5 Console Games That Would Make Great B-Movies

Making films based on games has been all the rage for twenty years now; who knows why, most of them suck. The issue seems to be that most games have a fully-formed plot already, but Hollywood is far too arrogant to accept that a bunch of game designers can write a better script than they can, so they insist on writing some form-fit trash and adding a few game shots.

This will probably never change, but we can still hope. As such, we present five games that would make awesome movies and hope Hollywood won't pull a hatchet job on the plot.


1) Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy

I'm sure many of you would choose game studio Quantic Dream's latest noir thriller, Heavy Rain, for the movie overhaul. However, I'd vastly prefer their previous offering, Fahrenheit, known in the US as Indigo Prophecy. I maintain that the game - like Heavy Rain, the brainchild of writer/director David Cage - has both a superior interface and a better plot.

The game opens with your character standing over a corpse that he has just stabbed to death with a knife, but has no memory of doing so, and your first task is to get out of there as quickly as possible while eliminating all the evidence. Later, taking possession of both the lead character and each of the police officers trying to catch him, you must unwind the mystery of exactly what happened that night. The story features ancient Mayan priests, electronic lifeforms evolved on the internet, alien artifacts, Matrix-style flying kung fu battles and lots of partial nudity and sex scenes. Woohoo!

2) Arkham Asylum

Dear Mr Nolan, looking for a plot for the next Batman film? How about Batman captures the Joker and takes him back to the island asylum where all Bat's baddies reside, only to find he's been conned and the inmates have taken over the asylum. Yes, it's Batman Die Hard! Not to mention, the way Bats takes down the Joker at the end is possibly the greatest game moment of all time.

The only flaw in the scheme is Heath Ledger's death. Still, I don't think it would be that much of a disservice to recast the role so long as we chose someone really awesome... *cough* David Tennant *cough*....


3) Silent Scope

The story of one lone, slightly-pervy sniper taking out an entire terrorist army and saving the President and first family is so cliched that it's hard to believe no-one's done it before. The closest we've come is the amazing Shooter, which I have waxed lyrical about before. The beauty of this is that there is no plot to sodomise, just lots of awesome ideas and a very cool name.


4) Second Sight

Like Fahrenheit, this one is all about the set up. You wake in a sealed lab, shaved bald, with no memory of who you are or what you're doing there. Quickly, you realise you somehow have weird psychic powers that let you escape. As you progress through the game, you begin to have flashbacks to who you are and how you got here, only things begin to get trippy when you realise that things you do in the flashbacks can change the present.

The game lets you choose between running in with all guns blazing; astral projecting yourself to scope out the bad guys, then using telekinesis to distract them while you sneak past; or simply possessing one of the villains and turning them on each other. A film would allow ample screen time for all three and follow the game's excellent, twisting plot.


5) Wipeout

Wipeout is another game without a plot, leaving plenty of room to spin out a script. The simple concept is that, in the near future, competing corporations own the world and each sponsor a team in the ultimate motor sport: zero-gravity racing in super-fast hover cars. To add spice to the mix, each car comes equipped with missiles, mines, lasers and that's just the start. Scifi Days Of Thunder anyone? Just take a look at that gameplay in the video above and tell me how that would look on the big screen...