Video games have come a long way. While still constantly defending themselves from claims that they are the cause of the problems of today’s youth, they have established themselves as not only a form of basic entertainment but as art. From archaic, 8-bit games with soundtracks of bleeps and bloops, they have evolved into cinematic masterpieces with soundtracks comparable to most film. It only made sense that video games would start to integrate themselves into their main competition for audiences: the film industry.
For anyone who loves gaming, nothing should sound sweeter than hearing that your favorite game is going to be made into a full length cinematic feature. On the contrary, this concept is now something that fills the average gamer with groans of “Oh please don’t ruin it”. To date, there has never been a film based on a video game that has truly done it justice. They may have come close but the films almost always seem to lose something in translation. Prime example : The Resident Evil movies. I am fairly certain that I am not the only gamer who wanted the mansion the way it was in the game, wanting to see a member of STARS walk around the corner to see the first zombie bite someone’s neck off, wanting to hear “I hope this isn’t Chris’ blood”, but no… What we got was techno music, an underground office building with a hive and any excuse to see Milla Jovovich wearing a strategically placed shower curtain. 
We wanted to be scared – we wanted Resident Evil. Other offenders such as the films versions of BloodRayne, Mario Bros, Mortal Kombat and Dead or Alive just added insult to injury. I would however like to say that the Silent Hill movie is probably the best video game-to-film translation to date despite the fact that it should’ve been the father looking for his daughter, not the mother.
On the other side of the coin, we have the film to video game translation. Ironically, they seem to suffer the same plague as the video game to movie translations. While a few may be decent, the majority are mediocre and plagued with bad camera angles and other major glitches. It has reached the point where most movie based video games are released even before the film, perhaps to allowing the player a better chance of enjoying it since they are unaware of how bad of a translation it is. The ultimate example being E.T the Extra-Terrestrial the Game. While attempting to cash in on the fame of one of the most popular movies at that time (and all time), they created a game so bad that it was not only viewed as one of the biggest commercial failures in video game history, it also spelled the beginning of the end for Atari.
So why does this happen? Why do two forms of entertainment that can only benefit from each other’s full out co-operation create such below standard homages to each other? Despite the fact that both film and games contain interesting stories, relatable characters and gripping music, sadly it seems that neither industry has total respect for the other. So much the same and yet still contented to churn out mediocrity for any easily marketable product that has half the promotional work done already.
So what can the average gamer do about all of this? As long as we show either industry that we are willing to see or play anything just because of a film or game license, these games and movies will continue to be made. So do your research on your video game movies; watch for bad directors who are poison to anything they touch ( you know who you are!), bad actors, and involvement of the game studio. Tough it out the extra day and wait for the review before going to the theatre. The same can be said for movie video games. If it doesn’t look up to snuff and the reviews are bad, rent it if you have to before you buy it. Whether you’re more into movies or video games, we all deserve better quality than what we’ve been getting and until we demand it, it’ll just be the same sad story.
