In an effort to promote its new boxing game Fight Night 2004, available now on PlayStation 2 and Xbox, Electronic Arts is running a TV spot set in a subway car. As a sleazy male passenger hits on a nearby female, visions of crushing hooks and devastating uppercuts dance in the onlooker protagonist's mind.At the end of the ad, the punch line is revealed: "You know you think about it" ... or something to that effect.
Experiences like this are not unheard of in the gaming community. The Gamer remembers many an hour spent strolling his high school hallways, involuntarily seeking out the best grind rails and transfer gaps in epic hallucinations induced by the classic Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for PlayStation. Indeed, many gamers share stories of that elusive 120th star, rapidly-encroaching Zerg or a certain blue-blur ring-hoarder invading their waking life.
Landmark movies pervade viewers' everyday lives, enticing, unfinished books nag at readers' minds and entrancing music has listeners bobbing their heads days after they have left the club. In the same way, good games can elicit reactions after the console has been switched off.
When the vestiges of strong game play reach across space and time to implement themselves in daily functions, the game designers have succeeded.
Who knows? Maybe Sony's mock PlayStation 9 commercial will come true someday, and we'll all be wandering around a hyper-urbanized world playing our inhalable, retina-superimposed games.
At least the gamers will be ready.
Adaptations abound! From the big to small screen and vice versa
Nowadays, every major movie releases simultaneously with a licensed videogame quick to capitalize on heavy marketing and hype. Case in point, the Harry Potter games were best-sellers on PlayStation last year, and the Wachowski Brothers stand to make more money on The Matrix videogames than the movie trilogy that spawned them.
More than ever, the next few months will saturate the movie-game market with an abundance of games released in conjunction with their summer blockbusters. Halle Berry will receive game treatment in collusion with July's Catwoman, as will Vin Diesel in June's The Chronicles of Riddick. In May and June, Gamestops across the nation will be inundated by tweens seeking the latest Harry Potter and Shrek 2 games while teens snatch up copies of the Van Helsing and Spider-Man 2 games.
In a type of reverse adaptation, more and more games are finding their way to the big screen. The biggest game-movie news of late is John Woo's acquisition of the movie rights to the Metroid franchise according to Hollywood Reporter. And PC Gamer reports that the same German movie company responsible for the abominable House of the Dead movie recently committed $25 million to a film rendition of Ubisoft's Far Cry.
Throwing a wrinkle into conventional game derivation, the BBC reports that a series of five games based on Agatha Christie novels will be published over the next six years. The Gamer, for one, would love to see Miss Marple or Poirot in EA and Marvel's new Vs. series.
Winning the office pool with Zelda
Half-Life recently won Gamespy's "Ultimate Game Grudge," a contest pitting 64 games against each other in March-Madness-style brackets. Games squared off against each other for a limited amount of time, and an online popular vote decided which game moved on. GameFAQs is currently running its own version, "Best. Game. Ever." Virtual Fools, partly run by University students Jason Ford and Bobby Schweizer, has an "Obscure Character Battle" pitting sprites as diverse as the Flag from Minesweeper against the Barrel from Donkey Kong...Electronic Arts, in a move heralded by the gaming community, recently donated several million dollars to the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television to support its interactive media division. According to Gamespot, the money will establish a three-year Master of Fine Arts program for interactive entertainment at the school and will go toward an intra-USC gaming community...Gamespy reports that Acclaim and Nielsen Entertainment, the folks behind television ratings and more, are teaming up to judge the efficacy of in-game advertisement for featured products like brand name cell phones in spy games or billboards lining race tracks.
Summertime gaming: Cheaper than Beach Week
This week marks the end of another semester for Gamer on Grounds. But the gaming doesn't stop here, loyal readers. Below, you'll find a list of summer releases sure to keep your swimming suit from ever seeing the light of day.
Hitman: Contracts hits PlayStation 2 next week, followed by Onimusha 3: Demon Siege at the end of April and Syphon Filter: Omega Strain in early May. ShellShock: Nam '67 begins June with a bang on multiple platforms while Front Mission 4 assaults PS2 in the middle of June. Mario Golf: Advance Tour tees off on the GBA a day before Driv3r peels out onto PS2 and Xbox near the end of the month. Miyamoto's labor of love, Pikmin 2, lands on the GameCube in early July, and Namco appeases American Tales series fans, the Gamer among them, with a translation of Tales of Symphonia, also on the GC. Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow strikes the GC and PS2 in mid-July, and Star Ocean: Till the End of Time gives the PS2 a solid RPG in early August. The Sims 2 and Half-Life 2 are scheduled to be released for the PC at some point this summer, anywhere from June to August, depending who you ask, so PC gamers can look forward to a summer of disco dancing and hot tub-canoodling or firehose-of-death-wielding and Xen-ravaging.
Games be with you till we meet again
Next semester is shaping up to be a whopper with uber-games like GTA: San Andreas for the PS2 and Halo 2 for the Xbox, as well as solid additions to regular franchises like Madden 2005 and new Jak and Ratchet and Clank games. Regardless of your taste in games, the months ahead hold something for everyone: Action, FPS, RPG, Sports -- you name it. These big ticket games send us riding high into the holiday season, complete with Nintendo DS and the recently-delayed PlayStation Portable (in March 2005).
Rest assured, the Gamer will be with you every step of the way. Stay cool this summer, and keep on gaming.
Keep in touch with the Gamer all summer long at Gamer@cavalierdaily.com
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