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PAGE 115 PAGE 113 PAGE 111
PLAY ONE THIS FORTNIGHT
8tiltllbl't-Mlypp}gr5 one film when game lived up 'hype
may
War of the worlds
Constantine the movie has now also been released as a video game. Henry Northmore investigates the power struggle raging between the games and movie industries.
SOME FACTS
Constantine (THO). Onimusha 3 (Capcom). Spider-Man 2 (Activision). Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (VU Games). Rise to Honour (SCEA) are available from all good electronics retailers. The Matrix:
Path of Neo (Atari) is released autumn 2005.
s technology adyances. the possibility ol bringing
games and moxies together is becoming more ol a
reality. The licenced \ ideo game is nothing llL‘\\. li'om the \yire lraitie Slur liiirs at the arcades in the l‘)7lls to the most recent lilm tie-in. ('misltmliiii'. The Don er ol' home entertainment \y as nndreamed ol' to the lil‘l‘gt'ammers ol~ I'f'l' on the :\tari home entertainment \} \lem back in I‘m}. btit today lull motion \ideo is pretty much tiniyersal. Soundtracks consist ol‘ songs by bands yoti knou and low. and \oicem er “mix comes trom the same superstar actors \yho \xere imolyed in the original mmie. :\re games. as their creators are increasingly claiming. becoming more important than lilms‘.’
There are hundreds ol" passable \ ideogatne com ersions l‘rom 'l'lii' Hit/A to lit/i Hi'lytng ol'ten simply yielding them to older games engines. “(m e\ er. “hen the programmers take a chance they can shine: controlling characters you islltt\\ and loye. it. it‘s done \yilh skill. is an
undeniable rtish. .S’pit/t'r-Jlmi 3 has been hailed by many as the As linest \‘ideo game/moy ie tie-in to
c‘ttllstlic‘s
date. a tree \yheeling (i'lLl-style action piece. \yhile (’limnii'lt's of Rik/(lick: limit/w I-i'oni Bil/(‘llt’l' Bay is one ol‘ the better games ayailable on the Xbox. lar
surpassing the poor moy ie.
In its relationship to the mm ie that spayyned it. (hits/untrue the game lalls someyy here between the mo. It takes the basic story l‘rom the action horror moy ie starring Keanu Reeyes. btit seems to tell a parallel story as characters meet or die in dill‘erent ways to the lilm. Here. only the bare bones ol' the moy ie are kept and at times lilm and game actiy'ely contradict each other. In many \yay's this is immaterial: the game plays last as you dispatch the hordes ol‘ demons that besiege the anti—hero. it‘s a third person \iltHllL‘l‘ \kilh the addition ()it spells and demon \ision for some innoy'atiye game play tthough neither is anything \y e hayen‘t seen bel‘orei. But the controls are ol'ten clunky and lack that intuitiye edge that makes a true classic. Reeyes and Rachel Weis/ are conspicuous by their absence. eyen though the rest of the cast are present and correct to Voice their characters. The atmosphere that (‘omtuntiiit' so badly crayes yyas captured perl'ectly in last years The Sir/living. Now there was a game with the poo er to scare you shitless.
That the games industry earns more than the lilm industry is a ‘t‘act‘ that is casually bandied about in the media. While games are admittedly taking more than the L'S box office ($9.9m compared \yith S‘L-lbn for films in 2004) these ligures are skewed and giye a false picture. Rey‘enue tor the games industry includes console and hardware sales while the box office takings ignore [)VI) and VldCt) sales. which
‘ '.‘::' ‘~1 fiz.’ .9 THE LIST 109