The more things change: movies and games look ever more alike

By Florian Oertel Jun 27, 2010, 21:46 GMT

Munich - The prince is coming? Both to a cinema and a game console near you.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is one of the more recent games to enjoy near simultaneous release as a movie - Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It's just another example of the increasingly thin, complicated and exciting line between the film and video game industries.

Everyone's favourite wizard is expected to follow in the prince's footsteps this autumn when the first part of the final instalment of the Harry Potter films - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - comes to cinemas.

While final preparation for that film is underway, Electronic Arts is working on two games to accompany the movie, designed for every platform from PC to mobile phone.

'Game to film to book' is the motto of this creative chain.

Staying true to that is the game version of Iron Man 2, which has been designed as 'the game to the film to the comic.'

'We're telling an independent story from the film with a separate history,' says Kyle Brink, chief developer for Sega, in New York, shortly before the game's launch.

Similarly, the game Avatar appeared toward the end of 2009 with a story that diverged sharply from the film, notes Kai Schmidt of GamePro, an industry magazine. The blockbuster neither paved the way for the game, nor vice versa.

'The movie production company and the game manufacturers more or less worked simultaneously.'

Of course, not everything can be a high quality hit, no matter how exciting and divergent the approaches might be. Reviews on the website metacritic.com were not kind to Iron Man 2. Collating reviews from around the world, the website only gave the game a score of between 40 and 57 out of 100.

It's not the first time a movie-themed game has bombed. Patrick Schoenfeldt of VDVC, the German video and computer gaming association, remembers a game tied to the German movie Das Schuh des Manitu (The Shoe of Manitou).

Costing 30 euros (37 dollars), it was little more than a rip-off of an existing popular game - a major disappointment for some.

Schmidt has a hard time thinking of movies that have translated well into games. There were the Riddick movies of 2004 and 2009, which had good content and sold well.

It also occasionally works the other way around. Some movies - like Mortal Kombat - have been successfully based off of video games. Although it was 15 years ago, it was an industry highlight. 'That was pretty much a blockbuster,' says Schmidt.

The most fruitful collaboration has been the trend, of late, to release games that feel like movies. 'The Uncharted series felt a little bit like the Indiana Jones films,' says Schmidt.

These stand out because they have charismatic heroes who throw out good quips, but also work their way out of dangerous situations.

'There's also dramatic music like in the adventure films.'