Video Games + American Cartoons = Bad Adoptations

In early 1990s America, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was at the height of its popularity, the Super NES and Sega Genesis were right around the corner, and arcades have experienced a revolution led by Capcom's Street Fighter II and Midway's Mortal Kombat. The rapidly growing popularity of video games made the game companies want to cash in by expanding their franchises into other products such as toys, comic books, novels, movies, and animated shows. In regard to animated shows, Japanese anime adaptations of popular video games made in Japan such as Capcom's Street Fighter and Darkstalkers have come to be regarded as the most faithful to the source material. On the other hand, American cartoon adaptations of popular video games have been reviled by fans as not only unfaithful to the source material but insulting to everything they cherish about their favorite games by using cheap (read poor quality) animations, degrading popular game characters in the day as what the contracted American studios deemed "tasteful" and "acceptable in the eyes of parents," and writing in cheap morality lessons/public service announcements that were in all likelihood ineffective. At their best, they were inferior knockoffs of the more well-known and better cartoons that were aired at the time. At their worst, they were canceled after only a few months, or even less than a week, of the first season.

Welcome to Cyberjack!

As of this writing and effective immediately, this blog is no longer The Escapist's Realm. It is now Cyberjack, dedicated solely to video games. As a gamer and an aspiring game designer, I have a passion for the medium and seek to make my own contributions to the industry and community. As I walk along the path to my career goal, I have been looking at video games from a variety of perspectives in terms of technology, economy, history, culture, and society. As a result, I became aware of various sources of information about certain aspects of video games, like the history of a video game franchise, and some gamers may not even be aware of. Therefore, I make it my personal mission to transmit the information through to the video game community. I am thoroughly open what ever opinions on certain topics I cover in the comments section below my posts. That way, you, the reader, would contribute to the gaming community in ways they may not have considered. For example, we might learn from mistakes made by game companies when they release a badly designed game.

By restructuring this blog from The Escapist's Realm to Cyberjack, I hope to share my insights while gaining new ones along the way. Based on the progress I have been making in my game development/design studies so far, I look forward to seeing the technological and cultural path video games would be taking in the future.

The Escapist's Realm to Undergo a Name Change

For over the past year, I have been drafting far more posts for this blog than publishing. As that happens, I've been increasingly disliking the title for this blog, The Escapist's Realm. One of the reasons for this growing distaste is because people tend to link the word "escapist" to hiding from the real world via fantasy. While this is true for video games to some degree, I don't tend to see it that way. In recent months, a new title has been coming to mind, one that is far more relevant to my topic of video games, including their history, culture, and design. The title change from The Escapist's Realm to the new one, Cyberjack, is increasingly inevitable. In fact, this is going to happen at around midnight of the end of this month. This will give you, the readers, time to spread the news of this change and be ready for it since it would change the link. In the meantime, I will continue writing up drafts and publish new posts. I am looking forward to the continued growth of this blog and I hope you will too.

How Retro Games are Still Crucial to the Gaming Market

A video game-themed window blinded designed by the UK-based Direct Blinds featuring controllers and handhelds of all shapes and sizes in the shape of Pac Man.

When a video game gets critical acclaim and player praise or a brand new console is released, there are usually two-fold expectations: (1) a sequel gets made that would expand on certain aspects of the original and (2) a new game that is released on a next generation console, be it a sequel, a prequel, a remake of that original game, or even one that would reboot a franchise, takes advantages of the console's more advanced hardware to make refined gameplay, better graphics, a new soundtrack, better storytelling, . By that logic, new games are supposed to be better than old ones. Throughout video game history, there have been games that meet, and sometimes even surpass, those expectations. The first sequel to Street Fighter not only surpassed the original, it also founded the fighting game genre. The first Resident Evil, originally released on the Sony Playstation in 1996, received a technical and graphical makeover on the Nintendo GameCube in 2002, making it one of the most atmospheric horror titles of all time. When Metroid Prime, a first-person action adventure title for Nintendo's Metroid franchise, was first announced, there was much skepticism as to whether or not the Western developed title (that developer being Texas based Retro Studios) would be true to the franchise. When it was released in 2002 on the GameCube, Metroid Prime had literally blown away expectations, garnering enough positive reviews and sales to become a critically acclaimed trilogy. At this year's recent San Diego Comic Con event, there have been announcements of remakes for two underrated classic games that are most memorable as classic ports for the Sega Genesis: Delphine International Software's Flashback (an IP now currently held by Ubisoft and which has just been released for the Xbox Live Arcade) and Capcom's Strider. From the gameplay footage I have watched so far, these two remakes seem to promise to stick to the roots of what made the original games great while incorporating new gameplay mechanics that enchance the experiences.

