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Notable games inspired:
Doom, Halo, StarCraft, Mass Effect
Above: Space marines hate everything
While Alien is about the pace and mood, Aliens is about eviscerating everything that isn’t human with bullets. Killin’ bullets. Widely regarded as an inspiration for just about every game with a Space Marine, Aliens’ influence is felt pretty much throughout gamedom.
StarCraft’s Zerg are almost a dead-ringer for the H.R. Giger-inspired twisted fusion of flesh and sexuality. The ultra-violent Doom thrusts you in the shoes of a bloodthirsty space marine and has you essentially hunt alien beasts, much like the film. Halo’s concept is essentially Space Marine vs bad aliens. And Mass Effect’s APC closely resembles the one carrying Ripley, Bishop and cuddly star-on-the-rise Paul Reiser in the film.
Notable games inspired:
Resident Evil series, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty: World at War
Above: Zombies! Boogety boogety!
At first zombie flicks were considered trashy shlock and ranked pretty low in the zeitgeist of B-movie monsters before they were largely considered a metaphor for impending death, overconsumption, consumerism and much more. In videogames, zombies sit next to Nazis as a villain everyone can agree to be plentiful, evil and must be destroyed at all costs.
Above: The original Resident Evil with the “classic” zombie
Night of the Living Dead is the originator of the “classic” zombie; the slowly advancing, decaying flesh eaters that we’ve seen in popular culture for the last 40 years. The early Resident Evil games latched onto this terror with the “survival horror” concept or you vs. almost unbeatable odds. Low ammo, scarce health items, enclosed spaces, and ghoulish monsters lumbering for your flesh have characterized many a zombie game. Hell, Night’s sequel Dawn of the Dead is pretty much ripped off in Dead Rising (but in concept only).
Above: Left 4 Dead sez: “Holy shit!”
The new wave of running zombies brought more intensity, which is seen in 28 Days Later (not technically zombies) and the Dawn of the Dead remake. You can feel their influence in the new Resident Evils (again not technically zombies) and Left 4 Dead. And no matter the game, even if zoms are just glorified bullet fodder, it’s always satisfying to kill one in the bloodiest way possible.
Notable games inspired:
BioShock, Half-Life 2
Above: We couldn’t find a good picture from Nineteen Eighty-Four, so here’s a screen from Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. You’re welcome
George Orwell’s unsettling novel about the role of an oppressive government and its use of surveillance encroaching on individual rights is one of those rare works that is always relevant. And because that’s the case, the novel can always be pilfered for its abundance of themes, be it nationalistic tendencies, sexual repression or even the role of censorship in society.
Above: Stay out of the Combine’s way in Half-Life 2
What is most common in videogames is this role of an oppressive government and in the case of Half-Life 2, a Big Brother-like entity that is built as society's infallible leader. In HL2, Dr. Breen adorns multiple monitors and television sets in the train stations, checkpoints and apartment buildings. His presence is felt as the Combine soldiers force you to mind your own business.
Above: BioShock’s “perfect” society
BioShock’s themes take from Ayn Rand as well as Orwell about the idea of anti-utopian society, but aren’t necessarily connected. Where Orwell depicts a strong, domineering society controlling its citizens through oppression, Bioshock is more about a world collapsing on itself through ideological conflicts. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that Bioshock’s Atlas/Fontaine’s uprising is heavily inspired by 1984’s Winston’s rejection of Big Brother… at least until the ending (spoiler!).
