Expanding the possibilities
HEXUS.gaming: So DJ, what have you worked on in that past that helps make that possible?
DJ: Like Rosanna, I was involved with the second and third Matrix films, working mainly on the VFX (visual effects). Since then I’ve worked on other projects such as The Fantastic Four and X-Men 3.
HEXUS.gaming: Two more films with game tie-ins…
DJ: Yeah, but the games were better received than a lot of film licensed games, probably because the publishers and developers are starting to realise that it’s worth investing the money in making a decent game as there’s money to be made in producing something worth buying.
HEXUS.gaming: I’ve got ask, have there been any projects Velvetelvis has worked on where you’re thinking that what the film director or producer is asking for just isn’t going to work?
Rosanna: Well, yes, there have been projects where you have to wonder what the game designers were thinking, or what the film director or producer was thinking when he or she set out the framework for the game.
DJ: I agree, I think it’s down to a lack of understanding of the medium a director is influencing. He doesn’t work in that medium so he doesn’t realise what the constraints are. Directors are very visual people whereas games are a mix of interactivity and storytelling, which is different from what a film director is used to. This is how Velvetelvis can help by communicating between the creative people making the film and the creative people making the game.
Rosanna: Sometimes it’s not just about maintaining a look or a feel of a particular film within a game either, we try to bring our own creativity to the mix too, helping to get everyone looking at the product in a new light. For example, we might well see gameplay opportunities that no-one has noticed, perhaps doing something similar to Enter The Matrix and taking a cue from the film to make a whole gaming sequence from what is a few minutes in the film. In that way the game can still be related to the film, the gamer will enjoy it but at the same time they won’t have that foreknowledge of what’s going to happen as they aren’t playing a sequence ripped completely from the film the outcome of which they already know.
HEXUS.gaming: An outcome they already know?
Rosanna: Yes, there are certain gameplay tenets that gamers are used to, which make it obvious what you have to do to progress. What we’re trying to do is expand those as well as keep the gamer on familiar ground. But with a game based on a film, the game can become predictable if you know that you’ve got to do a particular task or follow a set route, something that happens if the game follows the film plot too closely.
HEXUS.gaming: I see. So going back to films and games for a moment, are there any projects you’ve been involved in where you knew from the start that the end result wasn’t going to be as good as it should have been?
Rosanna: Yes, doing what we do, we see a lot of games based on films and you just know that if they’d taken a different approach they could’ve had a much, much better game than the rather stale ‘recreate the film’s action sequences’ route that many games take.
HEXUS.gaming: Any examples?
Rosanna: I don’t think that’d be fair, really. Gamers know a bad film license when they see it…
DJ: No, it wouldn’t be fair to criticize other games as we don’t know the constraints placed on the guys working on the game. That said, there are always lessons to be learnt and thankfully the industry in general, both games developers and publishers and film studios and directors, are starting to see how to better make use of the media available to them.