What Does it Mean For Video Games To Grow Up?

To those who have read my post on the escapist aspect of video games, I feel that I have not been specific enough in addressing a crucial gaming-related issue I have presented in that post. I raise the issue again here with these questions: what does it mean for video games to 'grow up?' Should 'growing up' entail upping the ante in violence, blood, gore, cursing, and sex? Does it require an exponentially increased number of cinematic cutscenes and quick-time events (QTEs) as well as greatly extended the length to a point that interactivity on part of the player is limited to a few button presses? Is it merely a justification for spending millions upon billions of dollars on making the game world and its inhabitants appear and feel as realistic as possible, as if realism is the one and only art style? The short answer to the last three counts would have to be no. Although there is no simple answer the original question, my own answer would be to have developers and producers of video games to do three things: to have more mature forms of storytelling, to discard all of the outdated storytelling tropes that offend and alienate people of different genders, races, religions, ethnics, and sexual orientation; and to hire new programmers, designers, artists, from these aforementioned demographics that would open new avenues of game development including design and storytelling. In order to understand how this relates to video games growing up, I will be summarizing the overall narratives of two video games, each from different generations in terms of content that justifies the M-rating and the sort of maturity that lies beneath the digital surface: Duke Nukem 3D and Bioshock Infinite.

A Greater Need for Diversity in the Video Game Industry and Culture

Since time immemorial, men have often viewed women as innocent, frail, and desirable objects. Throughout history, stories and art done by men tend to be a reflection those beliefs. Cases in point include the ancient Greek myth Andromeda, the medieval fairy tale Snow White, Jacques-louis David's The Oath of the Horatii, and Adolphe William Bouguereau's Nymphs and Satyr. Enter the 21st century and video games. By now, views of women have changed. Yet the way in which women are depicted and represented in mass media and popular culture have continued to cling to the ancient and by-now outdated views of women in spite of the social reforms instigated in the United States, Japan, and other progressive nations. This is also the unfortunate case with video games.

Fan Films: The Very Best Video Game Movies

When video games receive film adaptations, they have a tendency to be looked upon by critics and fans alike as inferior to the source material, box office records notwithstanding. They range from Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter of the 1990s to the Uwe Boll's House of the Dead, Bloodrayne, and Alone in the Dark in the 2000s. The Resident Evil movie saga starring Milla Jovovich did not fair well critically either, despite receiving millions of dollars at the box office. To make up for these disappointments, people have started to turn toward the Internet for something better, something more true to what made video games earn a fan base in the first place. Enter fan films, short independent non-profit videos made exclusively for the Internet. The number of views these videos receive reflects how well the creators hit the right notes in translating the worlds depicted in the video games to the short films. If they are lucky, they would be receiving support and endorsement from the companies that develop and produce the games the fan films are based on. If they are even luckier, those companies would hire them. As examples of such successful fan films, here is a short list:

Street Fighter: Legacy

Made by an independent company known as Streetlight Films, this short film was co-directed by Joey Ansah and Owen Trevor, with Jon Foo and Christian Howard respectively staring as Ryu and Ken, the two main characters of Street Fighter, Capcom's popular fighting game franchise. Being Street Fighter fans themselves, they took the fighting styles, particularly as depicted in Street Fighter IV, to heart when doing the fight choreography. Since being uploaded on YouTube less than three years ago, views have reached around 4 million, with comments saying that this fan adaptation is superior to the 1994 Hollywood adaptation staring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia and the arguably far worse Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li released in 2009.

Street Fighter X Tekken: The Devil Within

Uploaded around the time Street Fighter X Tekken was released by Capcom last year, the theme in this film is that of powerful dark forces hidden within souls in the forms of the Satsui no hadou in Street Fighter's Ryu and the Devil Gene in Tekken's Kazuya Mishima and Jin Kazama. While the film revolved around battles between Ryu, Ken, and Kazuya and did not feature Jin until the very end, the people behind the fight choreography made sure that the different fighting styles of characters from two different fighting franchises as well as their personalities are represented accurately.


