters have such been created and added into the games. Ermac and Skarlet are two examples of characters that were rumored to be glitches and were later inserted into a game.

Mortal Kombat established itself as a franchise that could move beyond the realm of video games with the release of the first movie in 1995. Being well received and in my opinion one of the best video game movies so far Mortal Kombat expanded into a television series (Mortal Kombat Conquest), cartoon (Mortal Kombat Defenders of the Realm), a horribly made sequel film (Mortal Kombat Annihilation), and in 2011 a ten episode web series (Mortal Kombat Legacy) that may possibly expand to a second season. While all of these are worth watching except the second movie the biggest downside is that the television series has not been released on DVD in the United States so getting a hold of it is pretty difficult in the States.

In between the creation of the fighting games there were other MK games developed that were trying to take the series in a new direction. MK Mythologies Sub-Zero was the first in what was supposed to be a series of MK games that would focus on singular character stories, however it was poor received and only led to one other character game based on Jax called Mortal Kombat Special Forces which performed even lower and thus canceling any more character specific games. That wasn’t the end of adventure style MK games however because 2005 saw the release of Shaolin Monks which was a retelling of MK II following the characters of Lui Kang and Kung Lao. Shaolin Monks became the most successful Mortal Kombat game that wasn’t a fighting game and went on to sell over a million copies.

While MK Deadly Alliance and Deception were still well received they still received some backlash from fans. In 2006 we saw the last release of the previous console generation with Mortal Kombat Armageddon which was the end of the MK story as it stands now and featured every character featured in an MK game up until that point and even a couple of new ones. Armageddon did well and even expanded on the story mode known as Konquest from the previous two games and allowed Mortal Kombat to have its last hoorah in the PS2 and Xbox era. It was only two years later when we finally saw the return of Mortal Kombat on the PS3 and Xbox 360 with Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, a much different MK game that combined Mortal Kombat with the DC characters in a battle to save both of their worlds. It introduced new mechanics and updated the combat and was an excellent fighting game and a welcome introduction into the series with its online play.

2011 saw the most recent release in the reboot simply titled Mortal Kombat which is a retelling of the first three games. Mortal Kombat brings back the 2D fighting from the original games in a big way and pulls it off perfectly with the 3D character models. With the new game being such a success it only begs the question what is in store for the future of Mortal Kombat? It has been said that NetherRealm hopes to produce a Mortal Kombat game every year and I say bring it on. With new possibilities for games and the hopeful continuation of the web series Mortal Kombat could still be a driving force in years to come.

If I Made A Game: Space Edition

Space is the largest and most wide open place imaginable and as far as we know it goes on forever with no end. Yet somehow space has always been a very limited and very structured concept in video games yet it should have the most options available because literally anything is possible out there. I’ve had a lot of sci-fi on the brain lately so when thinking about the kind of game that I would want to make, what I would consider my perfect game, my mind is immediately going to space. Er . . . figuratively that is. Now there are obviously a lot of space games, and some that are just huge, like Mass Effect or the some simulation games, but there’s nothing out there that has everything I’m looking for all in one package.

There are four things I am looking for when I think of my perfect space game, freedom, fiction, action, and simulation. Now when I say simulation I don’t mean like A10 Warthog style flight simulation, I’m thinking more along the lines of Sid Meier’s Pirates or The Sims. I want Sid Meier’s Pirates in space! However that is just the starting ground and good platform to build off. Mas Effect 2 is probably the closest I have come to what I envision traveling through space in my game to be like with more FTL style encounters, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself. The beginning of the game will have you picking your class and role in the universe. You can be a Starfleet soldier and work up to commander, a bounty hunter who goes around and you know bounty hunts, a space pirate, or maybe you just want to be a settler and explore all of the worlds in different galaxies. This leads us into your path through the game. Each class will have their own story naturally and they will all be independent and not just lead into the same end like some games of this type have done in the past.

The way I see it is that the Star Commanders will have the real narrative story involving some kind of space war (because there is always a space war) and will actually have multiple styles of play. Normally you will fly your ship around and have random encounters that can go all sorts of different ways such as trading with aliens, engaging in combat, or even talking your way out of a situation. Space combat will involve three things with the first being the ship to ship combat. You can control your ship in battle and fight off the enemy ships or you can try the second and more tactical way, control everything from the bridge like a Star Trek captain. Maybe if flying isn’t you thing you can just play as your captain and give orders from the bridge offering a more tactical style to the gameplay. The third will be the ship boarding combat. At this point the game would have third person shooting as you board the enemies’ ship and battle your way to the bridge, or maybe you have to defend your ship from invading troops. You can run all throughout your ship and go wherever you have to to stop the invaders, but watch where you’re shooting because if you damage anything then you will have to have it repaired after the battle. You will be able to employ technicians to your ship though to take care of that kind of stuff or even let’s say if you’re engines are disabled and you are stranded until they are fixed. I like the idea of having to have your ship actually repaired in combat instead of just using healing tools or something like that. Imagine being stuck in space after a battle, repairing your ship, and then all of a sudden another enemy ship comes by and you have to engage in another battle. Talk about intense!

