Will James Bond return to games?

GameCentral readers name the movies, TV shows, and comics they’d most like to see turned into a game, from It to Doctor Who.

The subject for this week’s Hot Topic was suggested by reader Carnie and inspired by the slow, but noticeable, resurgence of big budget licensed games in recent years. What video game would you most want to see based on something that already exists and who would you want to make it?

We had plenty of suggestions, for properties both new and old, with James Bond and Game Of Thrones being particularly popular – as well as the obvious, to gamers at least, potential for more Star Wars and superhero games.

 



Licence to Kill

The license I am most yearning for a great game for again is James Bond. GoldenEye 007 was before I was a gamer and so I never experienced it. So the pinnacle of Bond games for me is Everything Or Nothing on PlayStation 2, a great third person shooter with some wonderful set pieces and lavish production values that I am surprised never gets brought up as being the best Bond game after GoldenEye.

My dream would be for Rocksteady to make the game, but I doubt that will happen. I just want a developer with a proven track record to be given the reigns and an original story to make Bond games great again. Cars, shooting, fisticuffs and upgrade-able gadgets, it’s all perfect fodder for a video game!
Angry_Kurt (Twitter)
Now playing: Yakuza Zero (PS4) and Iconclasts (PS Vita)

 



Giant-sized potential

This has been said a number of times before but Ant-Man is easily the most interesting superhero to turn into a game. Both of his films are extremely bland but being able to grow and shrink is a great superpower and not something we’ve ever seen in games before – or which would probably have been technically possible until relatively reasonably.

They won’t do it because Ant-Man is such a lame sounding name and they’re the lowest-grossing films but if not then games companies need to figure out some now licensed way to make the same ideas work.

The potential for puzzles and interesting action are immense and it actually sounds like something a Zelda game could use as its main gimmick. Come to think of it one of the few times I’ve seen size-changing in a game was the Tiny-Huge Island in Super Mario 64 and that was really good. Which only goes to show the missed potential.
Keith

 



Novel idea

I remember when there were rumours that Telltale were going to make a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game, back before they were just buying up big name licences without any idea of what to do with them. Considering how well The Witcher has done I’m not sure why novels are used as inspiration for games more often, especially as I imagine they’re a lot cheaper than movie licences.

Anyway, I’d love to see Hitchhikers’ get the big budget treatment, or even an indie game really. Since Douglas Adams was a keen gamer there is actually a game already, that he wrote! It’s great but it’s a text adventures, so… not the most modern concept around. Even just a remake using graphics would be great but I guess the series isn’t exactly the hot ticket at the moment.

It was briefly referenced at the beginning of Lego Dimensions though, and I can only imagine if that had been a much bigger hit whether we might have got a bit more. They did have the Red Dwarf licence from the BBC after all, and it may have come as a job lot.
Chunk

 

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Reopening the door

I’d like to see a portable game based on The Trap Door, recreating the animated plasticine visuals of the classic ’80s cartoon.

Playing as Berk, it would be your job to keep ‘Im Upstairs fed with creatures you’ve captured from the eponymous hole in the floor. But of course, it’s a fool who dares open the trap door, as crazy monsters can emerge and make some right scenes.

Berk would have to carefully balance his defence of the castle and collecting of creepy-crawlies with disappearing upstairs to answer those calls of ‘Feed me!’, lest his impatient employer suspect that all is not under control after all.

Berk’s skull friend Boni would be used as a projectile weapon for special moves, much to his dry bemusement, while mischievous pet Drutt would more often than not be the cause of escalating mayhem.

If the game took off then we might even see the series back on CITV, at which point we could confidently transfer our efforts to The Raggy Dolls and Count Duckula.
Dynamite Headdy (@2Tweet2BeSour)

 



A life of cameos

Predator is one of many classic movies I can think of that have had multiple games but they’ve always been absolutely terrible. Jungles are difficult to do on old computers, but there was a game called Concrete Jungle in around the early 2000s that seemed to have the right idea and played to the limitations of the time. Only it controlled like a drunk shopping trolley and was completely awful.

Seeing as they can do jungles properly now I’d go back to the original film for inspiration and do a kind of loose adaption, only probably with more than one predator. You could make it a squad-based shooter in single-player mode and multiplayer co-op if you want to play it with friends.

There’s an idea like this in Ghost Recon Wildlands but I’ve sold the game now so I don’t know if it was permeant or just a one-off nothing. The Predator was also in one of the Call Of Duties. I guess a life of cameos is probably all he’s good for now, especially after the new film flopped, but realistically speaking that’s still better than most I guess.
Zoidberg

 

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Source material

I know we’ve only had a new one a while back but my dream licence would be a Lord of the Rings game that was based on the books and not the movies, or whatever was supposed to be going on with Shadow Of War.

There have been attempts before but I still think the best ones were the two Amiga games, one a strategy game and one a (very) old school computer role-player. Neither were particularly good but you got the idea of what they could be with a bigger budget and better tech.

My dream Lord of the Rings game would be a combination of the two, allowing you to make decision, both strategic and in terms of dialogue, that could possible change the plot – there’s no point just being a linear game that just repeats the story you already.

Some combat would be fine, perhaps in the style of a much easier Dark Souls but it really isn’t important and I think that’s where a lot of the previous games have gone wrong.
Zigzag

 

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