1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF FEBRUARY 18 | GAMES GO TO HOLLYWOOD

When Video Games Met Films

Cover Story: What the two industries could learn from one-another.

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oral ambiguity, brotherhood, and deception are themes prevalent in Infernal Affairs, a film that follows a Hong Kong police detective going undercover as a Triad gang member. If some of this sounds familiar, that's because the open-world game Sleeping Dogs loosely follows the film's script. However, the keyword here is loosely, as the game doesn't go out of its way to perfectly recreate the film, nor is it titled Infernal Affairs: The Game. It merely samples some of storyline elements and gives us an open-world crime game evoking the same themes as its movie counterpart.

Similarly, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is another example of a game inspired by a movie, but still manages to give us an original product that is fun to play. Despite having the film's name in its title, it doesn't follow any direct plot, but serves as a tie-in prequel of sorts to the Chronicles of Riddick franchise. Not being a direct translation from one medium to another saves the game from suffering the same fate many movie tie-in games often face.

Both of these titles work as video games because they still manage to give us a reason to pick up our controllers and play them. They have objectives, missions, and things we normally associate with this interactive medium. Their big-screen inspirations don't obstruct us from enjoying them, and instead, simply serve as a foundation for developers to build upon. Sleeping Dogs uses a film's premise to add depth to its familiar open-world format, while Chronicles of Riddick expands on a film's pre-established universe.

Unfortunately the same praise can't be given to games that are direct ports of Hollywood movies. These titles may share the same name as their blockbuster counterparts, but they lack whatever oomph made watching the original so good in the first place. They often fail because transforming a viewable-only experience into an interactive one isn't that simple. A movie's plot is linear and its characters follow a certain script, so the only thing studios can do to make these games more interactive is to add gameplay features that end up feeling more like afterthoughts. And that's probably because they are.

Video game studios are often rushed into finishing these games in time for a film's release. Not only do they have to work within limited time constraints, but the game essentially becomes an elaborate promotional piece for the movie, forgetting that it will soon be a full-priced game for people to play. It isn't always supplied with a budget befitting a game of its size so technical and graphical issues are apparent, sometimes making it feels incomplete. But what's worse is that these games don't always live up to the film they are representing, so their marketing purpose remains uncertain. Are they trying to make you make watch the movie, or are they trying to profit from a film's success?

Regardless of their reason, the great thing about these film adaptations, no matter how bad or good they may be, is that they help bring the film and video game industries a bit closer together. What once started as pixelated arcade titles that had neither themes nor personality are now massive productions complete with motion-captured acting, orchestrated soundtracks, and deep narratives. It may be difficult to effectively turn a film into a video game, but it's a lot easier to take some of what Hollywood teaches us and use it to our advantage.

L.A. Noire borrows heavily from classic Hollywood genres and gives us a game that almost feels like we are playing a movie without forgetting what it's supposed to be. Using advanced facial scanning technologies, Team Bondi was able to capture live actors recording their lines to allow the game to implement a unique interrogation system. Not only are we still playing a game with full control of our actions, but we now need to read a video game character's face and hear her lines to determine whether she is telling the truth. This not only gives us a visually stunning presentation, but it also adds a new layer of emotional connectivity to the game's narrative, letting us make decisions based on what we see and hear.

L.A Noire essentially took what role a game's cut scene serve and transformed it into a hands-on experience. Its graphics, script, acting, and themes combined to garner praise from film critics and gave it the honor of being the first game to be featured at the Tribeca Film Festival.

It still follows the usual open-world formula with side missions, collectible hunting, and the occasional chase sequences, but it presents it all to us in a way that makes us sometimes forget we are playing a game. It's HUD, for example, is almost nonexistent, freeing up the screen from any buttons or text usually associated in games. Instead, the camera gently zooms in on items worth investigating or sound effects indicate what items are worth checking out. These clever tactics, including its visual splendor, are what make L.A. Noire such a unique cinematic experience, almost indistinguishable from a movie.

Of course, there are many other games that take advantage of new technology and processing power, but a game doesn't need to feature live actors or guns and violence for it to feel cinematic. Journey doesn't obstruct your screen with things like health bars or maps, which also frees up your view to explore your surroundings. If L.A. Noire evokes the feeling of a live-action film noir, Journey is like an experimental short film that touches each person differently. It's still a game in that you have an objective and full control of your character, but it becomes a visual and emotional journey that you can appreciate by playing or by standing back and watching someone else play it.

Before making games, Journey creator Jenova Chen attended film school, so he understands the basics of creating emotion in a limited amount of time. Films only last about two hours, which seems to be the right amount of time needed to tell its story and entice its viewers before they get bored. "The problem with a game that is longer than three hours is then there is a bathroom break," he says. "The reason films are designed between 90 minutes and two hours is so that people can take the whole thing in and really build up to a climactic feeling. So, two hours is golden time before they have to go to the bathroom."

Of course, a game doesn't need to be that short to offer us a cinematic experience, nor does it need to be a series of elaborate playable cut scenes for it to make us feel like we are directing a movie. But if a game can tie us in both visually and emotionally, it's done its job. And if a movie game wants to be successful in winning us over, it should perhaps look to what games have adopted from the film industry and use it to its advantage. Perhaps one day an actor can be nominated for an Academy Award for his role in a video game or a game adaptation of a feature film can earn accolades among game critics. The film and video game industries can only learn from each other.

Giancarlo Saldana

Giancarlo Saldana is a freelance writer based in Boston. He played the SNES version of Beethoven's 2nd as a child and got sad every time Beethoven whimpered. Catch his thoughts on his Twitter account.