From The Hollywood Reporter:
In an interview with Risky Biz, Justin Marks, who will adapt “Shadow of the Colossus” into a feature film, said that the genre was relatively young, and that he believed well-selected titles could translate if they were handled wisely.
“I think many of the games haven’t worked as movies because it’s hard to find the right game. There are very few that lend themselves to movies,” Marks said.
But that doesn’t mean that Hollywood shouldn’t try, he added. “If we started thinking that anything that worked in one medium shouldn’t be adapted for another we wouldn’t have a lot of the great movies we’ve had, because so many of them came from novels.”
“Colossus,” which Sony and producer Kevin Misher are developing, is unique because a player spends much of his time basically alone in the game’s universe, and Marks said that as he began to write, he hopes to find himself in a better position as a result.
“With a lot of games there are so many elements in the universe you spend your time tearing down and tearing down,” he said. “What’s nice about this game is that it’s so sparse so you can start building right away.” He added that he understood fan’s concerns that a studio might be tempted to add Hollywood flourishes like a cheesy sidekick but that he would strenuously avoid those cliches.
Marks also said he felt this would make a perfect adaptation because it already contained not just visual elements but many of the things that work on a movie screen. “This is a game that catches you unaware — it catches you on an emotional and experiential level, not just for the puzzles you solve.”
[...]
“With a lot of games you’re caught trying to please the fans and the mainstream audience,” he said. “What’s so nice about this game is that it’s all seen through such an adult lens, so that what pleases the fans also pleases a wider audience.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Shadow of the Colossus is being made over for the big screen:
The colossally popular video game is being developed as a feature by producer Kevin Misher, who has set the project up at Sony; the studio’s sister division Sony Computer Entertainment is behind the video game.
Justin Marks, the go-to young scribe who’s writing “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” for McG at Disney, is attached to pen the script.
Bear in mind, the project – while clearly on a sticky-note somewhere – is still very far from movie form. In the meantime, good luck with dialog, Mr. Marks!
One of my favorite developers is not a sweatshop! Today the studio was honored as one of California’s Best Places to Work, marking the eighth “best workplace” award the company has received in the past 4 years.
Ratchet & Clank(R) and Resistance(TM) Creators win 8th award for best workplace.
BURBANK, Calif., March 10 /PRNewswire/ — Independent console videogames developer Insomniac Games has once again distinguished itself as being among the best studios to work for in the videogames industry and the entertainment business in general. Insomniac, creators of the multi-million selling Spyro the Dragon(R), Ratchet & Clank(R) and Resistance(TM) franchises exclusively for PlayStation(R) consoles, was recognized as the only videogame studio in this year’s Employers Group “California’s Best Places to Work” survey, ranking as the fifth best place to work in California.
The award represents the eighth “best workplace” honor that Insomniac has won since 2005. During that span, Insomniac has been recognized as one of the Top 10 Small Businesses to Work for in America for three-straight years by the Great Places to Work Institute, and won awards as one of the top best companies to work for in the California, Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley areas.
“Last year was an especially historic time for Insomniac in that we launched two successful games in one year while also laying the groundwork for our new North Carolina studio,” said Ted Price, Insomniac Games’ founder and CEO. “It’s therefore especially gratifying to earn such praise for our work culture considering the volume of activity and change we experienced. When we factor in the multitude of innovative companies populating the state this honor becomes even more humbling and special.”
Employers Group is a non-profit association founded in 1896, and recognizes the top companies in California to work for that have developed successful organizations with highly productive and satisfied workforces. The awards process was based on two components: Responses to questions about companies’ work environments, polices, practices, and benefits, as well as a survey of a random sample of employees.
Insomniac’s unique culture focuses on employee collaboration, contribution and recognition. Employees from all departments offer ideas and suggestions, and peer-recognition awards include tickets to concerts and sporting events. As part of Insomniac’s upcoming 15th anniversary celebration, employees and their significant others will be treated to an all-expenses paid cruise to the Bahamas. Insomniac also offers a highly competitive benefits package, royalty programs, and other perks such as a fully-stocked kitchen, catered lunches and massage therapy.
