Game publishers seem to be going on a major nostagia trip these days. They are even digging up Ghostbusters for a new game. I loved the movies but didn't care for the Gameboy Advance Ghostbusters game much. With Doctor Who being one of the longest running sci fi TV series of all time and a huge fan base that rivals other classic TV series like Star Trek and with the revival of the series on the Sci Fi Channel, the time seems to be right for a good Doctor Who game. There were a few games made back in the early 80's that were ok for their time. They are so dated now that they are almost unplayable by modern standards. Then, there are the flash games on BBC's website. Some of them like the dalek game and the K9 game are fun, but they are flash games and are very limited in their graphics and gameplay.
What I'd like to see is a first person adventure/puzzler style game where you play The Doctor and you match wits with all the different villians from the show. With a series that was on the air with new episodes from the early 60's through the early 80's and revived again a few years ago, their are plenty of bad guys, companions and etc. to choose from for including in the game. Of course, you'd have to have the daleks and the cybermen as they are the most popular, but you could also include lesser known villians like Dr. Cheng and the Captian from Pirate Planet.
Really clever game designers and programmers could come up with the ultimate non-linear game by making it so you can get in the TARDIS and go to any planet in the Doctor Who universe you wanted to and at any time period you wanted (they could narrow it down to certain decades or eras to make the game a bit less massive of course). On top of that, things you did, choices you made etc. in one time period would have effects on the future you then went to on the same planet. If you mess things up in one time period, you'd have to go back in time to fix them to prevent things from getting worse in the future. There could be quests and plot points of course, but you'd be free to do what you wanted. Sort of like Oblivion but on a galactic and timeline scale. If you got killed, you'd regenerate just like the Doctor in the show, but the penalty would be that you'd lose whatever abilites you'd leveled up in your previous incarnation and kind of have to start over in the character development department. You'd also seem different to the npcs around you and you'd have to convince them that you are still the Doctor just like in the show.
Gameplay would be a bit like a detective game (since that's kind of what the Doctor Who show is: a sort of precursor to X-Files where you come into a situation and try to figure out whats going on and how to fix some problem. Oh, and yes, get spooked by some weird monster) and focused on character interaction with multiple choices for what to say in conversations. If they were really clever, they'd try perfecting the "type your own response and see what happens" bit that Douglas Adams tried in the game Starship Titanic with mixed success. It would also have puzzle solving but they would be logical puzzles that fit into the setting and story like the ones in games like Halflife not some random rubix cube like thing that some games throw in for no real good reason.
Of course, you'd also have your trusty sonic screwdriver and other gadgets to help you out. They could be stored in the TARDIS and/or you could have to make them by finding the right parts, crystals etc. It'd also be neat to have K-9 along to help you out. The Doctor rarely resorts to violence in the show, so it wouldn't be a shooter. You could however, have companions like K-9 or Harry along to help protect you with weapons when your wits and tricks don't pan out. There could also be consequences for the violence though where killing one guy in one part of the game makes some other characters in another part of the game your enemies instead of them being helpful for example. It could be a strictly single player game or they could figure out how to make it multiplayer maybe with having it so several players can play as Time Lords since there were several of them in the classic series.
With all the games based on movies and TV shows these days, it seems like Doctor Who is an obvious choice.
What I'd like to see is a first person adventure/puzzler style game where you play The Doctor and you match wits with all the different villians from the show. With a series that was on the air with new episodes from the early 60's through the early 80's and revived again a few years ago, their are plenty of bad guys, companions and etc. to choose from for including in the game. Of course, you'd have to have the daleks and the cybermen as they are the most popular, but you could also include lesser known villians like Dr. Cheng and the Captian from Pirate Planet.
Really clever game designers and programmers could come up with the ultimate non-linear game by making it so you can get in the TARDIS and go to any planet in the Doctor Who universe you wanted to and at any time period you wanted (they could narrow it down to certain decades or eras to make the game a bit less massive of course). On top of that, things you did, choices you made etc. in one time period would have effects on the future you then went to on the same planet. If you mess things up in one time period, you'd have to go back in time to fix them to prevent things from getting worse in the future. There could be quests and plot points of course, but you'd be free to do what you wanted. Sort of like Oblivion but on a galactic and timeline scale. If you got killed, you'd regenerate just like the Doctor in the show, but the penalty would be that you'd lose whatever abilites you'd leveled up in your previous incarnation and kind of have to start over in the character development department. You'd also seem different to the npcs around you and you'd have to convince them that you are still the Doctor just like in the show.
Gameplay would be a bit like a detective game (since that's kind of what the Doctor Who show is: a sort of precursor to X-Files where you come into a situation and try to figure out whats going on and how to fix some problem. Oh, and yes, get spooked by some weird monster) and focused on character interaction with multiple choices for what to say in conversations. If they were really clever, they'd try perfecting the "type your own response and see what happens" bit that Douglas Adams tried in the game Starship Titanic with mixed success. It would also have puzzle solving but they would be logical puzzles that fit into the setting and story like the ones in games like Halflife not some random rubix cube like thing that some games throw in for no real good reason.
Of course, you'd also have your trusty sonic screwdriver and other gadgets to help you out. They could be stored in the TARDIS and/or you could have to make them by finding the right parts, crystals etc. It'd also be neat to have K-9 along to help you out. The Doctor rarely resorts to violence in the show, so it wouldn't be a shooter. You could however, have companions like K-9 or Harry along to help protect you with weapons when your wits and tricks don't pan out. There could also be consequences for the violence though where killing one guy in one part of the game makes some other characters in another part of the game your enemies instead of them being helpful for example. It could be a strictly single player game or they could figure out how to make it multiplayer maybe with having it so several players can play as Time Lords since there were several of them in the classic series.
With all the games based on movies and TV shows these days, it seems like Doctor Who is an obvious choice.
