Metro 2033\Last Light are licensed games.

[Ambient_Malice]

Why doesn't this fact get more attention? People cite classics such as GoldenEye or the more recent South Park: Stick of Truth, or the Arkham games, or Alien: Isolation, etc as being "licensed games done right."

But the Metro games are videogame adaptations of a reasonably successful Dmitry Glukhovsky novel\series\universe spawned from official fan fiction created for that novel. The games take some liberties with the novel and moreso its sequel, but the core of the story and the characters are mostly still intact. The author claimed he felt his story was better suited to a videogame adaptation than a film adaptation, though apparently MGM owns the rights to make a film adaptation.

The Witcher games also fall into this category. It would seem perhaps novels are treated different when it comes to videogame adaptations?

 

[Baron Tanks]

I think you may be on to something with your novel vs. movie adaptations. They are generally seen differently, although it mostly has something to do with the overall popularity of a franchise before it is recognised as such. Also, movie adaptations that are actually tie-ins with movie releases have a bad name because they usually are simply bad games. It?s no coincidence that your examples are licensed games yet standalone products that usually go through a more typical development cycle. Think of a more diverse product, longer, more polished.

As to your specific examples of the Metro series, I believe another factor is that these, at least where the original are concerned, were received with a mixed response. Some loved it, some hated it, others liked the ideas in the game but argued about execution. I also recall there being some technical difficulties, at least at release. Add to that that those games were released at the peak of the modern military shooter craze and they perhaps got less attention than they deserved. I?d say they nudge more towards cult hit/?classic? than a true ?classic? such as GoldenEye.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Might have something to do with the difference between novel adaptations and movie/TV adaptations. You sort of just expect a movie/TV adaptation to be bad because we have so many of them and most of them are bad. I'm not sure there are enough novel adaptations to really build up much of an expectation. I mean, how many people can name ten literary works with video game adaptations without any effort? Conversely, I'm sure many of us can name dozens of adaptations of movies without any effort.

It also might be due to simple quality. At least from my experience, literary adaptations tend to be done decently, and movie adaptations aren't done well.

 

[Goliath100]

Let's get one thing straight first: Metro: Last Light is NOT an adaptation of Metro 2034, the sequel to Metro 2033 the novel . It's a standalone sequel to Metro 2033 the game, and have nothing to do with Metro 2034 other than both being written by Dmitry Glukhovsky. That said, moving on.

Why do people forget that Metro 2033 is an adaptation? Most likely because the game came first for most people. I have not read the book, but I do play the game. And it may also have something to do with how bad people are to recognize adaptations anyway. Ask anyone if John Carpenter's The Thing, or Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes are remakes (both are adaptations of books), and people will get it wrong.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

I think it has more to do with those books not being especially known among Western audiences.

In fact, there were no official English translations of The Witcher novels before the release of the first game. And the English release of Metro 2033 in the US coincided with that of the game. Safe to say, the games played a pivotal role in Western readership of the books, and even then only with a relatively small niche audience. Many players may not even know the games are adapted from books.

Whereas Batman, South Park, Alien and James Bond are well known. They were already famous, recognizable IPs and part of Western popular culture long before they got their critically acclaimed game(s).

 

[Rayce Archer]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is also based on an Eastern European short story. Although interestingly, the original story is set in Canada. You can read it on English here http://www.coronzon.com/pdf/Roadside_Picnic.pdf

The story also spawned a Tarkovsky film (also called Stalker), from which the games lift much of their imagery such as the room full of sand.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is also based on an Eastern European short story. Although interestingly, the original story is set in Canada. You can read it on English here http://www.coronzon.com/pdf/Roadside_Picnic.pdf

The story also spawned a Tarkovsky film (also called Stalker), from which the games lift much of their imagery such as the room full of sand.

Interestingly, there's a segment in Last Light where your squadmates are looking through books at the Library. One of the books they namedrop is Roadside Picnic.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

The reason why Movies adaptions seem to flop hard is because the games are often made with the sole desire to sell on the name alone.

These adaptions take everything from the films and try to spread an hour and a half film over 5 to 6 hours of game. They copy the style and imagery, the narrative is often a direct rip, the VOs are sometimes the actors or ripped audio from the films but often times its Jerry from the office doing his best impersonation.

The games are often generic as all hell with no creative flair. They follow the films story then stretch it out with whatever gameplay mechanic fits the theme (or not).

So the end result is a standard (if not substandard) game with generic gameplay that can't keep the pacing or to the theme of the film, with phoned in or jarring VO work, all of which inevitably spoils the film if you haven't watched it yet, spread out over 5 hours... and for ?60.

So yeah, fuck that noise.

Books on the other hand are very rarely straight up adapted to games like films are. They allow a greater degree of interpretation on the part of the developers allowing them to be more creative. Doesn't mean they will be good, but it gives the developers greater flexibility.

The licensed games that often work the best are ones made from the ground up for games, only borrowing lore and aesthetics from other source materials to establish its relation to that universe (see Knights of the Old Republic, Tranformers War for/Fall of Cybertron, Alien Isolation etc.).

One should also look at the flip side of movie to game adaptions, that is game to movie adaptions, which are mostly all terrible. Resident Evil (live action or animated), Uwe Bolls Postal and Alone in the Dark, Doom, Max Payne... so on and so forth.