Insomniac, with nearly 200 employees and studios in both Burbank, CA and Raleigh, NC, continues to seek new employees in a variety of production-related positions.
About Insomniac Games – Insomniac Games is a wholly independent console videogames developer that has released award-winning hits for the PlayStation(R) game console, the PlayStation(R)2 computer entertainment system and PLAYSTATION(R)3 (PS3) for 15 years. The company created the first three Spyro the Dragon(R) games, the Ratchet & Clank(R) franchise and the Resistance(TM) series, and the games have combined to sell more than 32 million units worldwide. Insomniac Games is currently developing an unannounced title, exclusively for PS3.
In addition to making blockbuster videogames, Insomniac is known for ranking among the top four “Best Small Companies to Work for in America” in 2005 and 2006 and among the Top 10 for 2007, according to the Great Places to Work Institute and Society for Human Resources Management. More information can be found at http://www.insomniacgames.com/.
With Okami due out on the Wii this year and the PS3’s backwards compatibility going the way of the dodo a review of Okami for the PS2 just seems right. For Zelda lovers looking to capture a Link adventure experience on the Playstation, Okami is like a Ho-Ho: it will leave you happy and sate the craving all without that pesky, full feeling. You play as a godly canine Amaterasu with a tiny bug companion Issun, known as the Wandering Artist. It quickly becomes clear, however, that Amaterasu’s godly brush techniques far outstrip Issun’s capabilities, so mostly the little speck is there for sass factor.
Nippon, like most locales in peril, is being thrust into dark evil badness. The Celestial Brush serves as your weapon, tool, and general magic-making device. From prompting trees to blossom to changing night into day, most gameplay of consequence is tied to the brush. Concerns about the control scheme are unfounded; the ease with which the game teaches and implements the brush techniques is remarkable.
The brush strokes are based on circles and lines, which will reassure those that were feeling a bit daunted by the painterly prospect of elaborate techniques, and pretty much disappoint the rest of us. It makes the fifteen techniques manageable, even easy, but it also means a definite lack of diversity. While holding down R1 you use the left analog to paint leaving the right analog free to pan the camera. Holding down square paints a simple line, or you can use the pressure-sensitive triangle button for a thicker line. Even better, time pauses while you paint which takes the pressure off more self-conscious artists.
The things you can accomplish with the brush are pretty darn satisfying. Nearly every action, whether it’s chopping things down or calling in the winds, results in goodies. What can sometimes feel not-so-satisfying is that the larger changes like creating a bridge or similar pathway only work in certain, very limited, places. This sort of predetermined specificity is a little bit prodding, but at least you don’t feel like you’re missing the boat and leaving areas of the already vast landscape unexplored. After all, for lack of a bridge just make yourself a lily pad and a nice breeze to move it along.
Just as noteworthy as the brush stroke innovation is the game’s unique and captivating style. The art direction is magnificent, and more than anything you will feel like you are moving through a work of art. Amaterasu’s animation is a pleasant surprise. It’s true, video games have a long legacy of creepy animals, and Okami is a gust of fresh doggy breath. Amaterasu has fluid movements and smooth controls. Also gratifying is that the longer you run the faster she goes leaving a veritable cloud of blossoming field in her wake.
Traveling through the game is a treat for the eyes as you progress from village to village with the option of returning to any prior location with relative ease. Side quests, per tradition, reward you with items, money or “praise” which is the game’s system for upgrading Amaterasu’s health and ink. In addition to quests from characters around town, you can find buried treasure, statues in want of offerings or restore cursed areas to bloom. If you are a play-every-inch gamer, you will be satisfied. If, however, you are a straight to the big baddie type rest easy; Okami is a no-grinding-required title.
Like many of Okami’s Japanese predecessors, some missions are a little hazy. Sure, you know what you need to accomplish, but the how of it can get muddied particularly when multiple missions must be in progress for the whole thing to resolve. These little overlaps are frustrating if you happen to miss the tiny link that connects the two. Handily enough, you can spot characters with useful information by the green arrows over their heads. You may still find yourself wandering around a prior village, looking for clues, but at least the view is nice. What places these confused quests in sharp contrast are the ones that get served to you half done. Puzzles are just less puzzling when you are told exactly what to do.
