Book to Game adaptation? (Altered Carbon)

[Treblaine]

I can't think of any.

Movies and even TV shows do it often enough, why not games?

And no, games from a film that was based on books obviously do not count. So no Lord of The Rings games, unless they clearly take no inspiration from the films by Peter Jackson.

Maybe American McGee's Alice...
If you can't think of any do you have any suggestions? I have one:

I'm thinking something like LA Noire style gameplay, just set yourself loose on the far future San Francisco solving a suicide/murder that nobody even thought happened. It has enough action and interaction to keep a player engaged and if they expanded out the events to be a bit more comprehensive.

Though I think a certain chapter might not make the cut.

Anyone who's read the book knows the chapter I am talking about...

 

[kyogen]

The Witcher 1 and 2 are sequels of a sort to a series of novels and short stories by Andrzej Sapkowski.

 

[Treblaine]

The only one that springs to mind is Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

It's not based on a book per se, more a general setting within the mythos drawing heavily from The Shadow Over Innsmouth and to a lesser extent The Call of Cthulhu and At the Mountains of Madness.

Damn, I bought that Call of Cthullu on Steam but I still haven't installed it.

I saw a lets-play and liked it enough to pick it up on sale... at the same time as like a dozen other things so I am still playing through Portal 2, Painkiller, Serious Sam, Deus Ex, Bioshock 2 (finished recently though), Mirror's edge... Oy, I need to prioritise. 6 Games on the go, not to mention another half dozen multiplayer games I keep returning to.

So what is it like? I read a bit of HP Lovecraft how is it faithful to the tone if not the plot?

 

[Jim Grim]

I think the very first LOTR game (fellowship) came out before the movies actually, though I can't be sure. It definately wasn't based on the movie in any case, although you can see certain landscapes and such are based on the same artists impressions as the ones in the movie. I wouldn't call it totally faithful to the book, but it does a pretty nice job.

 

[Treblaine]

I think the very first LOTR game (fellowship) came out before the movies actually, though I can't be sure. It definately wasn't based on the movie in any case, although you can see certain landscapes and such are based on the same artists impressions as the ones in the movie. I wouldn't call it totally faithful to the book, but it does a pretty nice job.

Do You mean this:


Interesting, that game came out in September 2002 when Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring premièred on dec-10th 2001.

It seems to take a LOT of imagery unique to Jackson's film adaptation.

Interestingly just one month later the Two Towers console action game was released.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Two_Towers_(video_game)

So, this is a definite oddity though I don't think it came directly from the novel, it was clearly influenced to a large extent by the film.

 

[Condiments]

Dude, if someone made a great game out of this...that would be AMAZING. Its easily one of the better sci-fi books I've read.

 

[Treblaine]

Dude, if someone made a great game out of this...that would be AMAZING. Its easily one of the better sci-fi books I've read.

It certainly would. I think gaming has actually reached that point as well, especially after games like LA Noire that was such a great proof of concept if rather held back by Noir archetypes.

Except for that I have no idea how they would adapt that particular chapter. You know the one. I think even that would struggle to pass the ESRB, unless it was so vague it was meaningless.

 

[Thaius]

Metro 2033 was a book adaptation. And a rather good one at that. But yeah, that's one of very few.

I think Frank Peretti's Piercing the Darkness would be fantastic as a video game. It would mean our culture would have to stop hissing at anything remotely Christian, since it very much follows a biblical theology, but angels battling demons as they do in that book would be fantastic.

I'd also like to see a Sword of Truth game series. As long as it adapts the novels better than the show did.

 

[Tallim]

Metro 2033
Witcher
Dante's Inferno
Neuromancer (if you are old like me and remember it)

Shadow Complex (surprise!) Actually Shadow Complex is based on a novel based on a *then* in progress game :/


Probably loads of older games in fact.
HHGTTG - Text adventure.
The Hobbit - Text Adventure


Wouldn't mind a game based on Snow Crash. The novel that gave the gaming world the term Avatar :/

 

[DEAD34345]

There was a game based on the Discworld novels. This one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_(video_game)

Bahahahahaaa, I win this thread!

