Monday 18 May 2009

Hill/Spencer movie Beat'em Up game idea

Since I don't want my website to be only about my YT account, I wont even tell you what videos I have or have not uploaded this time. Piss off.

You all know, or should know, that I am a big fan of the video game called The Warriors, and also of the original movie. Whenever someone asks about my favourite movie or my favourite game, the first thing I say is "The Warriors".
When the Warriors game was released, me and the other fans were in Heaven. We discussed the game and how well it managed to capture the essence of the film while still adding mostly new stuff, how it's a great homage to old beat em ups like Streets of Rage and Double Dragon, and how it's the best 3D beat em up in the history of gaming. Seriously, even if we put all fanboyism aside and get technical, no other game has given us more down-to-earth, honest-to-the-core and serious beat em up gameplay since the old 2D sidescrollers.
Naturally most fans agree, there should be another game just for the controls alone, and suggestions for more movie-games have been thrown around. While some say they should make a Warriors 2 where the Warriors would take over New York or where we would even play as some other gang AGAINST the Warriors (and I've heard loads of weird fanmade storylines that make absolutely no sense), some suggest other gang brawl movies, like the Wanderers for example.
While I don't believe sequels ruin originals like many other people I've talked to seem to think (sequels only create a series that is then ruinable), I gree with the people who think we should move away from The Warriors and leave both the movie and the game to be the lone features they are now, and naturally I've also come up with my OWN suggestion for the next 3D brawler game based on a movie. Or several movies, in fact.

You probably didn't know, but I am also a big fan of the old Terence Hill and Bud Spencer movies, and I do, in this case, mean the ones where they both appear in (although films like Super Snooper were great, too).
Now now, I do know many people think they're garbage since the plots are sort of weak and mostly weren't too different from each other. Usually they had Terence Hill's character running into Bud Spencer's (often they were cousins or brothers, even), and Hill's character always tricked Spencer's character into situations where the outcome was favourable for Hill's character and most often not so much for Spencer's. Generally the films were cheesy and light, and that's the way I like them. They're easy to watch, they're real feel-good movies you could see any day with your whole family and just... enjoy. Spencer and Hill are so different but work so well together as a team and the comedy is just great.
But, plots and jokes aren't why I'm talking about all this. One defining characteristic of all the Hill/Spencer movies, at least the comedies (God Forgives... , Ace High and Boot Hill were true spaghetti westerns and not comedies), that I've never seen anyone, not even the haters of their films, disliking about the movies were the brawls. They were awesome and oftentimes just outright funny. Hill had quick moves, dodged and tricked the bad guys into punching each other and often used items around him to his aid. Spencer used his sheer size and brute force, nothing seemed to take him down, he often fought several smaller guys at once and one of his trademark moves was just to slam his fist down on a guy's head to knock him out.

And this is what I'm talking about here, this is where my two thoughts meet:
Terence Hill/Bud Spencer movies as a 3D beat em up game similar to the Warriors!
If you look at the Warriors, you'll see that SEVERAL of the moves you can do in the game are actually done in the movie. If you made a Hill/Spencer game and stayed as true to the original work as Rockstar Toronto did with the Warriors movie, you could have an AWESOME 2-player co-op beat em up where one guy as quicker but weaker Hill and the other as slower but far stronger Spencer would take down entire gangs in the weirdest locations. The Warriors might be the best game for 2p co-op ever created and was just as great when your teammates were AI controlled since it seemed to be pretty smart, unlike in so many other games. Hill-Spencer movie-game would give another chance for an experience like that.
Now I don't know how the story of the game should be done, would it be a series of fights throughout all their movies without a solid connection (like Mickey Mania for a quick example), or a completely new story with possibly some movie fights as a bonus feature or something, but... I honestly think the idea of uniting the underrated genre of beat em up that is so often screwed by lazy developers and the underrated series of Spencer/Hill films that people dismiss for the lack of rich plot is something the gaming community shouldn't just pass up on and forget about without a second thought.

There, that's what's been running around in my head for several years now and I'm glad I got it out of my system. I promise you, if this game isn't made soon, I will learn to code games and make it myself, at least a crappy 2d version if I don't happen to find a spare brain where to store more data.

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