Playing as the rest of the classes will be a little more open ended. The universe map will be huge. I’m thinking of something like Sins of a Solar Empire where you can literally zoom out the map to see four galaxies next to each other. The ships will have some kind of light speed so you can travel all over different galaxies if you wish and encounter all different kinds of stories and other alien races to interact with. The pirate class will basically require you to rob ships or compounds you happen to come across and will involve some stealth elements and cloaking devices while bounty hunters will have places all over the universe to pick up bounties and bring them in to make ends meet. The settler class is basically the sandbox mode. As a settler you start with your character in a ship and you can do anything at will. If you want to play any of the other classes just go to the designated bases and sign up to join and quit anytime. Maybe you just want to settle on a planet and live in a Sims style life game then do that. Maybe you can just play the game like EVE Online and become a space miner or carry shipments. The possibilities are yours.

Space is something an imagination can run wild with and that is exactly what I would want with a space video game. There have been a lot of RTS and Civilization style space games but none that have captured what I have been looking for. Combining multiple gameplay styles and having total freedom to do what you want even if it leads to nothing after hours of gameplay that can still be a lot of fun if the game is fleshed out enough. Whether you want to fight in a war, rob ships blind, hunt down some lowly criminals, or just live a live in space I would just want one game to have my back on whatever I want to experience.

Analyzing Video Game Movies: Far Cry

Well here we are at the end of the year and Far Cry 3 was pretty much the last big release of 2012 yesterday and it seemed appropriate, since we have been talking video game movies, to talk about the Uwe Boll Far Cry film adaptation. Yes we are finally talking Uwe Boll! Now Far Cry is actually one of Uwe Boll’s later video game movies and this may not be a good place to start with talking about his career because Far Cry is actually one of his better movies. Now don’t get me wrong, Far Cry is a bad movie made by a worse director but I can honestly say that if I knew someone who was super interested in a Far Cry movie that I could actually recommend it with managed expectations.  Uwe Boll has made some of the worst video game movies to date but Far Cry is easily his most watchable film in the genre.

Let’s start with what I think is good about Far Cry. This movie actually sticks to its source material very closely. It follows the plot of the first game where ex-military man Jack Carver is running boat tours off his fishing boat and is taking a lovely reporter out to some island where it turns out an evil scientist is running experiments to create these giant super soldiers. The film pretty much hits all of these beats right on which is more than what can be said about some other video game films out there. There are plenty of action scenes and for the most part are all really good. The biggest gripe I have with them is that Jack uses mostly just a handgun through the whole movie and is a crack shot taking down almost everyone with just one shot each. It’s a little corny but the action fits the style of Far Cry and is scattered throughout the film. What is probably the biggest departure from the games is the films setting. While the original Far Cry took place on tropical islands, the movie takes place in a more woodland island setting. You still get Jack moving through forests and trees we have just switched from tropical jungles to woodland forests. Overall it didn’t impact the movie to me though it would have been better in the tropical setting.

It’s clear from looking at Far Cry that this is a movie on a budget. Unfortunately there have been other video game movies with the same budget that looked much better, for instance the Resident Evil films. A 30 million dollar budget isn’t much for what should be a big action movie but there have been movies that prove that it can be done, Far Cry however is not one of them. The biggest thing about this movie is the cast. Til Schweiger plays Jack and while Schweiger is a fantastic actor I just have one problem; he is a German actor who speaks with a heavy German accent in the movie while in the game Jack was clearly very much American. This could just be me being nitpicky but Jack Carver is an American soldier and there is some emphasis to that it is just odd to have the part played with a heavy German accent. Other than that I thought Schweiger does a fantastic job with a script that is a complete shit show, especially next to the female lead. Emmanuelle Vaugier plays the female reporter and again she does a fine job but her and Schweiger have the most awkward scene randomly thrown in the middle of the movie. After he rescues her for the first time (of many) they spend a passion filled night together, as most action stars and heroines often do, and then the next scene is them just walking down a path nonchalantly, even though it’s an island full of people trying to kill them, and he asks her how he was the previous night. Are you freaking kidding me?! Who wrote this movie? To them I shake my finger.

The villain is played by Udo Kier who does a pretty fantastic job as Dr. Krieger, the mad scientist creating the super soldiers. One of the main conflicts is that he has taken the reporters father as a test subject, which gives us our personal vendetta and it plays out in that cliché type of way you would expect it to. Udo Kier is a great choice for Dr. Krieger as the man just has an evil presence on screen and actually looks believable in a lab coat. The most annoying casting however comes from Chris Coppola who I have actually enjoyed in some movies but here just feels like an annoyingly needless sidekick for Jack in the latter half of the film. He’s an attempt at comedy relief in a movie that desperately doesn’t need any. Uwe Boll has made some really terrible films and if he left out the comic relief in movies like Far Cry then that would be a step in the right direction. While his attempts at humor can be mildly successful they just hinder a movie that already suffers from some stale plot points and low budget appearance. Far Cry also just has some really flat writing overall. The movie works as a fine B action movie but does little else to appeal to a wider audience.