OT: Games are a very unique form of media, and things don't generally translate well from books or movies to video-games. This leads to the majority of games being their own unique stories. Of the (relatively) few games that are based on other media, I think most of them are movies simply because more people watch movies than read books, so movies tend to be far more popular than books, and there is more incentive to make games from them.

 

[Richardplex]

Metro 2033
Witcher
Dante's Inferno
Neuromancer (if you are old like me and remember it)

Shadow Complex (surprise!) Actually Shadow Complex is based on a novel based on a *then* in progress game :/


Probably loads of older games in fact.
HHGTTG - Text adventure.
The Hobbit - Text Adventure


Wouldn't mind a game based on Snow Crash. The novel that gave the gaming world the term Avatar :/

Dante's Inferno wasn't an adaptation, that was a butchering.

OT: what others have said, Witcher.

 

[Treblaine]

Metro 2033
Witcher
Dante's Inferno
Neuromancer (if you are old like me and remember it)

Shadow Complex (surprise!) Actually Shadow Complex is based on a novel based on a *then* in progress game :/


Probably loads of older games in fact.
HHGTTG - Text adventure.
The Hobbit - Text Adventure


Wouldn't mind a game based on Snow Crash. The novel that gave the gaming world the term Avatar :/

Dante's Inferno wasn't the most faithful adaptations of The Divine Comedy though was it.

I believe it was actually cited as an example in the Supreme Court ruling for why video games should not be art (and so get protection of the 1st amendment). But I suppose technically it isn't based on anything else - except desperately trying to be as much like God or War as possible.

Not to knock Snow Crash but I think the use of the term Avatar (in the modern rather than religious context) pre-dates 1992, the earliest I know of is the classic RPG; Ultima of the year 1980.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ultima_characters#cite_note-6

I think I might read Snow Crash, it seems like the book you might find in the offices of the Futurama writers.

 

[Tallim]

Metro 2033
Witcher
Dante's Inferno
Neuromancer (if you are old like me and remember it)

Shadow Complex (surprise!) Actually Shadow Complex is based on a novel based on a *then* in progress game :/


Probably loads of older games in fact.
HHGTTG - Text adventure.
The Hobbit - Text Adventure


Wouldn't mind a game based on Snow Crash. The novel that gave the gaming world the term Avatar :/

Dante's Inferno wasn't the most faithful adaptations of The Divine Comedy though was it.

I believe it was actually cited as an example in the Supreme Court ruling for why video games should not be art (and so get protection of the 1st amendment). But I suppose technically it isn't based on anything else - except desperately trying to be as much like God or War as possible.

Not to knock Snow Crash but I think the use of the term Avatar (in the modern rather than religious context) pre-dates 1992, the earliest I know of is the classic RPG; Ultima of the year 1980.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ultima_characters#cite_note-6

I think I might read Snow Crash, it seems like the book you might find in the offices of the Futurama writers.

Yeah I did tart up the accolade somewhat. I should have probably said "popularised" but meh no harm

If you are going to read Snow Crash also think about reading The Diamond Age by the same author.

 

[Dalek Caan]

I must have said this a thousand times but Orcs by Stan Nicholas. It could be a Open World adventure game with Orcs as the main characters.

 

[ComicsAreWeird]

A Kotor-like RPG inspired by A Song of Ice and Fire, where intrigue and deception are as useful as good combat skills.

An action/adventure The Stand game, where you try to rebuild society, fight loonies who try to side with Flagg and, uh...survive the plague?

 

[Treblaine]

What luck, escapist has an article like this:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112347-Gamigo-Developing-MMO-Based-on-Tad-Williams-Otherland

See I was worried games were somehow limited compared to film unable to adapt books without a film doing it first and leeching off their work.

But it seems there is ample evidence video gaming is doing it for herself.

 

[Phlakes]

I'm still hoping for a Dune action adventure game. Something like Mass Effect, with knife duels and worm riding and decent politics.

 

[Hides His Eyes]

That LotR game that came out in 2002 obviously came out to cash in on the film, but it was based directly on the book, not on the film. The same happened with The Bourne Identity.