8 Video Games That Should Have Been Movies

As video game budgets balloon to almost Mr. Creosote levels in the current day and age, so do their ambitions. As time has moved on many video games have mined deep into the realm of the "cinematic" in the hopes of being seen as "art" alongside their silver screen counterpart.

This means a focus on deep emotionally driven narratives, complex character arcs that feel believable and relatable, and of course a metric shedload of money being thrown at developers in order to make video game projects "look" like films.

It's a journey that almost feels bizarre looking back at where the medium was in the 80s and 90s, where coin collecting, point-chasing, one screen of text explaining the story (if you're lucky) was considered the norm, especially now that we have trilogies of games that carry on a continuous narrative or are so intricately created that you have to applaud the writers and art directors for creating something so beautiful.

However in some cases, video games possibly go a little too far in their pursuit of the cinematic and arguably offer little actual gameplay to speak of, and it's in these instances we all throw up our hands and say "Well why weren't you just a film?"

With Team Bondi sinking a sizeable portion of their budget into new facial capture tech in order to bring their lofty vision of "being able to see the lie", there was considerable pressure on L.A. Noire to deliver the crime-caper goods upon release.

And in this one area, it bloody well did.

However, while looking for facial ticks and sweaty brows was a novel and interesting feature, the rest of the title did feel like it was dragging a heavy load to keep pace, as the gunfights often felt clunky and the very world around you empty and devoid of anything truly interesting to do. This is an almighty shame because the tale on show here really is one of the ages and one that fits perfectly with the Noire film genre.

It's got everything, corrupt cops, murders, scandal, and tragedy, all of which would make for one hell of a film without any of the meaningless downtime driving around quiet streets at a max of 50 miles an hour. Hell, you hired actors for this game and then painstakingly digitized them so why not use the exact same cast and shoot a big-budget movie instead?

Likely wouldn't have had such a massive falling out with Rockstar and their crunch culture either!