Far Cry, while being one of Uwe Boll’s better movies, is also one of his weirdest. This film was finished for a long time before it ever saw a release in the states and was originally only available in Germany even though the Far Cry games are forced into heavy editing there. Uwe Boll is also notable for shooting his movies overseas because of the production cost breaks and Far Cry was no different. The problem with that logic however is that if he was getting breaks on production then why does the movie look like it was still made on the cheap? Uwe Boll has made a career of making terrible video game movies and when he finally has it within his grasp to make a good one he once again drops the ball and turns out something, while not being a terrible movie, just falls far into mediocrity. Far Cry does do right by following the game story line and having a decent cast (which Uwe Boll has an odd talent for pulling in big names) but following the game story line isn’t enough to save this cheaply produced film.

There is a great movie in the Far Cry franchise somewhere but we clearly won’t see it from Uwe Boll. I was very excited to know that there is interest in a film version of Far Cry and I hope that one day we can have another shot at a Far Cry movie with a more accomplished director and a bigger budget. While this movie isn’t terrible and is actually a mediocre watch, that’s really the best thing I can say about it. The Far Cry movie is a novelty for people who have a more than average interest in video game movies like I do and even though it’s a bad movie I can say that I was entertained while watching it and could actually recommend it to dire hard fans or people with an invested interest. I only warn you to manage your expectations and realize you are watching nothing more than an average B action movie.

Analyzing Video Game Movies: The Resident Evil Franchise

While video games have become a major mainstream media and I do love to play them ever so much, video games have also expanded in their own right, onto the big screen. Now as well as being a huge video game player I am also a movie buff and I tend to have a sort of soft spot for watching video game movies, whether to enjoy them or laugh at how bad they are. I thought I would take some time to talk about some of the video game movies that are out there right now and the prospect of the future of this adaptation inspired medium.  This will be a feature that will be broken up into chunks and I will be making them as relatable as possible but for this first look we are going to examine probably the biggest and most expanded offender of the video game movies, the Resident Evil franchise.

Now at this point we currently have five live action and three CG Resident Evil movies which have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. Now I’m only going to focus on the live action films and the two most recent CG films as the first CG film was only released in Japan and I have not seen it all but what I have seen looks extremely dated and uninteresting. You can find clips on YouTube if you are really curious but overall you can just skip it. I’m going to look at the live action films first as they are the most notable and successful of the franchise and the ones people will be more familiar with. The live action films also tell their own contained story while the CG films actually fit into the timeline of the video games and are considered to be canon.

The first Resident Evil film was released in 2002 and like all the rest starts Milla Jovovich and was written and directed by (except for the third movie having a different director) Paul W.S. Anderson. So I’m going to start off with talking about the things I like about this movie before I start breaking down the bad parts. First off the music was made by Marilyn Manson and Marco Beltrami and is fantastic! The music sets a great tone with its new age electronic horror sounds and really fits the laboratory environment that the film takes place in. Also I felt the tone of this first movie was really well managed and really felt like a horror film overall, even if it wasn’t a scary movie at all and that starts my problems with the film. This movie isn’t even slightly scary. Now I have a high tolerance for horror movies but even with that in mind this movie couldn’t even give me a jump scare, and this is a consistent problem throughout the film series. So this is supposed to be our introduction into Resident Evil and instead of focusing the movie on the mansion, where you spend about 80% of the game, they focus on the underground lab which is a small chunk of the original game. The ratio of time in mansion and time in laboratory is completely flipped between the game and the movie and that is maybe the biggest mistake as the mansion is the most iconic part of Resident Evil. Even taking the setting aside, what’s even worse is that none of the characters from the game are even in the movie. While some of the main characters from the games would appear in later movies the first has only all original characters and none of them are even that interesting. The story is explained by character motives that just don’t seem to make sense at all and there is hardly any emotional connection to these characters that you shouldn’t want to get eaten alive.

This movie definitely has the first attempt feel that you sometimes see in a movie franchise. Unfortunately the second film has that same feel. Now I will say that out of all of these movies, the first three are the only ones I would call enjoyable. I like the first three films and I would say I like the second one the most because it is the only one that follows the games relatively close even though it is still its own thing. However I will say that it is my opinion and overall, Resident Evil Apocalypse is really bad. It takes the best two games in franchise and just ruins them. This is the first one of the films to introduce an actual game character in Jill Valentine and Nemesis. However one of my biggest problems with this film franchise is its characterization. These films idolize women as being completely bad ass (either that or the cliché damsel in distress) and almost everyone is a crack shot and almost invincible. There’s hardly ever any fear for any of the characters. The third movie did pull this back a little and actually added some tension and danger but all of the other films it feels like all of the main characters are The One from The Matrix. The first film did have some horror elements to it but overall felt like a low rent action movie and the second film just blows it out of proportion. I’m pretty sure the main characters never miss a headshot and there’s even a cliché flick a cigarette into gas fumes like a bad ass scene. The second film holds a special place in my heart by actually incorporating things from the game and by being based off the best games in the series but it is a shameful movie that falls short even by the standards set by the original. The second film is just a huge step backwards from the first. Even the music was changed to be more of an orchestra and just doesn’t hold that same appeal.

