The lame game movie night was created with a purpose. As a game journalist and film student, I wanted to understand – to really get at the core of why game movies tend to be so terrible. So I’ve been trudging through the catalogue of game to movie adaptations, two at a time, suffering through it all so you, the reader, can watch from a safe distance. This week, the offerings were two completely lame, action-centric flicks from 2007: BloodRayne II: Deliverance and Hitman.BloodRayne II is the sequel to the delightfully terrible BloodRayne, a film so bad; it dominated the razzies in 2006. In truth, it was one of those wonderfully stupid films you love to laugh at, and the sheer weight of talent (Kristanna Lokan, Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Billy Zane, Michelle Rodriguez, all of whom have proven star power) made the film the ultimate “WTF were they thinking!” guilty pleasure.

As bad as most videogames movies tend to be, some of them are still relatively enjoyable. A few even manage to accumulate success in the box office, ensuring a sequel. Historically , this has not boded well for the (already tenuous) merits of the franchises at hand. Both of this week’s flicks had fans scratching their heads wondering what the hell happened after a successful first movie.

Join me as I shake my head angrily at two “could have been a contender” films: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: the Cradle of Life…

It’s time for another lame game movie night, a new tradition here at Cut/Scenes where we take in two lame videogame movies and write about make fun of them. Tonight, we’re taking on the zombies of Resident Evil and Alone in the Dark’s monsters in another videogame-adapted horrorfest.

I chose to begin the evening with Resident Evil; a 2002 flick directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, the man who also brought Mortal Kombat to the world (Along with other shlocky genre fare like Event Horizon and Alien Vs. Predator). I’m starting to think he’s the modern master of this kind of film, since almost everything he’s made is totally enjoyable in a dumb popcorn-y sort of way, and Resident Evil is no exception.

It’s time for yet another edition of lame game movie nights, wherein our intrepid columnist takes in a double feature of videogame films and lives to tell the experience. This time, we’re diving right in to a subgenre of a subgenre – the horror videogame movie. Since the games that these films are based off of are much more terrifying than their film counterparts, we were in for a real “treat” this week when we survived Doom and House of the Dead.

I began the night with Doom (2005) a dumb but competent horror-action flick. The film is loosely based on the famous early FPS, and involves a bunch of burly space Marines (led by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) that are tasked with exploring and protecting the few civilians left on an extraterrestrial archeological dig. Of course, there are monsters running around dark corridors, and plenty of fan-service shots (mimicking the FPS view), so the plot stays true to the franchise.

The Lame Game movie nights continue, as our columnist prepares herself for a whole new world of pain – the martial arts videogame movie. In every Lame Game movie night we watch a double feature of similarly themed game movies that we love or love to hate, in order to gain a deeper appreciation of the genre. This week, we’re all about the fisticuffs, as we endure the one-two punch of Mortal Kombat (1995) and DOA: Dead or Alive (2006).

The evening begins with Mortal Kombat, a cheesy gem from 1995 that features above-average special effects, a killer soundtrack, and some of the better fan service moments moments for a mid-‘90’s movie. The film isn’t half bad, and it certainly doesn’t…

This week, Cut/Scenes is taking a step away from critiquing filmic influence in games and complaining about the nature of poor adaptations. Instead, we’re celebrating some of the campy classics that have given game movies a bad name. We present to you the first in a semi-regular series of lame game movie nights, in which we recap the experiences of one intrepid game columnist as she gets into the Mystery Science Theater mindset with some of the genre’s “classics”. This week, we “enjoy” a double feature of Uwe Boll’s notorious BloodRayne and the Angelina Jolie actionfest Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

Lame game movie night #1: Girl PowerSo there I was on a quiet Thursday evening, ready to begin my first lame game movie night. The festivities began with BloodRayne, a film that notoriously scored 4% fresh…

In previous columns, we’ve deliberated on the nature of storytelling within games and movies, and we’ve complained about the quality of writing in many movies based on games. This week, we’re looking into the other side of the equation – writing a movie-based game, with a little inspiration from a very insightful Gamasutra interview posted last week.

In the interview, screenwriter Dalan Musson (writer for The Golden Compass game) described the process of writing a movie-based game, from dealing with movie studios vs. dealing with game companies (hint – game companies are apparently much easier and nicer to work with) to adapting a screenplay for a game’s world (which is harder than it sounds).

In any story-driven medium, be it novels, narrative videogames, films, etc. you can’t have a very successful project without solid writing. While visual mediums like film and videogames (and from here, we’re speaking of games with central storylines, not Tetris) don’t necessarily rely on the spoken word as heavily, the writing is still an essential piece of the puzzle. With narrative becoming more and more important in gaming, and the industry growing at such an exponential rate, we’re increasingly seeing established screenwriters try their hand at writing games. But can these skills really be translated into such a vastly different medium?At GDC 2008, 2k Boston mastermind Ken Levine gave a talk on storytelling in Bioshock. He revealed quite a few details about how the game’s story and world came together. To summarize very briefly, Levine stated that the narrative was actually written quite late in the development process, meaning that the game’s world and gameplay mechanics were established before the specific story details were written. It would appear that this organic, design-minded approach worked quite well for the format – seeing the title’s massive success and tremendous critical acclaim. He also left the audience with three bullet points essential for good storytelling in videogames: respect your audience, trust mystery, and empower the gamer.

In honor of the recently deceased (though some still have hope) Xbla port of the classic Nintendo 64 shooter, Cut/Scenes is taking a look at one of the greatest movie-to-game adaptations ever made: Goldeneye 007.

In 1995, MGM announced that Pierce Brosnan would be the next actor to fill the shoes of James Bond, the debonair super spy made famous in films that often rode the line between serious action and goofy antics (see: whacked out gadgets, nigh-insane character names). The film put newly minted Bond to work chasing the goldeneye satellite – a weapon with the capability to knock out entire cities, and set him against a new slew of challenges and shady bad guys. It was remarkably successful – critics praised the reinvented post-cold war, post-feminist Bond (and the thrilling action sequences) and it pulled in fantastic numbers at the box office. When the requisite videogame version was announced, barely anyone took notice.

Welcome to Cut/Scenes, a new Gamertell-exclusive series that will explore the interactions between film and videogames. In this first installment of Cut/Scenes, Danielle Riendeau explores the ways in which Steven Spielberg’s film Saving Private Ryan was the genesis of the cinematic World War II shooter.

Check back each Thursday for a new Cut/Scenes column!

Hollywood Influence is everywhere in videogames – games have borrowed the language of cinema (the use of camera angles, for example), filmic storytelling techniques and characters, and even subject matter. However, there are certain individual movies that have left more than just a general footprint on the videogame world – films that have a direct, tangible and well-documented influence on the industry, such as Alien and Blade Runner. One film stands out for birthing an entire subgenre of games that emulate its style, content, and message: 1998 war epic Saving Private Ryan…