Inspiration strikes in the most unusual of places. The idea for today’s article came to me while watching Avatar on TV over the last week. I was watching the show and thinking “this would make an awesome video game” and so it got me thinking about other TV shows I’d seen and how I would like to see those adapted to video games. Many of these games may never get made, but it’s interesting to imagine what these games would be like.
Since the article started because I was watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on TV let’s start with that one. Now I know it’s been made into a game before, multiple times in fact, and it’s a great way to get achievement points on the Xbox 360. The problem with those games was that they were fairly generic action games that didn’t serve the source material that well. I was watching through Seasons 2 and 3 of the show this past week thinking that it would make a great fighting game. There are a large variety of fighting styles and a huge cast of characters, both benders and non-benders that would make for a great roster. You’ve got obvious choices like Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko and Azula. There are a large number of other characters that would work as well; The Kyoshi Warriors, the Dai Li, any of the past Avatars, Iroh, Sozen, Ozai, The Boulder. Each of the different fighting styles is unique enough from the others that the different benders would feel very different and there were many different moves shown by characters that only they perform that you could make them unique from each other.
Imagine fighting around areas like the Southern Water tribe’s village or Ba Sing Se and Omashu. The Air Temples would make for very distinctive fighting arenas and Season 3 provides countless locations inside the Fire Nation that could serve as backdrops. It just seems like that would have been a natural choice for a game based on a show about different martial arts styles, but perhaps the show’s creators didn’t want to create a game solely based around fighting.
Robin Hood is another character that’s had games made about him, but I want to see one based off of the 2006 BBC series starring Jonas Armstrong. This is one of those shows that I just started watching by chance one day, I think it might have been a free episode on iTunes, and I was hooked. It’s one of those properties that people remember fondly because everyone has grown up with some form, or another, of Robin Hood that they really liked. You could do this property in any number of ways. If you wanted to stay true to the show then it needs to be made as an action game. Robin’s band of followers was very diverse in their fighting styles and so you could take that opportunity to really create situations where you have to use each of their strengths in order to survive. You could also do it as a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest style RPG. Using the political machinations of the Sheriff and Robin against each other would create some very interesting situations and that’s where you take cues from companies like BioWare who really know how to craft story and dialogue to make things interesting. The BBC has shown that they’re interested in bringing gaming into the mix as a form of their storytelling with their run of Dr. Who adventure games so you know they’re open to it. The problem is I don’t think they’d want to do something like that with an older property so you have to hope they bring the series back with Archer if this game was to ever get made.
Ghost Hunters is an interesting show. If you’ve never seen it a group of people go around to different locations around the world looking for evidence of paranormal activity. The show might be completely made up and fictional, I don’t know. I don’t particularly believe in ghosts and things like that. There are unexplained things out there, but we’re not here to talk about that. It’s an entertaining show, none the less. This would be a great simulation style game. You first go around to different locations using the various equipment that you have at your disposal; things like cameras, digital recorders, heat sensing devices and such. After you’ve gone around to different places collecting evidence you would then have to go over those pieces to determine if you think they are paranormal or not. You gather the best pieces of material you have and present it to the “customer” and tell them whether you think that location is haunted or not. Perhaps you theme the game around a show like Ghost Hunters Academy where you have to perform well in order to be promoted to the main teams. That would give you a goal to achieve and help make it feel more like a video game.
Those are my ideas for TV shows I’d like to see made into games. Most of them are older shows that are no longer on TV, but they would still make interesting games. What TV shows out there would you like to see made into games? Maybe they’ve been done before, but you think the games felt wrong. Now’s your opportunity to tell us how you would make a game based on that property. Leave us a comment and let us know.
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