Resident Evil Extinction is where this series finally picked up some steam and is easily the best produced movie in the franchise. While sometimes it is said that the third time is a charm, the third Resident Evil movie definitely steps up the game and excels where the first two movies failed. The first thing to note is that this movie is much more bloody and violent. Resident Evil and Resident Evil Apocalypse are two of the tamest zombie movies I have ever seen as there is very little graphic gore to the zombie attacks. Resident Evil Extinction actually has zombies tearing into people and while you don’t see anything as graphic as guts being pulled out of bodies, it is still very bloody and pretty graphic. What’s unique about this film is the setting which has never been done before in a zombie movie but because of that it strays farther away from the games than any of the previous movies. By this point in the story the virus has somehow spread all over the planet with very little explanation as to how that happened. It is then barely explained that since no one is around to manage the planet that it is just withering away and the main characters are no traveling across the Nevada desert which eventually brings them to a Las Vegas that is almost completely buried in sand. This film plays on a lot of other movie inspirations such as Mad Max and sets a very original tone for zombie movie.

Resident Evil Extinction brings back some characters from the previous movie and also introduces us to another character from the games in Claire Redfield played by Ali Larter. However this time around the characters feel even less like their video game counterparts then before and really only share the name alone. That being said this movie actually takes some of the better and more obscure elements from the games and starts to incorporate them in a way that is actually entertaining. The story here is pretty solid and the ending is probably the best of the series. It is also worth noting that the soundtrack is back to the greatness that the first film had and this will remain consistent among the rest of the sequels. It may be worth noting that this is the first and only film of the series not to be directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and is easily the best one to date. Could this be a coincidence? While this may be the best film of the franchise it is also the beginning of one of the worst aspects of the series. Milla Jovovich’s character has gained powers from the T-Virus and this is just a ridiculous concept even thought it was technically in the game Code Veronica. As I mentioned before most of the main in these movies feel a little too invincible and with the main character Alice receiving telekinetic powers she becomes pretty much unstoppable. So this movie actually ends with her discovering hundreds of clones of herself that Umbrella was making to try and find a cure and sets them free to exact her revenge on Albert Wesker who has the lamest introduction and role in this movie. I wonder how they will deal with that in the sequel.

So enter movie number four and within the first ten minutes Alice has lost her powers supposedly killed Wesker (yeah right) and all of the clones have been killed. Whoo that was fast! And the best part is that it all takes place in 3D. That’s right folks! We have stepped into the 3D territory now. This entire film was just advertised as a big 3D gimmick and brags about using the James Cameron 3D technology that was used to make Avatar as thought that could make a bad movie somehow amazing.  News flash, it doesn’t. This movie was a nightmare of boring. This film opens with a huge action scene involving Alice and her clones storming Umbrella and then there is basically no action until the end. Now this film at this point is the worst in the series (until the release of the fifth film but we’ll get to that) but there are things that I find enjoyable about it. First of all let’s get it out of the way. The soundtrack is awesome! Unfortunately this was the first movie not to also have a licensed soundtrack and only had a score. The licensed soundtracks for the first three movies were pretty epic if you were a metal fan and I suggest checking them out. I was disappointed the fourth and fifth movie didn’t get the same soundtrack treatments.

So here we are with the fourth entry and the world is in even more dire straits and we are introduced to another character from the games Chris Redfield. This interpretation of Chris is fine by appearance but lame by story. In fact the whole story is just boring. A group of survivors are held up in a prison surrounded by zombies and they believe that a ship in the harbor is their only hope. It’s a pretty thin plot and there is less zombie killing in this movie than any of the previous but that’s not even the worst part. Anderson loved to pull everything he could from the games and put it in the movies but this is where it goes off the rails. This movie was released after Resident Evil 4 and 5 which didn’t feature zombies but people controlled by a parasite. Well in Resident Evil Afterlife the zombies now have features of the aforementioned video game creatures and we are given literally zero explanation! It is safe to assume that the zombies have just somehow evolved into faster deadlier monsters but even one throwaway line of dialogue could have been inserted to give us that assumption. Instead we just get fast zombies and the executioner monster for no reason. This gets even worse in the next film but again I am getting ahead of myself.

So like I said Alice no longer has her powers in this movie but she actually seems even more superhuman without them. There is a scene where she literally jumps off of the huge prison with just a rope and just rolls out of it when she hits the ground. This wouldn’t even fly in a Die Hard film and John McLane jumped onto the back of a jet in his fourth movie. So this movie builds up to a rather anticlimactic conclusion that rips out fight scene choreography directly out of Resident Evil 5 which manages to be the best part of the movie. Strange to notice the best parts of these movies were all things that came from other people and not Anderson. So the movie ends and Wesker (who has some of the cheesiest acting I have ever seen in my life) either does or doesn’t die (he doesn’t) and we get a huge camera pull back showing the boat being attacked by a bunch of Umbrella ships. Cue the fifth movie.

