Games based on The Lord of the Rings have been immensely popular over the past decade, with a new game being released nearly every year since 2002. A return to Middle Earth next year with Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit will generate more interest in Tolkien’s world, so it makes sense for Warner Bros. to develop a Hobbit game.

From The L.A. Times (via The One Ring):

Warner will launch a new Lord of the Rings game in November and a Hobbit title in 2012 before Peter Jackson’s movie “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” comes out that December. The game is one of the studio’s top releases for next year…

There has been speculation recently that the game may follow Harry Potter and Batman by going the LEGO route, but nothing seems to be confirmed yet.

The Hobbit follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen), Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakensheild (Richard Armitage). Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers.

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Despite the box office success of Avatar the sales of Avatar: The Game weren’t that impressive. It wasn’t a flop, selling over 2.7 million copies, but it didn’t meet expectations, which some blame on Ubisoft’s decision to release it 2 weeks ahead of the movie (before the hype).

With Avatar 2 and 3 set for 2014 and 2015 Ubisoft will have another chance to make an Avatar game, and director James Cameron thinks the universe is “perfect” for an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online Game).

From IGN:

I think Avatar is a perfect IP for an MMO. It’s a very, very big world and based on the first film, you might not sense that, but we’re talking about an entire planet, an entire alter world, and in fact a universe that has other planetary bodies, as well, and other cultures, other life forms. Eventually people will see enough scope to be able to see how the MMO will work, but that’s going to have to be launched…the timing of that is going to have to be carefully orchestrated with the release of the second and third film because we don’t want to be giving away elements before the fact. And also I think one of the cool things about an MMORPG is that you have to have a lot more possibilities for characters than what you see in the film. The film is really just a leaping off point, so we’ve got to create a rich and diverse world that lives well beyond the films.

While no plans are currently in place to develop an Avatar MMO, it’s an interesting prospect. If it does happen we probably won’t be seeing it for another 3-4 years so, like the movies, we’ll just have to wait patiently.

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Back in February a trailer for the video game Dead Island hit the net and told the story of a family at a tropical resort who are besieged by zombies. The trailer was praised for being “well-edited and emotionally engaging”, something rare in video games (especially when zombies are involved).

Game publisher Deep Silver resisted selling movie rights following the teaser hype, saying they were “looking for quality above all else” and they “want to do it the right way as film realizations of games (or vice versa) usually fail to deliver what the fans were looking for.” However following the critical and financial success of the game, which was released earlier this month, Lionsgate has purchased the movie rights.

Here’s a section from the press release:

The game centers on vacationers whose island paradise becomes a living hell when a zombie outbreak quickly spreads. Cut off from the rest of the world, the survivors have only the available materials and the island’s natural “weapons” to protect themselves from the viscous and growing legions of the undead. In addition to the award-winning trailer and video game, the Dead Island intellectual property will be simultaneously developed by Deep Silver into forthcoming graphic novels, novels and other extensions.

Like the trailer that will serve as its primary creative inspiration, the film DEAD ISLAND will be an innovation of the zombie genre because of its focus on human emotion, family ties and non-linear storytelling. Said Drake of the property’s acquisition, “Like the hundreds of journalists and millions of fans who were so passionate and vocal about the Dead Island trailer, we too were awestruck.” He continued, “This is exactly the type of property we’re looking to adapt at Lionsgate – it’s sophisticated, edgy, and a true elevation of a genre that we know and love. It also has built in brand recognition around the world, and franchise potential.”

Sean Daniel, producer of The Mummy franchise, The Scorpion King, and The Wolfman is producing along with Stefan Sonnenfeld who has worked in the post production field on movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean, X-Men: The Last Stand and The Hurt Locker. The movie is still in the early stages of development so it won’t be hitting screens for a few years.

Here’s the trailer which is responsible for the hype and (now) movie:

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Former Marvel Studios chairman David Maisel, who is executive producer of Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger, has been brought on-board to help develop the mobile game Angry Birds into a feature length film.

Maisel is currently in talks with screenwriters and directors regarding the project and Rovio, the company behind the game, hopes to follow in the steps of Pixar.

From Variety:

“There has been so much chatter about an ‘Angry Birds’ movie, but it’s now real,” Maisel told Variety. “The process is starting now.”

Maisel saw the opportunity in growing “Angry Birds” given the worldwide popularity of the game across a wide demographic.

“People are interacting with these characters six inches from them each time they play, and that creates an emotional connection,” Maisel said. “This is not an American thing. It’s not even a Finnish thing. It’s a global thing that’s something I’ve never seen before. It will be exciting to expand (this intellectual property) within Hollywood.”