Portal: No Escape

Created and directed by Dan Trachtenberg, this unique short film is based on Portal, Valve's science fiction puzzle platformer. With expertise in digital graphics, special effects, and computer generated imagery (CGI), Trachtenberg's team had replicated the portal gun and the portal system from the game with fantastic results, something that is not easy for a fan film maker to pull off. Otherwise, his short yet technologically innovative fan film would not have been able to receive 12 million views.

Mortal Kombat: Rebirth

When this short film was first released on the Internet, few people knew what to make of it. As views climbed in the millions, some theorized that it was a trailer for a new film while others believed that it was a promotion for a new game. Both theories were odd given the fact that there hasn't been a single film release since the infamous Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and that the Mortal Kombat reboot was already released with critical and commercial success. It was later revealed that Kevin Tancharoen, whose career consisted of dance and musicals like 2009's Fame, was behind it's creation. He stated that he wanted to share his vision of what a Mortal Kombat movie would be like and to prove that, given enough resources, he can make it a reality. And sure enough, Warner Bros. hired him to officially write and direct the movie for them, as well as the first season of Mortal Kombat: Legacy, which was launched on the Machinima last year, with a combined 4 billion views, a feat that is unprecedented for an Internet based show. It is not known when Tancharoen's Mortal Kombat movie will be released, so season two of Mortal Kombat: Legacy will most likely be released sometime this year as a sort of hold over until then.

Escape from City 17 Parts 1 and 2

Made in mid 2009 by David and Ian Purchase of Toronto Canada (known professionally as the Purchase Brothers), this short film series is based on Valve's popular and critically acclaimed sci-fi first-person shooter Half-Life 2. More specifically, the series focuses on events during the later part of the game as well as its follow-up Half-Life 2: Episode 1 from the perspective of a few resistance fighters engaging in an uprising against the omnipotent alien Combine forces in the crumbling futuristic dystopia City 17. With previous experience filming Coca-Cola commercials, they made the film in a guerrilla style with no crew, a budget of $500 in Canadian dollars, costumes, used/broken airsoft guns, a previously owned HVX200 camera, and donated/previously owned software. When Valve Software, the developer and publisher of the Half-Life series, took notice and decided to get involved in the brothers' promotion of their film by having it premiere on the company's user community channel, Steam News. Upon seeing it, members said that they were 'blown away.' When Escape from City 17 - Part 1 was uploaded on YouTube in October 2009, it was viewed more that 1.5 million times in three days, then 2 million times in a week, and finally becoming the #1 Top Rated video on YouTube for about a month. Two years later, Part 2, made under half the budget as Part 1. With sound effects lifted directly from the game, the perfect replications of outfits worn by resistance fighters and Combine soldiers, and a story not featuring Gordon Freeman, the main protagonist of the series, standing out on its own, Escape from City 17 stands out as one of the most popular and well known films made by Half-Life fans.

Left 4 Dead Parts 1, 2, and 3

Based on Valve's popular multiplayer zombie shooter, this three-part fan film was started in 2010 by Colin and Conner McGuire (known on YouTube as ColinandConner). This home project took around two years to complete, with a limited budget. Part 1 lasts around six minutes; Part 2 lasts around fifteen; and Part 3 lasts around forty minutes, which brings the total of the whole project to an hour, the length of a standard episode for a TV show. While keeping the concept of a group of survivors fighting against hordes of zombies, each part got closer to the source material in terms of the objectives the characters set in accordance with their circumstances, such as getting a mint cola from a baseball arena for a pilot in exchange for an escape on his helicopter. With a combination of around fifteen million views, the three-part Left 4 Dead fan film is among the most successful.

While it is true that there are many fan films that are of lesser quality, the growing popularity of Internet-exclusive movies based on video games and made by independent film makers with a passion for their favorite video games is undeniable. Perhaps in the near future, the game and film companies would follow the examples set by these fan films, leading them to make better quality movies for the theaters while being respectful to both video game fans and the source material. I admit that this may be a naive prediction, but that prediction would be something most gaming fans are willing to look forward to.