For those that loathe all things randomly generated I have good news: in Okami, random means spirit flags that can be spotted, and subsequently avoided, from quite a distance. Most of these enemies roll over pretty quickly. Once you know the best techniques for defeating them, they won’t take you any time at all. There’s so darn many of them that it’s just too bad they aren’t more interesting; the majority of enemies are so straightforward you won’t find yourself in mortal peril very often. Fortunately, The boss battle are diverse, offer more of a challenge and will really test your techniques. Adding another small strategy component to battle is your ink supply. It regenerates, but it is not infinite, which means you cannot ineffectually slash at an enemy successively without paying the price. You do have some brute force techniques at your disposal, but they pale in comparison to the brush techniques where both power and intrigue are concerned.
I know I will get a fair bit of disgruntled protesting on this point: where Okami suffers is the storyline. Giant goal, little quests, this is all standard adventure fare. The mission doesn’t lack importance, or even satisfaction for completing parts of the quest, it is all just…hard to care about. Saving Nippon seems good and right and all, but there isn’t that same Zelda fire of longing for conquest or exploration. As simple as it sounds, I think a fair bit of this can be attributed to playing as a dog. A compelling story needs characters you can identify with, and while everyone in the game has some fun dialog you will likely tire of it – especially since it’s all mumbly noises with text.
The flaws are few and far between, so it is really unfortunate that a lackluster storyline is among them. If, however, you happen to be keen on the story you will breeze through this title well chuffed. Overall, Okami really is a great game, and it is nothing short of mystifying that so many successful parts just don’t add up to a truly awesome whole.
Score: 8.5/10
A raucous good time, Calling All Cars is an original counter to the library of the Live Arcade. It truly is multi-player buckets of fun, and even with dwindling online participation Calling All Cars it still holds its own as a fantastic party game.
You play as a copper against up to three opponents with the very narrow goal of nabbing the criminal and transporting him to the local jail. All but one of the levels has a handful of ways to achieve this, from a straightforward jail drive-through to transferring him to a paddy wagon to even getting him picked up by helicopter. The jail has multiple entrances as well, and the more difficult the criminal disposal is the more points you get. Certain entrances to the jail may open, close or even freeze over leaving players with only the speedy paddy wagon or helicopter to deposit the goon in before time runs up and he is forcibly removed from your care.
It isn’t likely you will run into the time limit problem very often, though, with three other people desperately trying to nab the fiend right from your car. Ignoring creator David Jaffe’s expletive-laden defenses, multi-player is what the game is about. With online participation not at its heartiest right now, you will want to enlist those real life friends of yours. Don’t fret, it’s more fun anyway.
Your opponents are just as eager to snag the jailbird as you are, and by using tactics most akin to a brutal round of bumper cars they will knock the criminal right out of your car. Then, the vehicle nearest to the target zone beneath the falling convict nabs him, and off you go again. These sort of handoffs can happen mere pixels from the Jail entrance, with some truly maddening collision-based exchanges even occurring as two players collide with-in the Jail entry.
There are also offensive tools at your disposal which you can pick up around the map, but only one at a time. The hammer, magnetic ray or a torpedo enable plays from a relative distance, though the success rate varies. Once you have the criminal you forfeit your weapon and are left only with evasive tactics. It all sounds so simple, but when you add three other players to the mix all racing for the same objective things get tricky fast.
The four available maps are fun, but definitely limiting. While environments aren’t what makes the game, they could certainly make the game better. Well designed and in 1080p Cars is easy on the eyes, however minimalist. The cars look and feel like wind-ups on crack, and that is a compliment. Cartoon styling at its best, gameplay is most like demolition derby with Irish narration.
Tournament mode actually works by forcing you to win each successive round in order to advance. If you love Arcade style progression, you won’t be nearly so troubled by this system as, say, I was. There’s a few car unlockables for you to snag, the downside is you need to play in single-player to get them. The AI is beastly talented, and will handle all the weapons perfectly which will have you screaming “No fair!” lightning quick.