Angry Birds has been downloaded more than 250 million times since its launch late in 2009, so promoting and marketing the film won’t be a problem given the built-in popularity and the fact Rovio can communicate with the fanbase directly on their phones. Business-wise it makes a lot of sense, but whether they follow Pixar’s method of making good films remains to be seen. They can still make money even if they churn out something like Garfield or The Chipmunks.

In the game players use a slingshot to help a flock of animated birds destroy a group of evil pigs who stole their eggs. A basic good birds vs. bad pigs premise is there, but getting a decent screenwriter could help develop the story into something more film-worthy.

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Warner Bros. have yet to release a trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (although one should be coming soon), so this trailer for the video game will have to do for now.

The trailer begins with a look back at the Part 1 video game, and then flashes in cut scenes from Part 2 which mainly features the destruction surrounding The Battle of Hogwarts. It’s hard to tell how closely it will reflect the actual movie, but some shots such as the one above look familiar.

The Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 video game will be available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo DS and PC on July 12th, just before the movie is released.

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Earlier this week the first trailer was released for Dead Island, a zombie video game which has been in development for a number of years. The trailer was a hit and quickly went viral, creating buzz and generating speculation that a movie was in the works.

In the trailer (which is embedded below) we see a young girl laying on the ground, who is then transported via rewind mode to into the air and through a hotel window where she proceeds to take a chunk out of a guys neck. Throughout the rest of the trailer and rewinding scenes we get flashbacks from a few moments before, and discover that the girl was actually being chased by zombies. Despite attempts by her mother and father to save her she becomes zombiefied and turns on her father (the neck guy), before being thrown out of the hotel window.

It’s a very cool trailer for a zombie game and has been praised for being “well-edited and emotionally engaging”, but the reality is none of what we see in the trailer will be in the game itself. Dead Island, which allows players to play four characters who wake up on a resort island during a zombie outbreak, could quite possibly end up just like other zombie games where you mindlessly shoot, hack and slash incoming zombies. Despite this the buzz has earned it a lot of attention, and wherever there’s buzz, there’s a movie studio.

Variety claims that The Wolfman producer Sean Daniel has brought the rights to the movie and “has started searching for a writer and is currently in discussions with studios and film financiers.” Deadline also reports that “studios and agencies are all over them, suggesting talent packages and story lines to try and make a screen deal. That will likely happen in the next week or so. The film will follow a Memento-like storyline, even though the video game does not.”

However, game publisher Deep Silver today issued a press release stating that no movie rights have been sold…yet.

From IGN:

“Deep Silver has received a massive amount of interest in the film adaptation rights to the Dead Island IP. Contrary to rumors that have been circulating, neither the film rights nor any other licenses have yet been sold by Deep Silver, which is the sole IP holder of the Dead Island brand.

‘We are looking for quality above all else for a movie based on Dead Island. We want to do it the right way as film realizations of games (or vice versa) usually fail to deliver what the fans were looking for. We will not go down this route with Dead Island. Deep Silver profoundly believes in the quality and value of its Dead Island IP,’ says Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of Deep Silver’s parent company Koch Media. ‘We would therefore be honored to work with someone who already has a proven track record with blockbuster movies.’”

Props to Deep Silver for acknowledging that game-to-movie adaptations usually suck. They could have easily just sold the rights to the highest bidder during the mayhem.

I’m sure whoever thought of the idea for the trailer will be getting a raise, and knowing Hollywood he’ll probably end up directing.

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A bit late due to having to play a backlog of games that came out in the holiday period – here it finally is! The best games of 2010. My personal picks, anyway.

2010 was a year of “refined” sequels that did very little to change their respective series’ formulae, God of War rip-offs, and a few stand-out indie titles. While it wasn’t a fantastic year for games, luckily there were still a number of enjoyable releases, and a handful of really good ones.

I must add a disclaimer here before certain readers cry foul: I do not own a Nintendo Wii. This means as absolutely desperate as I am to play Epic Mickey, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, and especially Super Mario Galaxy 2, and as sure as I am that some of those games would be in my top 10 of the year…I can’t play them, and thus they won’t be included in this list. Games from all other consoles however, are fair game.

10. Alan Wake (Xbox 360)

Alan Wake was one of my most anticipated game releases, ever since a few screenshots and a short teaser were released, quite a few years ago now. Touted as having been inspired by the works of Stephen King, there was little to get in my way of being desperate for this game. There was a long period of time after this initial reveal where the developer went silent about the project though, and some significant changes were made. Chief amongst these was the changing of the game’s original open-world gameplay into a strictly episodic, mostly linear affair complete with “Previously on Alan Wake…” and a song to finish off each episode.

