You know what sucks just as bad as awful movie adaptations of video games? Equally terrible video game adaptations of popular film franchises. The majority of game adaptations are somewhere between mediocre and abysmal, with a few notable exceptions:Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, and Goldeneye. It seems that most developers are willing to settle for creating a run-of-the mill first person shooter or beat-em-up instead of playing to each respective IP's strengths and creating an immersive, faithful experience. Luckily, there are a number of classic movies that have yet to have a worthwhile game. Let's daydream for a bit, shall we? Here are 10 classic movies that could become great video games.
10. Dirty Harry
This one actually almost happened, and Im glad it didnt. Back in 2007, a Dirty Harry video game was being developed by The Collective, Inc., a developer thats catalog of games is comprised of mostly mediocre-to-above average licensed titles like Men in Black and The Da Vinci Code (they did develop the excellent Indiana Jones and the Emperors Tomb, though). Not exactly the most promising beginning, nor is the CGI trailer for that matter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtAvsrA0Tvk The game was cancelled and it was probably for the best. However, in the right hands, Dirty Harry could be a fantastic game.
How to do it: Make it Like L.A. Noire but more awesome. Noires biggest issues were its unlikeable protagonist, its dogmatic dedication to cinemaso much so that one gets the sense the game would work better as a movieand its insistence on creating a linear, drawn out experience within a beautifully recreated Los Angeles. For Dirty Harry, give the gamers that same kind of faithful recreation of 70s San Francisco and keep the investigation aspect that Noire did mostly well, but add Harrysunorthodox questioning method into the mix. It would also be wise to give the player choices in how Harry interacts with the various NPCs populating the worldnot Mass Effect levels of conservation branching, just enough to let the player decide how much of a jerk he/she wants to be in those interactions.