Contributors: Charlie Barratt and Brett Elston
Videogames, television and movies frequently overlap. With so much cross pollination, you'd think the biggest and best film franchises would have respectable game adaptations by now, but that's just not the case, is it? Sure there are a handful of successful tie-ins, but many series flop around for years, seeing game after terrible game created with little or no regard for the source material. Well, we're sick of it.
Gathered here are seven franchises that deserve kick-ass videogames, yet have never, not once, seen one that truly captured the essence of what made the property great. It's usually due to developers focusing on the wrong aspects - imagine playing D-Day in Medal of Honor only you're controlling the drop ships instead of the scared-shitless soldier. Or a Cloverfield game that has you effortlessly tearing up New York instead of desperately defending it. Wrong ideas, all around. Read on for seven correct, truly dead-on depictions of franchises previously thought lost.
This is an absolute perfect match. Trek is known, almost to a fault, for having more chatty chatty than action. Mass Effect is the same, forcing players to talk to goddamn everybody before the painstakingly crafted plot will inch forward. Mass Effect's talk-'em-up gameplay and Trek's heady philosophy would blend into a sci-fi cocktail so alluring that any self-respecting gamer would have to beam over and investigate.
Both have humans participating in a universal community that simultaneously respects and fears the encroaching forces of mankind. The aliens share an uneasy alliance that hides the bitter resentment each race holds for the other, though at times it seems like they all would prefer if humans just disappeared. This comparison clip shows how the galaxy views humanity in both series. First is a clip fromNext Generationwhere the omnipotent Q makes his opinion of humanity well known, followed by a Turian in Mass Effect making a similar statement.
Mass Effect can also claim clear parallels among its alien cultures - Krogans are Klingons, the Alliance is the Federation, the Reapers are more or less Borg and the Volus are basically stout Ferengi in space suits. There are even similarities between the Rachni and the Borg-beatingSpecies 8472. All this without mentioning that both feature teams of people scouring planets for resources, relics and clues to a greater galactic understanding. Oh, how noble.
BioWare already knocked one out of the park with Mass Effect's predecessor, Knights of the Old Republic. Thing is, Star Trek makes a lot more sense for this formula than the comparatively trigger-happy Star Wars. So please, before Trek suffers any moreembarassingfailuresthat focus on ship-to-ship combat instead of character-driven plotlines, BioWare should put its scribes to work crafting a game that acknowledges the franchise's strengths.