Now I’m not going to get too deep on this movie because it isn’t even on DVD yet but let me just tell you that unless you are heavily invested in these movies that you shouldn’t even bother watching it. Literally nothing happens in this movie that moves the plot forward on the condition that the world is in which was such a big focus of the last two movies. In the third movie we were told that a cure could be made and here we are in movie five and that still hasn’t been mentioned again. We get even more video game characters shoved into this film for no reason so now we get to see Leon Kennedy, Barry Burton, and Ada Wong all ruined in a film. Thumbs up to Anderson for being able to take some of the most bad ass characters from video games and making them incredibly lame. This movie feels like the biggest half step in a franchises history and just like the last movie is just a big 3D gimmick. This is the worst film of the franchise and I can only say that the more of it I watched the more offended I became. This is the only movie experience I have had where I was literally offended.

As a fan of video games when I see a movie based on one and they want to throw in something from the games I think that’s okay as long as they contextualize it. Resident Evil Retribution literally name drops things from the game with zero explanation as to what it is. Anyone watching this that hadn’t played the games would be completely lost. As a film maker you should think of your audience as being completely uninformed and lay everything in a way that makes sense and is understandable. I guess Anderson forgot all about that after making Mortal Kombat. This movie also has some of the worst interpretations of the video game characters and the previous movies had set the bar pretty low so that’s saying a lot. There’s no need to worry however because this film has no ending and sets us up for one last crack at it. A sixth movie can’t be as bad as this one right?

Now this is a lengthy article but that’s because the Resident Evil film franchise is the largest video game movie series to date. We have made it through the live action films so I’m going to talk real quickly about the two CG movies, Resident Evil Degeneration and Resident Evil Damnation. These two movies focus mostly on Leon Kennedy but Claire Redfield is in the first one which gives us their first reunion since Resident Evil 2. Needless to say these are the best two Resident Evil films that exist. They actually fit within the game continuity and look amazing. The second film, Damnation, is easily the best Resident Evil movie. Degeneration is a solid film for fans but overall is kind of boring. Not a lot happens and has a slow pacing. Damnation however has a well written story, lots of action, and great interpretations of the characters. Not to mention we get to see Ada Wong well represented in a movie. These CG movies are a great approach to the source material and I would love to see Capcom try to adapt the original game in this form. If I had one wish for the Resident Evil franchise aside from a complete reboot of the live action films, it would be a CG movie of the original Resident Evil game.

So we’ve talked a lot about the Resident Evil films and hopefully this sixth film will come and go and we can just get the reboot that we all deserve. Paul W.S. Anderson has tried to justify his approach by saying that no one wants to see the story they already know played out in a movie and to that I say nay. The reason we watch video game movies is to see the story we already know and love played out in a way that we can relate to. Video games have told amazing stories and that’s why we would want to watch the movie version in the first place. Take it from a fan, if you want to make a good video game movie, the first step would be to follow the story that gave the game a fan base in the first place. We will talk more about that next time when we discuss Silent Hill. So stay tuned for more talk about video game movies as I continue to talk about them and give my analysis.

Analyzing Video Game Movies: The Mortal Kombat Franchise

So not quite as big as the Resident Evil franchise but definitely more broad is the Mortal Kombat film and TV series. Mortal Kombat first broke out into live action film in 1995 with the debut movie simply called Mortal Kombat. It was very successful and is in my opinion the best video game movie ever made. The film also had an animated tie in film called Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins that covers the opening of the film in an animated and slightly different way. 1996 saw the one and only season of Mortal Kombat Defenders of the Realm which featured the main good guys from MK3 forming a response team to stop invading Outworld forces. The show was as bad as the description sounds. The success of the first movie led to a sequel, Mortal Kombat Annihilation, in 1997 and a live action television series called Mortal Kombat Konquest which ran only one season despite its popularity. Lastly we come to 2010 where the internet exploded over Mortal Kombat Rebirth. This was a short film created and directed by Kevin Tancharoen as a pitch to Warner Bros. as a new more realistic take on a Mortal Kombat film reboot similar to the Nolan Batman films. This went on to gain millions of views on Youtube and caused Tancharoen to be given the green light to develop a new Mortal Kombat web series called Mortal Kombat Legacy. This series has so far run one season in 2011 and has a second season in the works. The first season was regarded fairly highly on Youtube and each episode racked up millions of views and reinvigorated the idea of a new MK film so Kevin Tancharoen will also bring us a Mortal Kombat reboot film that is currently scheduled for 2013. So now that we have a quick history of the MK film and television franchise, let’s break it down.

Mortal Kombat is the video game movie that made all other video game movies after it a reality. It was the first widely successful movie based on a popular fighting game franchise and pulled in over a hundred million dollars worldwide. Mortal Kombat also launched the career of Paul W.S. Anderson who would go on to ruin the famed Resident Evil movie franchise. Luckily with Mortal Kombat, Anderson did it right. This film follows the plot of the first game very closely with some minor additions that are completely inoffensive and just add a little bit more plot the thin story that existed at the time for MK. All of the casting decisions feel spot on especially with Johnny Cage and Kano. This game pulls every character from the original game including Reptile who was a secret character and who ends up having the best fight of the film with Lui Kang. The characters are all well represented in this movie and it actually feels like it was made with passion and care for the source material. The most obscure character is Raiden as he has this smug humor to him but it totally plays off and Christopher Lambert is just phenomenal in the role. But let’s get to the important part which is of course the fighting. There is basically one fight in the film with a nameless nobody but all of the other fights take place between game characters and are all awesome. Even the filler fight that serves as the tournament opener is a great scene. The worst thing I could say about some of the fights is that they are too short but you never feel cheated at least. Goro may be the weirdest thing about this movie because the puppet looks a little ridiculous, especially nowadays, but I say hats off to them for making a practical attempt instead of doing a CG creature that would look outdated by today’s standards. Luckily there isn’t a ton of CG in the movie because that’s what has happened now is that all of the computer stuff looks old. Even with that in mind however this movie still holds up and should belong in the film library of anyone interested in video game films.

