1. The "spirit" of the original must be kept in tact. If the book is written to be experimental, plays with perspective, is linguistically complex, it's accompanying film should do the same to its genre. Plots should change (hence the "adapt" in "adaptation") if the original impetus can remain noticeably in tact.
2.The adapted product should be able to stand on its own, working within the confines of its medium. In other words, you should be able to enjoy each in its own right, without having to engage with its counterpart. Don't make a film too much like a novel or vice versa--let the medium work on its own terms.
Video games are no different. They have also had a cliched checkered past with problems in the adaptation area. Superhero games and IP's established outside of the gaming world have not historically fared well. Recently, Rocksteady upset this balance by releasing it's wildly successful Batman: Arkham series, and, what do you know it, they adhered to the two rules I hold quite dear to adaptation. The Arkham universe is fully Batman, but the developers' changes in character design, art direction, and overall plot made for two utterly engrossing gaming experiences. They can stand alone or be complemented by the comics and stories from which they draw inspiration, and, above all else, the game just plain works. This type of consideration is what I'm hoping for in Beenox's upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man, and from the looks of gameplay footage, they may actually deliver.
In a recent interview with Game Informer, Ken Levine (of Bioshock fame) had this to say about the webhead:
"I’ll always be a Spider-Man guy. I grew up reading comics, and he’s every nerd. He’s how we all view ourselves as outsiders, and he does it with humor and self deprecation. To me, there’s every other superhero, and then there’s Spider-Man."
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Yes. Yes I did. |
It's such a shame, then, that Spidey hasn't been a video game superstar. In the early side-scrolling arcade beat-em-ups Spider-Man made numerous appearances, but as much as Maximum Carnage (1994) is, Spider-Man doesn't seem like Spider Man. It wasn't until I played Neversoft's Spider-Man (2000) that I actually felt like I was controlling Spider-Man, and even then it was only in the levels that had the wall crawler web-jetting his way across the Manhattan skyline. The combat, the writing, and all the other aspects of the game seemed only tangentially important. It was the swinging that hooked me.
The Spider-Man swing reached its zenith in 2004, when Activision's movie tie-in Spider-Man 2 was released. All other Spider-Man games--indeed, all other super hero or licensed games--were eclipsed by the virtual playground that was Spider-Man 2's Manhattan. Sure, I loved the films, but nothing about reading or watching the web head fight crime could compare to the feeling of actually directing the character around his city. Here, the spirit of the franchise I so loved absolutely soared. This is what being the Web Head should feel like. The motion of the gameplay of Spider-Man 2 still holds up to this day.
The game was far from perfect, as the issues that so often plague movie games flare up so generously in this title--wooden acting, an awkwardly expanded story, overall lack of texture polish, etc. But the physics of the web swinging was spot on, and I lost myself for hours on end swinging from one side of the island to the next, solving one mundane repeated crime after another. Much like Batman needs Gotham, Spider-Man needs his city. He needs the slingshot kinesis of web mobility, deftly darting between skyscrapers and free falling from ledges, only to be caught at the last split second by a flick of the wrist. Anything less shortchanges our hero drastically. That is why the last two games that Beenox released felt lacking. Shattered Dimensions and Edge of Time both took Spidey away from the city he needs, and as a result, this player never felt like he was controlling Spider-Man. It was just a guy (or rather multiple guys) with similar powers in weird situations. The games were pantomimes instead of the real deal because they lost the spirit I felt so prevalent in the franchise. (Note: I did not care for Shattered Dimensions, so I never played Edge of Time. If the reviews are to be believed, I dodged a bullet.)
That's what I'm for with The Amazing Spider-Man: the real deal. Based on the gameplay we have seen and the live interview at E3, Beenox promises to deliver a game that, in the words of IGN's Greg Miller, "doesn't suck." I like the zoomed in camera that focuses on the physical movement. I like how the hand-to-hand combat takes a page from the Batman: Arkham series handbook. I like the shiny new graphics. But more than anything I like the movement:
Spider-Man swings like Spider-Man, the one thing unique to the character's power. Other heroes have projectiles, super strength and mobility, and some can even cling to stuff. But only Spider-Man has the web swing through Manhattan. If Beenox delivers that, we may see another franchise that could stand next to the Arkham franchise as another game to break the curse that follows superhero franchise games. Beenox doesn't have the perfect track record, of course, but my interest is piqued. The team at Beenox has a culturally powerful IP on their hands, and, as we've all heard--ad nauseum--with great power comes great responsibility.
Cheers,
--David
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