Games that would make crappy movies

[Scarim Coral]

Any of the Command and Conquer franchise. Sure those cutscenes in the game are meant to be cheezy but on the big screen? No, just no.

 

[Erik Lewis-wireman]

minecraft it just wouldn't work

 

[Kpt._Rob]

As for the OP, Zelda is the first that comes to mind. The plots and the worlds are so huge and sweeping, and more importantly the gameplay enforces the themes of the narrative more than the story elements. The Zelda series puts heavy emphasis on bosses being genuinely intimidating, the environment tells a lot of the story and you bond with the world over time simply by getting to know every NPC under the sun.

Ever since Link to the Past, the player has started to care about every individual person a bit more. And in Ocarina and Majora this was taken even further. You can't translate that kind of thing to film very well.

I think that a really good Zelda movie could be made, as described in my post right below yours. If the filmmakers decided to forgo dialogue entirely, and instead allowed music and facial expression to convey all emotion, the story could maintain it's simpler exterior and its more complex interior. All of this while it still allowed for the gorgeous environments, some really cool boss fight scenes, and of course the excellent Zelda music. In fact, I think your analysis of the scene in which Link cheers up Darunia provides an excellent example of how Link could "talk" in such a movie, occasionally breaking from the soundtrack to allow Link's ocarina music to change the dispositions of the characters around him.

minecraft it just wouldn't work

And yet Youtube is littered with Minecraft movies, hell we even had a pretty good one which lasted as a series here on the Escapist for a while. Again, I think a traditional film approach to creating a Minecraft movie would be a disaster, but if someone just decided to set a feature length comedy in the Minecraft universe it could be absolutely hilarious.

 

[dfphetteplace]

Zelda. Leave it alone. The games are great, but would never work well in a movie format.

 

[eimatshya]

"I think Dead Space could actually make a pretty good horror movie, if it got treated properly (that's the unlikely part)".

They did make a Dead Space movie (two, actually, although I've only seen the first one). It was supposed to set up the backstory for the first game, and I think it was even released before the game as a marketing ploy. It's animated, though, not live action. It's pretty bad but, at least for me, bad in an enjoyable sort of way (but then again, I felt the same way about the live action Mario Bros. movie, so my taste in films is highly suspect).

"I think any game could make a good movie, if it is done right. Unfortunately most of the time Uwe Boll gets the rights..."

I disagree (except about the Uwe Boll thing), I think that games in which player choice plays a role in how the story develops can't be adapted into an effective movie, at least not one that will appeal to fans of the game, because you would have to choose one possible set of choices for the movie. This would mean that fans of the game who had made different decisions (probably everyone at one point or another) would feel like they were watching a different story. I thought about this a lot when I was playing Planescape: Torment. The game has a very engaging story, but the final confrontation with the game's antagonist can play out in a number of very different ways depending on how you have developed your character and what you decide on at the end.

most if not all RPGS. A mass effect movie WITH Shepard would be a bad idea. Unless he's on the outskirts. Like you hear him in passing, or you noticed him at the citadel.

I don't think it would be good to have Shepard in the movie at all. Showing her/him brings up the problem that many fans of the game will have created Shepards that will look different from the one shown (and who will also possibly be a different gender, depending on whether you played as Femshep or Maleshep). Bioware had a similar problem in Star Wars:TOR. There's one dungeon where you meet the protagonists from the Knights of the Old Republic games. In addition to having the gender wrong for one of them (wrong with respect to how they had appeared in my playthroughs of the KotOR games), their behavior was completely different from how my characters had developed in the games (the protagonist from the second game had been given a different name, as well). As such, this was very irritating and completely broke my sense of immersion. The primary reason I play those kinds of games is so that I can shape the stories with my decisions. Stripping away those decisions, or overwriting them with someone else's ideas of how things should play out, kind of kills the charm, which is why I agree that most western RPGs, at least the ones with some sort of choice mechanic (even if it's just character creation choices), shouldn't be made into movies.

 

[Saregon]

Dead Space was a film before it was a game. Well kinda... Event Horizon, if you haven't seen it yet I highly recommend it!

Haven't seen it, but I read that it was part of Dead Space's influence, so I'm going to. Weird part is, with that and Alien's heavy influence on the game, I still don't think it would translate back to a movie very well at all, because, as I mentioned, I believe EA, and whoever they hired to make it, would go for the summer blockbuster style action movie to draw the crowds, and hence the cash, instead of the more niche psychological horror style movie it should be.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I see some people imagine movies and games with the same presentation... no just no, you do not use gameplay elements in the bloody movies (unless you are the retard who made Doom the movie).

