We are about to see many more video game movies. The kind of superhero, which turned out to be the most powerful weapon in Hollywood by tearing children from their iPads and YouTube for more than a decade, decreases. Meanwhile, the industry continues its fight to adapt to the age of streaming at a pandemic time when people really participate only in multiplex for event films. But with “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” becoming one of the most profitable films of all time and “a Minecraft film” also crushing it at the box office, it seems that video games are the new superheroes (the largest bomb of 2024, “Borderlands”, despite).
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“Five Nights at Freddy’s”, the films “Sonic”, and even “Fallout” and “The Last of Us” on the television side of things. This is the new era in which we find ourselves, where video game IP becomes the new font of all Hollywood ideas. But it is really the opposite of how things have worked since video games have become one thing. Before this booming golden age of adaptations of video films, studios and filmmakers would provide IP, which game developers would then do their best to translate into a decent license product.
Such a system has produced really excellent games, but has also resulted in some of the worst license products ever made. Example: the game “and the alien”. One of the first adaptations of license video games, this error based on the classic of Steven Spielberg has lived in infamy since its beginnings in 1982. Of course, Atari had to bear the weight of the blame for its failure. Meanwhile, Spielberg can at least remain easy knowing that it was not only responsible for kicking up the entire adaptation system for licensed video games, but that the first game based on one of his films was actually quite good.
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Raiders of the Lost Ark was the first official license film game
In the early 1980s, video games had already become a large company, having prospered in the 1970s both in terms of arcade games and home consoles. In 1978, the arcade game “Space Invaders” launched a vague popularity for the pastime, with games such as “Asteroids”, “Commandment of missiles”, “Galaga” and “Pac-Man” which are released quickly. Meanwhile, Atari and Magnavox have been successful with their Atari video system (alias the Atari 2600) and the Magnavox Odyssey 2 respectively, who both introduced cartridge games in the houses in the world – especially after making its debut in 1980.
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Throughout this period, however, video game developers have not yet turned to films for inspiration. “Superman” by Atari was released in 1979 following Warner Communications, which owned Atari, seeing the success of the classic of the same name Richard Don (a film that gave us the modern blockbuster). However, it was not an adaptation of video games under the official license in the film and was essentially a reworked version of the video game “Adventure”, which would end up making its debut in 1980. Before that, in 1976, the Exidy developer had produced a video game “Death Race” that certain points of sale were inspired by the 1975 film of 1975 “. However, the staff of Exidy would have denied that Anyway, it was not an officially authorized game.
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“Raiders of the Lost Ark” of Atari, holds Guinness’s official world record for being the first game based on an official film license. He was released for Atari 2600 in 1982, almost at the same time, Fox unveiled an “Alien” game designed to link the masterpiece of science fiction of Ridley Scott. But Spielberg and his classic action adventure beat them with a game that resists fairly well.
Raiders of the lost ark was a solid game
Unlike the “Alien” game, which was essentially a “reskin” Pac-Man “, Raiders of the Lost Ark” for Atari 2600 were developed from zero. Released in November 1982, more than a year after the film of the same name made its debut, “Raiders” was designed by Howard Scott Warshaw, the developer responsible for the infamous false fake who was the game “and” (which was published a month after “Raiders”). But his game Indiana Jones was actually quite good and was, in fact, the reason why Spielberg specifically asked for Warshaw work on adaptation “and”. Warshaw once told the director to show the director his last construction of “raiders”, declaring:
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“He looks at me and he says:” It’s like a film. I feel like I’m watching a movie, “I thought:” Oh my God! Steven Spielberg thinks that my adventure game is like a film! “For me, it was the ultimate compliment I could receive on this work.”
Like the film, the game “Raiders” implies Indy Tracking the Ark of the Alliance. The players control the intrepid archaeologist using two different controllers, one to move the character and use elements and one to select and deposit elements. Unlike the film, however, the game takes place entirely in the city of Cairo in 1936, where Indy found its way in a temple before crossing one of the two perilous paths and finding itself in the Treasure Salle. The rest of the game involves players who embark on an adventure through the Mesas, a sieve, a black market, and finally determine the ark. All of this led to a decent critical response, criticisms praising the problem solving elements (even if the 8 -bit Indy theme was not a perfect recreation of the original composition of John Williams). For Warshaw, it is surely pale compared to the Spielberg approval seal, even if the filmmaker was less nice when he played “and”
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Now, almost half a century later, the directors are those who play their films for video game developers. Soon, we will have a film “Legend of Zelda” by director Wes Ball, more films “Sonic” and another season of the stellar adaptation of video games that is “Fallout”. As burgundy as they were back in the early 1980s, I am sure that neither Spielberg nor Warshaw saw any of these sales.