I really wish Alan Wake had been open-world. Exploring the very much Twin Peaks-like town of Bright Falls (set in Washington) and its surrounding area would have been absolutely wonderful.

That said, even with its restrictive nature and an absolutely horrific case of the uncanny valley (in fact, I can’t even picture any character’s face actually moving), Alan Wake delivers a strong, atmospheric gaming experience which is well worth playing. The story is very much Twin Peaks (which I only started watching recently; it’s absolutely brilliant) and Stephen King put into a blender, with an extra sprinkling of fantasy, and it all takes place in a beautifully rendered environment. Daytime sequences in and around the forest look absolutely stunning. Little touches like radio and TV shows you can listen to / watch while on your way somewhere work well to immerse yourself in the setting.

The gameplay adds some interesting new features to the third-person shooter genre, having to use light (in the form of flashlights, flares, flash grenades, etc.) to reduce the darkness surrounding your enemies before you can blast them away. It makes it more fun, and fighting “the Taken” can get pretty tense, considering they only come out at night.

There was something about Alan Wake that just didn’t click like I hoped it would, and I can’t quite put my finger on it, but had the game not been as disjointed as it is through the mimicry of a TV show format, had it been a bit more “free,” it could have been absolutely fantastic. Still, dealing with what Alan Wake is, rather than what it could or should have been, a really fun time was to be had with the game. This time around there was a lot more to the running and gunning, and a much better story to tell.

Or maybe I just have a thing for rural Washington.

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We recently saw a new game trailer for Batman: Arkham City, the sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum which sold over 2 million copies in it’s first week and it earned a spot in the Guinness World Records for the “Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game”.

For those who were intrigued by the trailer, Warner Bros has announced that the game and will be coming to PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360 in fall 2011.

The story for Arkham City takes place one year after the events of Arkham Asylum. Quincy Sharp, former warden of Arkham Asylum, has taken credit for stopping the Joker, and used that notoriety to become mayor of Gotham City. As neither Arkham nor Blackgate Prison are in any condition to hold inmates, Sharp buys out a large section of Gotham’s slums and arms the perimeter with private military contractors from a group called Tyger in order to create “Arkham City”.

The prisoners are brought into Arkham City and are given free rein, as long as they do not attempt escape. To oversee the city, Sharp uses psychiatrist Hugo Strange who appears to have his own secret agenda for the city. Hugo secretly knows that Batman is really Bruce Wayne and attacks him with guards in Arkham City. Batman maintains a vigil over the city, worried that the situation may get out of hand.

The events of the game are set in motion when Two-Face, seeking to gain status among the inmates and other villains outside the city, devises a plan to publicly execute Catwoman. Batman decides for both the safety of Gotham and of his past relationship with Catwoman that he must stop the execution by entering Arkham City himself.

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While Marvel has yet to release a trailer for Captain America: The First Avenger SEGA has released the first trailer for the movie’s game tie-in Captain America: Super Soldier.

As a game it looks like your typical third-person ‘fighting bad guys’ affair, but games based on movies are rarely any good. The trailer could give us a glimpse at a few scenarios and settings from the movie, but we won’t know until Marvel releases some footage.

Captain America: Super Soldier is expected on Xbox 360, PS3 and other platforms around the time Captain America: The First Avenger is released next July.

Next up, Activision and Marvel today announced that they are teaming up to create a brand new X-Men game called X-Men: Destiny. No platforms have been announced, and there are no specifics on the genre of the game, but X-Men: Legacy comic writer Mike Carey will write the storyline which “casts players as new mutant recruits in a rich, branching storyline that features a deep element of choice and gives players ultimate control of their destiny”.

You can watch the teaser trailer below:

Attendees of New York Comic-Con, which is going on now through October 10, can get a sneak peek of the game in Activision’s booth, and the game will be released in late 2011. As 20th Century Fox aren’t involved it probably won’t be linked to next June’s X-Men: First Class.

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While on the rounds promoting the release of Inception in Italy (the films final major international territory) director Christoper Nolan revealed that a videogame based on the world was a possibility, but it won’t be happening for a few years yet.

From Variety:

“We are looking at doing is developing a videogame based on the world of the film, which has all kinds of ideas that you can’t fit into a feature film,” Nolan said at a packed Rome press conference. “That’s something we’ve been talking about and are looking at doing long term, in a couple of years.”

I can see how a game based on Inception would work (there are multiple levels for a start). There’s world building, missions, shoot-outs. The only problem is that there are very few games based on movies that are actually any good, so hopefully they take their time with this so that it is a cool addition to the Inception world. We won’t be getting a sequel, so a great video game should give Inceptionists something to look forward too.

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