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14 games that borrowed their best bits from movies

The digital doppelgangers that copied the cream of the Hollywood crop

Words: on January 13, 2010
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46 comments

  • WonsAuto - January 13, 2010 5:15 p.m.

    You forgot the main influence for GTA Vice City- it was "Scarface: The Game" before "Scarface: The Game".

  • dannage805 - January 13, 2010 4:04 p.m.

    u forgot that CoD:WaW also copied Enemy at the Gate's fontain scene, wer u gotta snipe nazi's while bombs r being dropped

  • dannymc18 - January 13, 2010 12:38 p.m.

    Of course games are going to copy from movies, all parts of the creative industry borrows parts from one another. However, it should only be used to compliment the story of the game, not to just copy the movie scene for scene. Graham Linehan did a great piece on movie influences in games for Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe - search "Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe P3" on YouTube.

  • crumbdunky - January 13, 2010 12:13 p.m.

    I think it's getting to epidemic proportions myself. Games started off doing OK with all their "borrowing" from the flicks and for the odd set piece it can really work as both inspiration and a creative shortcut. However, imo, the recent obsession with the "can games be art" question has led to a lot of film oriented games which lose sight of what they are by chasing the cinematics of the movies they wish to ape so much. As I say,in small set pieces which don't take that much game time it's fine and can look and play amazingly well. however, when a game director gets too into the idea the pacing of a game can go right out of the window and, for me, MW2suffers from it really badly. It leads to ten hour games being paced like a(at the outside)2hr film! When this happens you end up with a storyline that has to keep twisting and turning just to keep up the fast pace between and even during the action. Film's aren't ten hours long and that's why they go at the pace which works for them but in a game that is thaat length it just won't work and revn if it could the result would be so frazzling you'd get mighty tired of the whole sorry incident. If they'd only be more choosy about where they try to copy the movies we'd be better off and would avoid crazy, nonsensical scripts like MW2.Maybe.

  • ranzatsu - January 13, 2010 11:38 a.m.

    So...I guess games don't always have originality. But movies aren't the best source of inspiration!

  • devinejoh - January 13, 2010 11:35 a.m.

    call of duty 1 has a lot of crap from the films, for example, pretty much the whole 101st airborne part is based on Band of Brothers, even the multiplayer map, the american spawn point, is a direct reference to the TV mini series, the chicken coup, and the name Carantan on the side of the building show reference to the series. Also the Beurcourt Mansion, where you have to take out the arty, is almost exactly like the part in the TV series. and the first marine part in COD 4, is a lot like the one from Black Hawk Down. Also World in Conflict, the whole game, is a lot like Red Dawn.

Showing 41-46 of 46 comments

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