The sequel however is atrocious! Mortal Kombat Annihilation was the 1997 follow up to the first movie and while it may have one of the best licensed soundtracks of all time it is quite possibly one big ball of the worst movie decisions ever! So to soften the blow let’s talk about what’s good about it first. As I said before the soundtrack is amazing. I bought it the year it came out on tape and I still listen to the CD version to this day. Secondly, the robot characters Smoke and Cyrax make an appearance and are awesome. And probably the last good thing to say about the movie is that the fight scenes for the most part are well choreographed and worth seeing. Now that we have that out of the way we can just say that everything else about this movie is terrible! It was handed off to a different crew after the first film and it shows. The movie picks up literally minutes after the first film and we have the lamest introduction to the cast of villains. It’s literally just all of the flying and flipping out of nowhere and striking fighting poses in a row like they are posing for a group photo for the high school bully drop out page of a yearbook. Then Johnny Cage, who was such a great character in the first film, is killed just minutes into the movie by a poorly portrayed Shao Kahn. But that probably won’t bother you too much because almost all of the actors from the first movie are recast here by former American Gladiators. Lui Kang and Kitana are the only returning actors from the first film and they couldn’t even match up the outfit Lui Kang was wearing in the first film as it is clearly a different costume. This movie feels like the biggest cash grab of a sequel. There is little cohesion and sense to the story as the creators felt it was better to just try and cram as many characters from the game into the movie as possible instead of focusing on a good story. Also any character that isn’t Lui Kang, Kitana, Cyrax, and Smoke, are basically the worst interpretations of anything ever. Raiden has been reduced from his cool quirky self to a flat and replacement that just makes you hate everything he does on screen. I could really ramble on about how bad this movie is but I’ll just leave at this, watch the fights on YouTube, buy the soundtrack, and skip the rest.

So while MK performed one hit and one great big fat miss on the big screen, it was time to move onto home screens with Mortal Kombat Defenders of the Realm. This was a popular concept at the time which was to take a violent popular movie and turn it into a kid friendly Saturday morning cartoon. This was also done with Rambo and Robocop. Yup Rambo and Robocop cartoons, what a world we live in. Defenders of the realm only ran one season with thirteen episodes and that was probably for the best because it was incredibly boring and just a bad idea. The show actually had a star filled voice cast but the entire concept of the show was just dumb. It had the Earth’s human warriors defending the Earth realm against constant Outworld invasion. The biggest thing the show had going for it was that it was the first appearance of Quan Chi who I was never a big fan of at first but has since grown on me. Now I can say I have seen the entire run of this show and remember almost nothing about it. It’s completely forgettable and that is what I suggest we should do is just forget it.

There was however a more successful attempt at a MK television with Mortal Kombat Konquest. This show, while not well received all the time by critics, actually was very successful in pulling in ratings but for some reason never got a second season which was a huge tragedy as the first season ended on one of the biggest cliff hangers I have ever seen in a show ever! Now I’m going to spoil this because this show is old enough but also it has to be talked about. This MK story takes place about 500 years before the first game and follows the original Kung Lao who is Lui Kang’s ancestor and the original winner of Mortal Kombat. Now fans of the games know that his ultimate fate is to be killed by Goro after years of being the defending champion but the show focused on what went on after he won for the first time. There were plenty of characters from the games in this show including the popular Scorpion and Sub-Zero though the continuity wouldn’t really fit with the games. My favorite character is actually Quan Chi surprisingly as the actor playing him chews the scenery like you wouldn’t believe and just pulls off this dark asshole of a character. Great stuff if you can embrace the cheesiness of the whole show. This show actually pulled in a crazy amount of big name guest stars that ranged from A list actors to professional wrestlers. Now Kung Lao has two friends Siro and Taja that help him and also Raiden is present in a role similar to that of the first film and usually steals the show. Every episode kind of had the same set up where Shang Tsung or Shao Kahn would come up with some scheme to try and kill Kung Lao before the next tournament but there were actually a lot of great and memorable story lines through the whole season. Mortal Kombat Konquest is incredibly cheesy but for some reason I love it! So this is getting into some major spoiler territory so be warned. The tragedy of no second season is the fact that in the very last episode every main character is killed and Raiden is turned into Shao Kahns slave. Credits! I mean what the hell?! How could they not finish that? Word is that if there was a second season then the elder gods would have fixed everything because Shao Kahn had broken the sacred rules but alas this is how the show ended. The ending of the show was amazing though because it really summed up the story of Shao Kahn’s massive paranoia that had been building throughout the season. The fighting is great and there is a lot of it but the show has the annoying tendency to do a close up of every impactful hit in every single fight that you eventually learn to just embrace. Mortal Kombat Konquest is cheesy and dumb in all of the best ways and I think true fans of the franchise can really find some love here but unfortunately the series never saw a US DVD release and only had a UK release with DVDs that had out of order episodes. The best legal way to get them is to track down VHS copies.  If you can get your hands on this rare gem then I believe it’s worth a watch. Best believe that if there is ever a proper DVD release then I will buy it up in a heartbeat.