Anything with a half decent story has the means to grow into a great film, so basically anything that hinges on gameplay alone would be a pretty bad pick.
But it opens up the option to creating a story in the void the game leaves, so with a good enough film maker anything could go.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I can think of a few off of the top of my head:

Pac-Man
Final Fantasy anything (as in a direct film adaptation of a single game, not counting spin-offs)
Eternal Darkness
Tetris

I don't think Eternal Darkness would work because of how much of a mind-fuck the game is. I think it could be done but it would be like Suckerpunch. Did they just break the fourth wall? What the Hell is going on? Why is the FBI warning on again?! WHY IS IT IN NORWEGIAN!?! WHY IS EVERYTHING UPSIDE DOWN!!!!? WHY ARE THEY JUST STARING AT MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??

A part of me wants to put down Legend of Zelda because of the unrealistic expectations but that same part of me is reminding itself of Watchmen. If we did get the perfect Zelda Movie it would deviate from the games but it would all likely be for the better.

 

[Broady Brio]

Any. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tekken:_The_Motion_Picture] Fighting. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Fighters_%28film%29] Game. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Kombat:_Annihilation] Ever. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOA:_Dead_or_Alive] Made. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter:_The_Legend_of_Chun-Li]

 

[notyouraveragejoe]

Metal Gear Solid, good luck cramming in the whole plot into one movie. Even if they split it into parts, it would most likely have most of it cut out and unexplained.

I'm sure it'd be an amazing set of films. Imagine it: seven films, each film the length of Amadeus. What better way to punish people who use their phones in cinemas? That and a five hour tetris movie. I'd call it: Waiting for the Straight One (or if it hadn't already been use: Attack The Block).

Seriously though: I don't want a Bioshock film since I love the game too much to see what would happen to it. Again if done right it'd be awesome but the risk to great I feel. Same reasons for the Mass Effect series (though I would like to see it if at the start you could choose Paragon or Renegade and see a different film for each. Like if you had to vote in the cinema for the version. It'd be awesome!).

 

[Naeras]

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Simply because horror movies are almost universally bad, and part of the premise is "the protagonist has amnesia", which works a lot better in video games than in movies.

 

[Fappy]

Any. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tekken:_The_Motion_Picture] Fighting. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Fighters_%28film%29] Game. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Kombat:_Annihilation] Ever. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOA:_Dead_or_Alive] Made. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter:_The_Legend_of_Chun-Li]

You have to admit the campy Mortal Kombat movie was pretty fun and at least one of the Street Fighter anime movies was decent (I think it's just the one titled Street Fighter II). BlazBlue would make a good anime... not so much a film however >.>

 

[Brendan Stepladder]

The Legend of Zelda. Link would be assured a speaking part. *Shudders*

 

[Broady Brio]

Any. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tekken:_The_Motion_Picture] Fighting. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Fighters_%28film%29] Game. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Kombat:_Annihilation] Ever. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOA:_Dead_or_Alive] Made. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter:_The_Legend_of_Chun-Li]

You have to admit the campy Mortal Kombat movie was pretty fun and at least one of the Street Fighter anime movies was decent (I think it's just the one titled Street Fighter II). BlazBlue would make a good anime... not so much a film however >.>

I did enjoy the first Mortal Kombat and that animated Street Fighter film you mention.
As for BlazBlue... Never played it, I'm going to assume you are right.

 

[StashAugustine]

Mass Effect is probably gonna be crap as a movie, especially if they make the second one. The main plots are generally pretty weak. It's all about player choice and the 'irrelevant' conversations and sidequests that won't make it into the film version. Mordin, Thane, and Samara have loyalty missions which are easily the best parts of ME2, but they're completely irrelevant to the main story. You could probably fix that by making it a miniseries, but you'd still have to deal with player choice and the fact that Shepard is now going to be a fixed character.
MGS would also make terrible movies. The only reason you can accept the absurd plot is that it's clearly not taking itself terribly seriously, but none of the 4th wall breaks would make it into a movie.

 

[Grivahri]

Tetris
Pacman
Snake
Soul Calibur
Every super mario game
Ninja gaiden
Racing games
Strategy games
Skyrim
Sport games
angry birds
wordfeud
rumble

 

[Alhazred]

The Binding Of Isaac; not because the story wouldn't work (abused son kills his insane mother, not too complex), but because if Isaac's cartoony graphics were translated into live action it would unwatchably, soul-searingly, vomit-inducingly horrific).

Seriously, it would be like A Serbian Film raped The Human Centipede in an alleyway, aborted the resulting fetus, shoved a dozen sharp objects into the body, filled it with gasoline, set it alight and threw it into an orphanage.

 

[cojo965]

Dark Souls, the co-op system, invasion system, and minimalistic story would be a nightmare to translate on a movie screen. Also not helping is a difficulty that revolves around trial and error, resulting in many deaths, which would be hard to portray in a film without having a hatred of main characters not seen outside CoD. Lastly, you just know the slower pace of Dark Souls would be dumped for over choreographed fight scenes resulting in Ornstien and Smough looking far easier to solo than they actually are.

 

[Eddie the head]

WoW. I can't imagine that movie having anything redeemable... just... no.

I've got bad news for you, they are making one. And I am guessing it's going to be horrid.