Map limitations aside, Calling All Cars delivers some truly great multi-player. With four levels, a handful of car equip-able weaponry, and ten vehicles to pursue your bounty you are guaranteed many hours of fun. A worthy download, Calling All Cars is an excellent addition to the PSN library.
Score: 8.5/10
If you haven’t given into the music game genre yet and played Guitar Hero, then skip the exercise in franchise milking and go buy Rock Band. If, however, you are a Guitar Hero enthusiast then please, pull out the leather pants and read on. The Guitar Hero fan base is practically insatiable, and I more than love the addition to the party game genre. There really is something magical about a game with plastic peripherals that makes you feel like a rock star.
Like any good rhythm game, Guitar Hero III relies heavily on a good soundtrack, and delivers. After the success of previous Guitar Hero games I can easily imagine that some bands were just a little more willing to license their music, and from Metallica and the Rolling Stones to Aerosmith and the Sex Pistols you won’t be disappointed. Unless of course you wanted original recordings, because as usual, most are covers.
If you were as disheartened by Rocks the ’80’s as I was, take heart, Guitar Hero III introduces some much needed improvements. Among them are cooperative career mode with songs geared toward bass and rhythm parts, and battle mode in which players duel against each other in order to win the crowd over. The co-op career mode is missing from online, though perhaps a worse grievance against co-op is the inability to play the battle songs from career mode with a friend.
The online does include the aforementioned battle mode as well as non-career co-op play, and a face-off mode. Unlike the 360 version in which you can invite a friend, the PS3 version will likely leave you playing mostly strangers. I didn’t really take issue with this, as most of my co-op gameplay happens when friends are over; the single-player mode is plenty consuming. All versions have an online compilation of statistics, tournament management and clans, which is nice but so expected it doesn’t really garner Guitar Hero any favor.
The Les Paul guitar is one of the best improvements to the game, but if you would rather just play with your wired guitars you won’t suffer for it. After all, how many guitar peripherals does the average gamer need? If you do spring for it, be warned, earlier Guitar Hero games are not compatible and apparently we can pretty much forget about using it with Rock Band.
I guess I’m supposed to be impressed that I can play as Slash or Tom Morello. I’m not, and the lack of character creation capability is pretty pronounced. The character models don’t exactly raise the bar, and while mo-cap was done for the licensed avatars there are no next gen worhty improvement, particularly when you consider the crowd or band members. With this in mind, I was downright livid when the screen chugged during star power. Frame rate issues in a rhythm game? That is not rock and roll.
Neversoft’s work on the game is pretty consistent with prior iterations. I know some of my Guitar Hero veteran friends were concerned about the length of time given to hit a note, but rest assured Guitar Hero III will make your fingers bleed. Quick changes are par for the course and you had better master your hammer-ons and pull-offs. If, however, you have no aspirations to the Expert level you can happily strum along on Medium. The more difficult note distribution will make you feel like you rock harder, anyway.
One loathsome addition to the campaign are boss battles. These fights are like the new battle mode, only intensely frustrating, ultimately serving like roadblocks to game progression. Another strange choice was inclusion of some story elements. They are so inconsequential that it is hard to have much of an opinion at all of them, only I wish they had been at least marginally self-aware: One snippet portrays the band being accused of selling out. Having to stomach the sold-out pitch from Activision is a bit much, particularly with an Axe Body Spray guitar in the game.
Guitar Hero III is the first of the franchise developed by Neversoft following the Harmonix departure to better, if not yet bigger, things and while they deliver on music a good soundtrack does not a great game make. Overall, the Guitar Hero presentation just looks tired, and while some may argue that the gameplay still holds strong I think the artificially difficult songs stamp the fun right out. After a couple hours this version just felt like a chore, and one that cannot help but be passed over in favor of a certain Harmonix title.
Score: 7/10
I’m Community Manager and Admin for the N4G Network and write for ZTGD.
CatPlaysGames is a blog in its design infancy and under construction. Pardon my mess.