After Mortal Kombat Konquest the MK franchise wouldn’t see any kind of film or TV adaptation until 2010 when Mortal Kombat Rebirth exploded onto YouTube. Director Kevin Tancharoen wrote directed and funded his own pitch film to Warner Bros. on his own take on the MK source material. This was a gritty and dark more realistic approach to Mortal Kombat. While I can’t say that I’m a fan of the huge departure into realism I also can’t deny that this film is damn awesome! Michael Jai White plays the most intense Jax and while there is only one fight to speak of in this twenty minute film it is incredibly awesome and grim. This film shows an alternate take on Reptile as a serial killer with a skin condition that eats his victims, Baraka is a former plastic surgeon that accidently lost a patient and then went on a killing spree and grafted blades into his arms, and Johnny Cage is working undercover for the cops since his film career fell apart. That’s kind of an odd choice because who wouldn’t recognize a once famous film actor but I digress. The set up is simple. Jax is in an interrogation room talking to a prisoner in shadows about Reptile, Baraka , and Shang Tsung. He wants this shadowy figure to go to Shang’s tournament and assassinate all of the criminals taking part in these death matches. During this explanation of characters we get a fight between Baraka and Johnny Cage that is brutal and awesome! The fight choreography is flashy and awesome and it really looks like these two are beating the hell out of one another. I’m never into the idea of wildly diverging from the source material but this short film is cool none the less.

So now we move to 2011 and Kevin Tancharoen’s short film has granted him permission to make a nine episode web series called Mortal Kombat Legacy. This is filmed in the same manner of Rebirth which is to say it looks amazing. What’s even better is that Tancharoen was forced to stay closer to the source material with the exception of his Raiden episode which is his own take on the character. For me the highlight of the entire series is the Scorpion and Sub-Zero episodes. It’s a two part episode with a great fight between the characters and great music and really details the back-story that has plagued these two forever. The biggest problem with this series is that the episodes are way too short which Tancharoen has come out and said that the time limit was forced upon him which is unfortunate. The series has been very successful on YouTube and each episode has millions of views and even saw a Bluray release that is well worth the twenty dollars. Each episode is its own story that sets up different characters from the games. One thing that I didn’t feel was well manages was the casting. Some of the actors didn’t feel right for the character they were supposed to be playing but the only one that feels just bad to me is Shang Tsung. The man just looks too young to be this all powerful evil sorcerer. The series was successful though and Tancharoen was given the go ahead to create a second season and do a reboot of the film franchise that is schedule to be released in 2013. The second season is confirmed to feature almost all of the characters from the first three games and will take place during the first Mortal Kombat tournament and he has personally guaranteed some very interesting things especially when talking about his take on Lui Kang.

So here we are in 2012 and Mortal Kombat has seen a major resurgence since last year and the future is looking bright. We have a second season of Legacy and a new film coming and I feel safe knowing they are in the good hands of a die hard fan that has already proved his worth. It’s been a while since we have had a great video game film and I feel like I could count the amount of great ones on one hand. It would seem fitting for it to come all the way back around with a new Mortal Kombat film and maybe this will kick start a whole new generation of video game movies that can be taken more seriously and really show that this medium has something to offer. Tancharoen’s take on MK has been a little risky but it has paid off so far and I look forward to seeing what he can bring us. I only hope it’s a web series with longer episodes and one kick ass film that I will want to watch again and again.

Looking to the Future of Infamous

*Warning article contains spoilers for Infamous and Infamous 2.

Infamous was a very compelling concept right from the start. Playing as a super powered man where you can fill in the role of hero or anti-hero by blasting people with electricity from your finger tips seemed like nothing short of a fantastic idea for a video game. The first Infamous was one of the reasons I bought a Playstation 3 and was one of my first games on the console. I spent hours roaming the world of Infamous and played the game off and on all the way up to the point when Infamous 2 was released. I played through both games as a good and evil character and could not get enough of the narrative that the games provided which only got better with the sequel.  Sucker Punch Productions, which is more known for the Sly Cooper games, created a universe with so many story possibilities that I hope we are able to revisit this world many times to come. But what exactly has been going on in the universe of Infamous and where should the story go? The Infamous franchise is open to so many options that it’s hard to imagine where Sucker Punch might want to take the series next if they decide to make another game.

The Story so Far.

