Jackson/Halo
News in today that Peter Jackson’s production company will be working with Bungie, Universal and Fox. Good news I think – it certainly seems a better candidate for a game-to-movie conversion than Doom. Plus the Halo ring structure is kind of outdoors (discounting the unusual sky backdrop), so they get to set it in New Zealand and pump some more money into their economy. I always like to see the Kiwis get ahead (although I’m compelled to admit its because I’m secretly hoping they’ll all get so rich they’ll start giving away free plane trips over there).
Of course, game-to-movie conversions are always going to be at least a little cringe-worthy, even when the game story is good, the movie can’t fit everything in (like a book-to-movie conversion) and it loses its magic. At least movie-to-game conversions can expand on the movie’s plot and get you more involved in the world.
One good example I found recently though was the book that Raymond E. Feist wrote after the success of Betrayal at Krondor. I’ve never played the game (I know, I know, how can I call myself a gamer), but I can see the shape of the game in the book, and feel just how the various stages would map to quests and sub-quests; and how the character/group mechanics would work. You can even almost see the levelling mechanics at work in the character of Owyn. If only all medium crossovers were so effectively possible.