Games Going Movies, and Movies Going Games. The Best of the Best Cross Platforms

And no, I did not write “Max Payne vs. Aliens,” although the thought of that gets me excited as well. Here’s my take on the two adaptations:

The long-awaited Max Payne movie now has a trailer.

Max Payne tells the story of a lone cop out for revenge. Going deep undercover, becoming part of the world which has stolen everything from him, he searches for his targets guns-blazing through the winter nights. The film takes the game in a direction that favors its dark atmosphere, with surrealist elements of fantasy and Noir filling the air. The gunfights look promising as well, visceral pot marks breaking through the walls like a jackhammer orchestra.

I highly look forward to it, a smile laying cross my face.

The film ALIENS, also known as the GREATEST SCI FI FILM OF ALL TIME, at least in my completely non-valid opinion, is finally getting a decent video game that doesn’t include it’s cousin franchise, AVP. This new one is based solely on events from the second movie, with a story extrapolated in an epilogue fashion by writers from the hit TV series, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

Here’s what Randy Pitchford said in an interview with Shacknews:

One thing that’s cool is some of the people we’ve been able to work with to help us [on Aliens]. The guys that write the Battlestar Galactica series, Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, they wrote our script. They’re amazing guys. They gave us a lot, too. We could make a whole season of TV with the stuff they gave us. [laughs] We profited from the writer’s strike, let’s just put it that way. We talked with a lot of people, but those guys are so good.

And then a lot of the concept guys that helped make the movies. Like [Aliens concept artist] Syd Mead, that guy walks on water. And to be able to go to his studio, his house, and then have him draw a bunch of stuff. “Here’s when I designed the Sulaco back when we made the first movie. Here’s the original artwork. You want a copy, Brian?” And Brian’s like, “Yes.”

And now he’s designing all the new stuff, because the Sulaco’s a big ship and we only saw a bit of it, so you get the guy who designed it to design the rest of it. And he’s awesome, he designed so much stuff. And then like [concept artists] Keith Thompson, Craig Mullins.. anybody who knows these names knows what we’re talking about. This is no joke.

It’s a big team. And we’re also working with people from all over the world. We’ve been working with a lot of amazing talent at other studios. I don’t know how much of that will be used in PR, but there’s a lot of people who care about this franchise. The opportunity to build a dropship, or build a pulse rifle, or build a smart gun, that’s a pretty cool opportunity–a lot of artists would want to do that. So we have our core Gearbox team, but we’re also finding a lot of folks around the industry now, guys who are on top of their game.

This is by far the best video game news I’ve had in a while. You foos can all keep your Gears of Whatever and your How-Low (Can you Go To Market this Cliche Garbage) games. I’ll take the real thing ANY DAY. It’s about time an amazing team like Gearbox brought their tools to the table to make a truly epic and frightening game. The writing staff will, and I’m sure of this, give hardcore fans a great interpretation of James Cameron’s material. Even if I don’t own a 360, you’ll be sure to find me renting this baby and hijacking my friend’s console upon its release date.

Special thanks to Neutralx2 for the heads up on these movie-related articles.