Infamous follows Cole MacGrath, a bike messenger from Empire City, and his best friend Zeke. One day while Cole is delivering a package he gets a phone call and is asked to open the package but when he does he unintentionally sets off an explosion which decimates an entire city block and causes Empire City to be quarantined. Somehow Cole was the only survivor to make it out of ground zero and has emerged with superhuman abilities. Cole now has electrical powers and can absorb electricity to make himself stronger, however Cole was not the only one to gain super powers from the blast. There are three other people who have gained  abilities and are using gangs to take over different parts of the city. Cole sets out to stop them and along the way meets his now archenemy Kessler. After meeting an FBI agent named John, Cole learns what set off the explosion was a device called the Ray Sphere and was developed by Kessler and that there are certain people called conduits that all gain powers when they come in contact with the power from the Ray Sphere. Through a series of events Cole gains possession of the Ray Sphere and in the process John is thought to have been killed. Cole then comes face to face with Kessler and after defeating him realizes that Kessler is actually the future version of himself. Cole learns that in the future his loved ones are killed by a creature called “The Beast”. Using a new power that he had acquired Cole traveled back in time to help prepare his past self to be ready to defeat” The Beast” when he appears.

Infamous 2 wastes no time and introduces “The Beast” in the first few minutes of the game. He quickly defeats Cole and him and Zeke and an FBI agent named Lucy Kuo flee to New Marais to prepare to fight “The Beast.” In New Marais Cole learns that Empire City was destroyed and that “The Beast” is chasing them. Not only that but there are other Conduits in the city because of Kessler’s work from the first game. Kuo tells Cole that they have to find a Dr. Wolfe who may have a way for them to defeat the beast. Unfortunately they have another problem in the form of Joseph Bertrand. An unbalanced man who thinks conduits are an abomination to man and thinks that they should be exterminated. After rescuring Dr. Wolfe from Bertrand, Cole receives a device called the RFI and learns of the blast cores. Cole needs to collect blast cores so he can gain enough power to activate the RFI which will drain the powers of “The Beast.” After Cole manages to destroy Bertrand he comes face to face with “The Beast” only to learn that it is John who was a conduit and when he came in contact with the Ray Sphere in the first game he was transformed. However John gives Cole a proposition to help him save the world as the Radiation from the Ray Sphere is poisoning the world or Cole can use the RFI which will kill all the Conduits in the world and eliminate the disease.

Where Should the Future Lead?

Now the challenge with continuing the Infamous storyline is the fact that Infamous 2 has two drastically different endings. In the good karma ending Cole uses the RFI and kills all of the conduits in the world including himself. Zeke takes his body on a boat to give him a proper send off somewhere else and when the boat is on the horizon a lightning bolt strikes before the credits roll leaving an almost ambiguous ending. In the bad karma ending Cole joins with John and kills his best friend and gains some of John’s powers allowing him to bring out the power in other conduits. He travels the country creating an army of conduits and starts to create a new world order while realizing that he has become “The Beast” and thus the very thing he was supposed to destroy.

Both of these endings could spin the series in two very different directions depending on which one Sucker Punch decides to make the true ending if they choose to continue the story of Cole. Infamous 2 really opened up the universe that Sucker Punch created which reminds me of a different fictional universe, the X-Men. To me there are a lot of similarities between X-Men and Infamous that I think were missed by a lot of people. Both stories contain humans that are gifted with super powers only they are obtained through different means. The most showing similarity between these two franchises is Infamous 2’s bad karma ending which depicts Cole bringing out all of the different Conduit’s powers and building an army to take over the world, an act that is mirrored by the main villain of X-Men, Magneto.

The bad karma ending of Infamous 2 is probably the most interesting way to follow up the series in my opinion. Sucker Punch would be taking an unexpected step forward and could create a game that is a lot more diverse than the last two. A Infamous game where you play as a conquering super human could change the structure of the franchise and add in some new features such as traveling to new cities through the course of the game or even some commanding or squad based mechanics as he controls his army of super humans. On the flip side there could also be a totally different version of the same game where you play as one of the super humans rebelling against Cole thus giving the player to choose to play as the good character or the evil character and have them be literally two separate characters and add more diversity to the game.

However if Sucker Punch were to follow up the good karma ending we would probably see something totally different. In the good Karma ending Cole is believed to be dead but it is left ambiguous as to if he actually is or not. Also all of the conduits are supposed to be dead as well, so it could be a little more difficult to explain away this ending. They could probably find a way to bring back Cole and say he didn’t die but there is still the need of a villain and a compelling story and it may just seem a little copped out if the writers just wrote around the ending. I think if this ending is followed up the best thing to do would be to set the story a couple years in the future and create entirely new characters with a new story line. It could be possible for the conduit gene to resurface in new people and have someone gain powers in another way. This would be the best way to handle the good karma ending and Sucker Punch wouldn’t have to stray too far from their formula to make a game that is still compelling. It would also give them the chance to experiment with a new character that has gained some new type of powers and move away from the electricity, something they experimented with in Infamous 2.

While it’s still up in the air on if we will even see another Infamous game, or what it will be if they do make one, I can only sit and think of what my dream Infamous game would be and what would make sense in an Infamous 3. Whether it’s a prequel, sequel, or side story I can only hope that Sucker Punch keeps improving on their formula and is able to provide gamers with more Infamous in the future. As a big fan of the franchise I am willing to check out any more Infamous that comes my way whether it’s a new game, a movie, a book, a hand held game, or even another downloadable title. Meanwhile we can all just wonder what Sucker Punch has up their sleeves with Cole and the Infamous franchise.