Great Video Games That Should Never Become Movies

In May 2016, we learned that Hollywood has plans to produce movies based on two of Atari's 1980s arcade games: Centipede and Missile Command. It will be interesting to see how the filmmakers can possibly make coherent movies out of two nearly plotless relics of the Cold War era. This led us to wonder — what other games should Hollywood never make into movies? The easy answer is "none of them," given the poor track record of game-to-movie adaptations. Nevertheless, here are eleven games that Hollywood should definitely not bring to a cinema near you.

An attempt by Universal and director Gore Verbinksi (Pirates of the Caribbean, The Ring) to make a movie adaptation of the original BioShock game died a few years ago. Mr. Verbinski's talents aside, the project's death is probably a good thing. BioShock and its sequel, BioShock: Infinite, deal with complex themes about society that would likely be diluted or eliminated from a movie meant to appeal to a mainstream audience. Both games would also be difficult to adapt, because fans are already familiar with the stories' twists. Sure, the films' producers could make some alterations to the stories, but any changes would alienate fans. It's a lose-lose scenario.

Nintendo reportedly wants to begin making movies based upon its iconic video game franchises. This news comes after the Big N's long hiatus from the film world following 1993's childhood-ruining Super Mario Bros: The Movie. Nintendo's Metroid series would seem a likely candidate for a movie, given its slam-dunk science-fiction setting: bounty hunter Samus Aran fights hostile aliens — including the eponymous Metroids — in a number of exotic, interstellar environments. For a long time, that was all the story you needed to enjoy a Metroid game, though more recent entries — like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Metroid: Other M — have since expanded the games' universe and fleshed out Samus's character. Most fans would agree, however, that — much like Fallout — the Metroid series is at its best when the player feels a sense of isolation. Mainstream movies require dialogue between characters and, usually, a focused plot that Metroid cannot easily provide. In other words, a movie adaptation of Metroid is completely ill-advised.

We doubt that Hollywood will ever be able to encapsulate everything that fans love about Grand Theft Auto and its sequels, including its wanton violence and social commentary, into a movie. First, we doubt producers are willing to make a movie violent enough to placate fans. Second, like Mass Effect, the GTA games heavily revolve around player choice. Branching storylines aside, the player has a choice as to whether they want to blow up that innocent bystander with an RPG, or simply splatter them with their car. Besides, we already have two GTA movies: Crank and Crack 2: High Voltage.

Although Half-Life and Half-Life 2 both have stories, developer Valve purposely told them in an unfocused way. The full scope of what is going on is never entirely clear to the player. Who exactly is the G-Man? More importantly, where did the get that spiffy briefcase? The games also thrive on a sense of isolation that, as stated with Fallout and Metroid, will not work in a movie outside of the art house theater. Aside from all this, Jeff Goldbum — our first choice as Gordon Freeman — has aged out of the role.

A movie in which a duo of macho dudes gun down aliens would probably make a fun Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, but not a flick that anyone would be proud to admit that they watched in the theater. We challenge anyone to tell us the story of Contra without looking it up on Wikipedia. Then again, a lack of story doesn't seem to stop Hollywood from making a movie based on a property. Right, Battleship? If some producer-turned-masochist ever does make a Contra movie, then maybe you'll get back the $30 you spent on the ticket, popcorn, and soda if you enter the Konami code on the movie theater's Twitter account.