G-S-T Top 10 – Awesome Video Games Dying To Be Movies

Taking a huge cue from last year’s Screen Rant article and Castor’s own list, I’ve been toying with/drafting this for a while now and been debating whether or not to finish it…but I guess they were just the catalysts I needed:)

Here are 10 games that I am soooo looking forward to seeing on the big screen. Problem is, I’ll probably be waiting a loooong time. But fear not game (and film) fans, this is the Internet right? Someone is bound to hear us. So let’s do what us fans do best…speculate and dream without regard to budgets or plausibility:P

Here are the G-S-T Top 10 Awesome Video Games Dying To Be Movies…

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

Shadow of the Colossus – This might be a huge tough sell as there is no dialog (save for narration) and only one character. Still the Resident Evil series and Doom were kind of the same way…wait those are terrible examples. But for this to work (since it was a prequel to the game ICO) they would probably have to, as originally planned, make this with 3 main characters. So as it does have an IMDb page, there’s so little info out there except a tentative release sometime in 2012. Hey maybe it wasn’t natural disasters the Mayans were worried about…maybe it was the Colossuses:P

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

God of War – Personally, unless you have either Cameron or Jackson at the helm (read: makers of nearly unfilmable films) I doubt this will ever be done right, if at all. Why? It is simply TOO EPIC. With three games worth of increasingly large scale material to cull from, you either do this BIG or don’t do it at all.

Kratos is one great character and as I’m not an avid gamer this got my attention pretty quick and kept me button smashing for over 3 months. So as rumors disappear just as quickly as they pop up, there has been one attempt (that I know of)  to make this into a film. Now for those of you in the know, there was this fake “indie” trailer released (see below) which just makes me laugh. Although this movie would, in reality, be such a long way off, I think if Thor is a hit, this may be greenlit opening weekend. Fingers crossed right?…I just hope Bret Ratner has nothing to do with it.

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

Metal Gear Solid – I guess it’s too similar to the plot lines of the spy drivel out there but MGS makes it’s distinction with its over the top Japanese story about two brothers (how typical right?). Don’t get me wrong, the game is fun and challenging as hell but I think to make a movie out of it would just be so weak by comparison and truthfully there’s not really a story worth telling is there? But if one movie about a guy named Snake (read:’Plisken’) became wildly popular, then how about trying a hand at this Snake’s (read: Solid) film debut?

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

Heart of China – Circa post WWII, Jake Lucky Masters is charged with rescue the daughter of a successful business tycoon. Problem? She’s been kidnapped by a warlord in China. So Jake and his best friend Chi head off in this sweeping adventure that crosses all continents. It’s hands down my favorite video game of all time and was so expansive I was glued to my old 386 for months trying to beat it. So epic it makes Indiana Jones’ globe trotting seem like a trip to the market. High replay value, it takes those chose your own adventure books concept to the next level and is such a fun, worldly and engrossing game.

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

The Secret of Monkey Island – Yes, it’s one of the entries from Screen Rant’s post but I’ve been waiting for one since I was 12. It has a very kid friendly vibe to it but it also the kind of story that won’t put the parents to sleep. Great humor, imaginative tales and as Pirates are (still) all the rage I don’t know why anyone isn’t buying the rights or green-lighting anything….

———————————————————————————————————————————————

Gears of War – Just like Halo it’s a big, expansive epic game. But holee crap is it so much fun. Sure it will be watered down to a small scale but just to see this on the big screen will be worth the ticket price…but don’t hold your breath for a good story or complex dialog.

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

Bulletstorm – Just like Gears of War, Halo and God of War the scale of this is such that it will probably never ever see the dim lights of a multiplex, not to mention the insane amount of censoring they’d have to do just to get it released. But if you want an epic adventure in all sense of the word then this game has it and would be like Mad Max meets The Matrix on adrenaline overload.

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

Dark Void – Come on, it’s like a futuristic Rocketeer…what’s not love about a rocket pack?? Brad Pitt’s production company (responsible for Kick-Ass) was interested in developing the adaptation so the good news is that it’s got one high profile fan pulling for it. That said, it may be here before we know it, moving on.

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

Descent – Sure it’s DOOM (or any FSP really) in a spaceship but it was oh so innovative (using 360 degrees of movement), challenging and super fun. But if the game being devoid of any real dialog (or a speaking lead character) would deter Hollywood, let me refer you to DOOM (probably not a good example actually) and Resident Evil (not a great one either) who didn’t have much in the way of chit chat before those games made it to the big screen. But in the success of flicks like Transformers, how could a film about a sole mining fighter ship blowing up all sorts of robotic baddies not be a win on the big screen?

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

Tenchu – I will agree all the livelong day that the series has not been able to live up to the fun and level of quality of the first but come on. At least you’d have a better story than trying to make one out of thin air (which is what I think plagues and therefore makes soooo boring the Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Dead or Alive, well, take your pick films). So while the terrible Ninja Assassin pretty much closed the book on Ninja films Tenchu is a pipe dream…but there was 13 Assassins so maybe someone should be taking to Takashi Miike about this!

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

Honorable Mention:

EcoQuest – This is really for the kids and is the one PC game (back in the 386 days) I played more than any other. One of the many, many “Quest” games released for computers in the 90’s this was one of the most kid friendly games (and yet still engaging for adults) I’ve ever played. But if Finding Nemo shows us there’s a market for underwater adventure then this should be a huge hit to the young ones.

——————————————————————————————————————————————–
So that’s what I’ve got. Sure there are bigger, better and more interesting games out there ripe for cinematic adaptation but these are the games I love to play. As a fan I’d love to see Hollywood’s take on them. However, if there’s one thing playing these games teach us is that they are so much bigger than a film could ever be. We really have to ask, just like reading a book actually, if it takes more than a week to get through the game and story, what service would it be to put it on a screen and condense everything into a convoluted 120 minutes? Just asking…but I still love to dream:)